Arts, Culture Patternmakers Arts, Culture Patternmakers

A Time for True Leadership to Shine

Earlier this week I spent two days at ADAPT: Queensland’s Performing Arts Conference, at the invitation of arTour and Stage Queensland, to share insights about audience trends since the onset of the pandemic.

Earlier this week I spent two days at ADAPT: Queensland’s Performing Arts Conference. It was great to be in a room full of performing arts colleagues after so long.

I was there at the invitation of arTour and Stage Queensland to share insights about audience trends since the onset of the pandemic.

It was also a chance for me to connect with colleagues: artists and producers readying new works for touring and presenters planning artistic programs to bring audiences back to arts centres and festivals.

What struck me the most, as I listened to other speakers share their learnings, was that the pandemic has forced us to become more responsive, more innovative and collaborative—and that these attributes could actually be the keys to tackling some of our sector's long-standing challenges.

The session that made this most clear was 'Lessons from 2020,' a discussion among leaders from our country’s three largest arts centres. The speakers were unanimous in observing a need to focus on people and relationships. They suggested that collaboration across departments and externally with the independent sector might enable us to not just recover the old ways, but build a more vibrant, equitable and sustainable culture sector in future.

Sydney Opera House

Fiona Winning at Sydney Opera House reflected on the heightened communication and innovation in response to the uncertainty and anxiety brought about by the pandemic.

Already poised to invest in their role as a digital broadcaster pre-pandemic (and with the excellent Stuart Buchanan newly appointed to the role of Head of Digital), SOH ultimately streamed 50 events and performances during the pandemic period. Fiona shared that what they learned over COVID equalled what they expected to learn and achieve over two years of their digital strategy.

Interestingly, construction in concert hall continued—since the building industry wasn’t as affected as the arts. SOH also fundraised $1.5m for a commissioning programme to invest in artists—money they wouldn’t have had if it were not for COVID.

Arts Centre Melbourne

We also heard from Melanie Smith at Arts Centre Melbourne, where the city's population was enduring another lockdown following an outbreak of the virus. She remembered back to when they first decided to close ACM on 16 March 2020. Their team was faced with cancelling 500 events—and ultimately lost $50 million in revenue (a quarter of a year’s trading) —but moving through the experience they had come together to support each other: 'There’s a lot more trust between us, we grew as a team.’

She said she has learned to focus on really looking after people and acknowledge that everyone is having a different experience.

QPAC

John Kotzas at QPAC said it has been the most challenging time of his career. He reflected that the only precedent they had to work with was an extreme weather event, which unlike the pandemic had a clear beginning and an end.

He shared that apart from having to reschedule events and communicate with audiences, there was confusion with promoters, ultimately creating extreme pressure on the team. At QPAC they went from having a board meeting every 2 months to having one every 2 days, working more closely than ever before.

He also spoke about some financial learnings. Working towards a business case for a fifth venue in QLD pre-pandemic, QPAC had reduced reliance on their base grant to 15%, relying on earning 85%—a model which proved to put the organisation under stress during Covid. Previously thinking $10m+ in reserves would put the organisation in a great place, he realised that those funds could be spent in 3 months with no other income. The organisation is now exploring new business models for digital work.

Leadership lessons

Stephen Foster from Cairns Performing Arts Centre said it was a time where true leadership would really shine—and I would suggest that this time is far from over. As we tackle the task of rebuilding, there are positive signs, with many presenters reporting strong sales (albeit with reduced capacities and fewer events). However, data from the Audience Outlook Monitor suggests that it's still early days in the recovery process, and we will need to work hard to not just bring back all segments of our past audience, but look to further grow and expand access so that more Australians have the opportunity to participate in arts and culture.

In opening the conference Minister Leeanne Enoch spoke about moving out of ‘survival’ mode and into ‘sustainability,’ and I think her words were spot on. She said she’s observed greater collaboration in the sector—and that if we work together, giving and telling stories, culture has the power to heal everything. She said ‘through the arts we see ways to deal with what’s going on around us’; it is fundamental to our recovery and helps focus on adaptation and agility.

Thank you to the organisers of Adapt QLD. It has helped many of us start to process the events of the past year and look at how we can tackle the challenges ahead through more collaboration, braver innovation and greater responsiveness than ever before.

 
 
* indicates required
Subscribe to

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Tandi is Founder and Managing Director of Patternmakers. She’s an arts research specialist and leader of the agency’s research projects.

 

Past posts on this blog

Read More
Announcements, Arts, Culture Patternmakers Announcements, Arts, Culture Patternmakers

Tracking audience sentiment in 2021: a brave new era in arts & culture

As the culture sector stares down a challenging year, we are pleased we can announce a further three phases of the Audience Outlook Monitor in Australia. We're keen to track how vaccination affects demand for live events and dig more into the factors influencing donations and spending on tickets. It's going to be a big year!

As the culture sector stares down a challenging year (as one colleague said, likely the second worst year ever!), we're pleased to announce an extension of the Audience Outlook Monitor in Australia. Three more phases of data collection are planned in 2021 to help shine a light on audiences in a time of enormous uncertainty.

In March, July and November, we'll be working with our international research partner WolfBrown and local partners across the country to gather data about audience attitudes and behaviours, and how they're changing over time. The research tracks indicators like attendance, ticket buying and spending, and measures things like comfort at different types of venues and confidence in different safety measures.

It's thanks to ongoing support from the Australia Council for the Arts and state governments around Australia that we're able to do this in a cost-effective and coordinated way. Instead of working with a handful of clients who can afford consultants, this work is enabling 150+ arts organisations to adopt a consistent approach to surveying their audiences. This means audiences are spared from multiple surveys about the same thing, and that we can compare and contrast sentiment in different artforms, audience segments and jurisdictions.

And perhaps most importantly, that the results can be shared publicly for everyone and anyone to use. From independent artists to the Ministers for the Arts, our goal is to ensure that everyone working on our recovery has consistent, accurate and timely insight about audience demand, barriers to attendance and projected behaviour.

Why extend the study?

When we first set up the Audience Outlook Monitor, we thought the pandemic would last six months, if that. We now know better.

While creative activity has resumed in many venues across Australia, we are dealing with sporadic outbreaks and regular changes in restrictions. International travel is unlikely until later this year, at the earliest. Not all local audiences have returned to events, with some saying they are waiting for a vaccine and others opting to simply 'wait and see' before they invest in tickets or plan social outings.

Australia's vaccine roll-out is due to commence in late February, with an aim to vaccinate the adult population by October. However research from UNSW (covered in The Conversation) has cast doubts on that timeframe, and indicated it could push out into 2022.

The economic outlook is also uncertain and if past history of economic shocks is anything to go by, it will take time to rebuild the market.

Colleagues in the sector have described challenges such as 'Managing consistently changing circumstances and ongoing rescheduling of shows.' and 'Ensuring appropriate patron behaviour in venues without impeding on the customer experience.' Another said they are facing 'Increased costs of ensuring audience safety, impacts on our team, decreased audiences and increased output for both digital and physical.'

With decision-makers continuing to face tough decisions about investment, programming and operations, it's important that we never lack accurate and timely information from audiences. We've planned to produce regular updates and snapshots throughout the remainder of 2021 - and we're looking at ways we can do this longer-term, if needed.

We believe ongoing data-informed decision making and strategic support will play an important role in the sector’s recovery from the pandemic and ultimately will help rebuild arts participation in Australia.

How will the study change in 2021?

We'll continue to track key measures like the % of audiences who have attended a cultural venue or event in the past fortnight - and how much audiences are spending on tickets. But we'll also be probing new areas, so that we can provide insights on:

  • Proportion of audiences that are likely to be vaccinated and when

  • Top three things preventing audiences from attending more events

  • What digital experiences are attracting ongoing engagement

  • Willingness of audiences to travel to regional areas or interstate to attend a cultural venue or event.

When will the results be available?

The next national snapshot of data will be released in mid-March 2021, and state/territory reporting soon thereafter. We'll also be releasing fact sheets monthly on topics like digital inclusion and First Nations culture.

In March, we'll be taking a closer look at audience donations and support for arts causes, as the sector builds up to end-of-financial-year campaign season. In July, we're aiming to capture insight at the start of the cold & flu season, when cases could potentially spike once more. And in November, we'll provide a read on audience sentiment for the summer festival season.

How can I use the data?

Through engagement points like regular webinars, snapshot reports and fact sheets, we're aiming to turn the data into practical insights and highlight how they can be applied.

You can use this data for decisions like what events to program where and when, and what safety measures to put in place. You can use it to kick-off strategic planning meetings, brief front-of-house staff and prepare board reports. And it's proven to be really powerful in communicating with audiences and allaying concerns about venue safety: crafting copy for social media posts, EDMs and ticketing pages.

One colleague described the study as their 'anchor for audience sentiment' in 2020 and we hope that it will continue to be a useful resource in 2021.

To receive updates directly to your inbox, as soon as they are available, you can head to the study's Australian homepage and subscribe. And if you have any suggestions about how we can continue making this work stronger and more useful - I'd love to hear from you in the comments or by email at info@thepatternmakers.com.au.

Let's do this!

Image: Mika Baumeister via Unsplash

 
 
* indicates required
Subscribe to
Tandi_HexagonProfilePic.png

About the Author

Tandi Palmer Williams
Managing Director

Tandi is Founder and Managing Director of Patternmakers. She’s an arts research specialist and leader of the agency’s research projects.

 

Delivery partners

Patternmakers-Wolf-Brown.jpg

Supporting partners

Supporter-Logos-Vertical.jpg

Past posts on this blog

Read More
Tips & Tricks, Arts, Culture Patternmakers Tips & Tricks, Arts, Culture Patternmakers

Power moves: How evaluation can help you prepare for multi-year funding applications

Are you applying for multi-year funding in 2019? Here are five things you can do to strengthen your work, consolidate impact and improve your chances of success in upcoming funding rounds. 

Are you applying for multi-year funding in 2019? Then you need to get your evidence base sorted! And it’s not too late to start.

Here are five things you can do to strengthen your work, consolidate impact and put your best foot forward in upcoming funding rounds. 

1.     STRUCTURE: Ensure your evaluation framework is up to date

If you don’t already have an evaluation framework in place for the organisation, now is the time to map your program logic or theory of change, and identify some questions relating to your efficiency, effectiveness and ultimate impact. Depending on your size, you might think about this at the project, program or organisation level – or a combination.

There are a bunch of free guides and tools for this out there, but we think the one in the Program planning and evaluation guide from the Australian Institute of Family Studies has just the right amount of detail. 

 If you’ve already developed this (or there’s something similar buried in your share drive somewhere), dust it off at your next team meeting and do a quick discussion on what aspects might need to be refreshed. Appoint someone to lead the work of getting it up to date, approved and communicated to your board and staff. 

2.     GATHER: Analyse your reach and impact  

Impact evaluations are fast becoming an essential management tool for arts and culture organisations. They assist teams to understand the extent to which they are having an impact in the world, what is working well, and what isn’t, and exactly what factors are delivering the best outcomes. They can also help teams to work out the gaps and opportunities in their current programs and clarify the best future direction.

For instance, the Australia Council’s funding guidelines assessment criteria talk about identifying impact and need, which can be demonstrated through evaluation.

You can evaluate your impact through qualitative, quantitative, or mixed methods research, depending on what is most appropriate to address the priority questions in your evaluation framework.

Some basic qualitative questions to ask are: 

What was the best part about Program X?

What could we improve?

What have you taken away from your experience with Program X?

Some quantitative questions to ask are:

On a scale from 1 to 5, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with Program X?

On a scale from 1 to 5, how likely are you to recommend X to a friend or colleague?

You can also ask this last one on a scale from 0 to 10, and use the results to calculate a Net Promoter Score which can be benchmarked with other programs and events.

3.     TEST: Gather evidence about what is needed in future

As a part of the strategic planning process, it can be helpful to gather hard data on what your community, participants and/or stakeholders want to see in future. This could include running a consultation process using interviews or focus groups, or running a survey of your stakeholders.

You can also prompt people with a list of potential new initiatives or priorities, and ask people to select their top three. Doing a temperature check like this can be enormously useful in helping you prioritise limited resources – and it gives you an evidence base to fall back on if people challenge your investments.

For example, Creative Plus Business conducted a survey to find out what people wanted from a creative business conference. Collecting data from their community gave them confidence that their plans were on track and is helping ensure the likelihood of a successful event.

As our colleague Bridget Jones at Wavelength said in a recent post, ‘One of the great things about planning is that it helps managers make the tough decisions about what to do - and what not to do - so they can be more successful.’ She also refers to some useful planning templates from Bridgespan to help you keep it real.

Your questions should partly be open ended, e.g.: ‘What would you like to see from us moving forward?’ or ‘What ideas can you share for our program in the next three years?’

4.     SCAN: Analyse the case for investment

Before you lock down your strategic priorities, it’s important to conduct a scan of the wider environment. Analysing big picture statistical trends is an important step in prioritising initiatives and working out the case for investment.

You can do this by examining reliable sources such as the Australian Bureau of Statistics, thought leaders like Nesta (check out their predictions for 2019), data aggregators like Google Trends and academic research news articles like The Conversation.

Patternmakers also offer a series of short talks, designed for staff meetings, board meetings and strategic planning days (contact info@thepatternmakers.com.au for more information).

Your goal here is to look for alignment (or otherwise) between your plans, and where the world is heading in the next 1-5 years. For instance, topics like mental health are rising in importance, whereas some retail industries are under threat.

According to the Australia Council’s Strategic Plan Framework, you can consider producing a strategic/context analysis which summarises the strategic issues you expect your organisation to face over the next 3 years. This is often based on an assessment of your internal and external environments to identify the organisations strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and challenges. It is a distillation of analysis and research undertaken by your organisation to underpin the artistic choices you have made and the goals you have set.

5.     PLAN: Work out how you’ll monitor and evaluate your progress

It’s good practice to set up your evaluation framework and methodology before you start a new funding period, new project or initiative. It doesn’t have to be super detailed, and things will undoubtedly change, but showing the assessment committee that you’ve thought about this in advance is just smart.

The key questions are basically what, when, how, why and who will be monitoring and evaluating your progress. How is the big one here, and specifically, how it will be resourced.

As a rule of thumb, I usually advise leaders in arts and culture organisations to set aside 3-5% of their resources for any given period or program for monitoring and evaluation. This doesn’t mean spending 5% on hiring a consultant, most of the work should be done internally, on things like the steps above. It’s also important to be growing your team’s skills – through things like training in research and evaluation.

___

So there you have it: Structure, Gather, Test, Scan & Plan. The geek’s guide to getting ready for your strongest application yet.

If this all sounds overwhelming, and you think there’s a case to invest in the help of a professional, you can get in touch to schedule your free consultation by emailing info@thepatternmakers.com.au. We can provide resources and templates to help you, recommend training that would suit your team, and scope out where you need professional support.

 

 

Be in the loop

* indicates required
Subscribe to
Read More
Arts, Culture Patternmakers Arts, Culture Patternmakers

Are we ready for Generation Alpha?

Lately I’ve been thinking hard about how young people engage with art, culture and creativity. As mother of a one year old, my life (and arts participation patterns) have changed dramatically in the past year. Late nights at the theatre and gigs have been replaced with mornings at the museum, reading stories and pushing a pram through community festivals. 

Lately I’ve been thinking hard about how young people engage with art, culture and creativity.

As mother of a one year old, my life (and arts participation patterns) have changed dramatically in the past year.

Late nights at the theatre and gigs have been replaced with mornings at the museum, reading stories and pushing a pram through community festivals. 

Leo loved the immersive sound and animation in Ryoji Ikeda’s immersive exhibition Micro | Macro at Carriageworks. He enjoyed touching (and drooling all over) the art blanket at the MCA’s Art Baby class for mums and bubs. And the whole family enjoyed a trip to Mona Foma, the summertime festival of Tasmania’s excellent Museum of Old and New Art with food, drink and music aplenty.

What will engage the next generation?

It got me thinking about the kinds of experiences that kids of his generation will have access to. 

Will they be in theatres, shopping malls, schools or virtual worlds? Will he be a viewer, a player, a protagonist or a performer? 

What kinds of experiences will bring him to tears, send goosebumps down his spine and help him make sense of the worlds he inhabits?

New research in the UK with almost 2,000 young people suggests that today’s young people recognise quite different definitions to previous generations. 

Arts Connect, Morris Hargreaves McIntyre and We are Frilly found that young people associate 'art' with visual arts but arts also includes graffiti, fashion, animation, and tattooing/piercing - all of which were more widely defined as art than novels, poetry and opera.

Culture, they found, is a broader concept for them, which includes identity. They do relate to sector recognised forms such as festivals, historic sites, carnivals and museums, but also wider forms such as fashion and TV, learning a language and food.

The Australia Council's arts participation research indicates one of the biggest trends is the rise of creative participation, relative to receptive participation as an audience member. 

More and more, young people want to express their own creativity, learn new skills and access immersive experiences, and the trajectory is not slowing down. 

Are we ready?

So how are our artists, organisations and major institutions adapting to these changes? 

I suspect we could be doing more.

Research is one of the best ways for us to identify trends and anticipate the changes that will be needed. But we also need to be testing new concepts and experimenting with new forms of engagement.

One great creative industries example I saw recently is PlayingField, a 'game jam' where teams of professional game developers are paired with young people aged 10 to 13 and tasked with realising their game idea.

The two-day experience has been designed to educate young people about the wide variety of roles available in the industry, whilst giving the young participants a chance to devise a game idea and see it brought to life in the hands of inspiring role models.

The impact of programs like this could be profound. 

Research with young people

This year we are lucky to be working with The MCA to evaluate their GENEXT program for 12-18 year olds, working with the MCAs youth committee to design & deliver the a methodology that will trace what ideas past participants have taken into their adult lives. 

We are working with Barking Gecko Theatre Company to explore the impact of their Ensembles program for 5 to 17 year olds on things like confidence, empathy and relationships. 

We are also lucky to be again working with UTS, Australia’s #1 young university to explore the role of art on campus, and how it can support reflection, knowledge sharing and debate among students, researchers and the public. 

I can’t wait to see what we find out about how young people want to engage with the arts now, and where things are headed next. 

Maybe now I've got a vested interest!

If you have an idea about how research and evaluation can help unearth new possibilities for young people and the arts, get in touch with the team at info@thepatternmakers.com.au. 
 

 

Tandi_HexagonProfilePic.png

About the Author

Tandi Williams
Managing Director

Patternmakers’ Founder and Managing Director Tandi Williams is an experienced consultant and arts and culture research specialist. 

 
 

Categories

Be in the loop

* indicates required
Subscribe to
Read More