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Exploring the future of touring in Victoria

Throughout April 2018, our team will be travelling across Victoria to conduct consultations as a part of Creative Victoria's Review of Touring and Engagement.

This month, our team will be travelling across Victoria to conduct consultations as a part of Creative Victoria's Review of Touring and Engagement.

I’m delighted that Patternmakers has been commissioned to conduct the Review, with advisor Professor Peter Matthews. 

Throughout April and May, we will be conducting fieldwork across Victoria, including inner and outer metropolitan Melbourne, and six regional locations. I'm looking forward to seeing how tours are helping regional communities enjoy music, theatre, dance, visual art, heritage collections, multi-arts and heritage collections that they may not otherwise have access to. 

The Review presents an exciting opportunity to take a fresh look at the touring environment and identify opportunities to improve the effectiveness, inclusiveness and viability of touring across the State.

As a national research agency with our base in Sydney, I hope we will bring a fresh perspective. Our team is looking forward to building on our past projects related to regional Victorian arts & culture, including the Road Work Intrinsic Impact Study for Performing Lines, and Audience Development Planning for The Cube, Wodonga.

Those who have worked with us will know that our team has a collaborative style, combining rigorous research techniques with creative thinking to identify solutions. Some key features of our approach to this Review are:

  • Working collaboratively with the Creative Victoria Steering Group to co-design the Review

  • Combining both qualitative and quantitative research techniques to ensure future models are evidence-based

  • Inviting stakeholders to participate either face to face via a series of open forums, or by submitting written response to an online survey.

A major focus for this review will be exploring options for new touring and funding investment models. If you have ideas about the future of touring in Victoria, please head over to the Creative Victoria website to find out more about how you can participate in the Review.

We are also committed to hearing from people of all backgrounds, and those with access requirements. For any questions, please contact info@thepatternmakers.com.au or Sue Doyle, Manager, Regional Partnerships Arts Sector Investment via sue.doyle@ecodev.vic.gov.au.

Image: David LaChappelle, The Last Supper (Ballarat International Foto Biennale

About the Author

Tandi Williams
Managing Director

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

 

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The reality of touring contemporary performances in regional Australia

Between 2015 and 2017, Performing Lines worked with Patternmakers, Wolf Brown and presenters across Australia to explore the audience response to three touring theatre productions. Evidence collected in this study confirms the value of contemporary Australian performance for regional audiences.

There is a complex touring ecology in Australia, which works hard to bring contemporary Australian performances to regional communities. However, if ticket sales are anything to go by, these works often fail to resonate with market. Or do they? Our research is shedding new light on this important issue.
 

About this project

For the past three years, we've worked with Performing Lines, Wolf Brown and presenters across Australia to explore the audience response to three touring theatre productions. The productions were part of the Australia Council’s Road Work initiative, designed to enable regional audiences to engage with contemporary, original thought-provoking new Australian work. 

Although regional presenters found each of the three productions challenging to market to their communities (and many reported disappointing ticket sales), people who did attend experienced a wide range of positive impacts, like captivation, emotional resonance and importantly, aesthetic growth.

The results of the final phase of the study are now available on Issuu, and the results are well worth a read, for anyone involved in regional performing arts.
 

The results

Three quarters (72%) of the 1,640 respondents said they were exposed to a new style of theatre they didn’t know about previously and 77% said show exceeded their expectations. Almost all of those surveyed said they are likely to attend theatre in future (89%), and those that had positive experiences are the most likely to. 

The results show that what happens before and after a show could be important. Across the three tours, factors associated with above average experiences included reading a review or article about the play beforehand, discussing the show ‘intensely’ afterwards and attending a post-show Q&A. The results also suggest a strong association between captivation, overall experience and likelihood to attend in future.
 

Our conclusions

For us, the evidence collected in this study confirmed the value of contemporary Australian performance for regional audiences - and provides some solid leads for strengthening tours.  However, we believe that if such performances are to fulfil their potential in regional Australia, more work needs to be done. Greater investment is needed to help funders, tour coordinators, producers and presenters work together to engage more members of the community and build audiences over the long-term. 

What do you think is needed to help great Australian works reach their potential in regional areas? We'd love to hear your ideas.

 

Want more information?

Head to the full Intrinsic Impact Study to find out more about exploring the intrinsic impacts of Road Work performances on regional audiences.

Please get in touch with us via info@thepatternmakers.com.au for more information about this study, the intrinsic impact tools, or our work in regional Australia. 

Image by Sarah Walker

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About the Author

Tandi Williams
Managing Director

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

 
 

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Evaluation Reflections: Performing Lines' Indigenous Community Engagement Coordinator

The team recently completed a collaborative three-year project with Performing Lines, to assist them to evaluate their Indigenous Community Engagement Coordinator position.

Our Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams sat down with Karilyn Brown and Narelle Lewis of Performing Lines, to pick their brains about the project.

The team recently completed a collaborative three-year project with Performing Lines, to assist them to evaluate their Indigenous Community Engagement Coordinator position.

For those not familiar with Performing Lines, the organisation produces new and transformative performances, and initiates creative and strategic opportunities for diverse contemporary artists whose work pushes boundaries and sparks new conversations. 

They created the Indigenous Community Engagement Coordinator role to assist presenters to develop closer connections with their local Indigenous communities, build their Indigenous audiences, and broaden the reach of Indigenous theatre and dance work being presented in venues across the country. 

Our Managing Director Tandi Palmer Williams sat down with Karilyn Brown and Narelle Lewis of Performing Lines, to pick their brains about the project.
 

What were the main drivers for Performing Lines to initiate this evaluation?

Karilyn: In 2015 Performing Lines was successful in securing Australia Council funding for an Indigenous community engagement pilot project, to be implemented in association with the Blak Lines tour of Head Full of Love. We were delighted to appoint Denise Wilson, a proud Aboriginal woman from the Kamilaroi Nation (around Walhallow, NSW) as Indigenous Community Engagement Coordinator. 

We thought that articulating the benefit and value of this role and the outcomes from the project would be important for the presenters, Performing Lines and the Australia Council. To our knowledge, there was no other program like this in the performing arts in Australia at the time, and we were keen to develop a model that could be applied for future Blak Lines tours, as well as for our non-Indigenous tours in order to continue to build engagement with local Indigenous communities. 

Narelle: We hoped the project may create a blueprint that other organisations may be able to follow in instigating their own community engagement programs, and saw a thorough evaluation as a way of testing this idea.
 

Why did you choose to work with a research agency? 

Karilyn: We wanted professional expertise in the development of the framework for the project's evaluation and report, so that Denise and the team could start collating and compiling relevant information and data from the outset.
 

What is the main thing Performing Lines has taken away from the research?

Karilyn: Following the pilot, we were fortunate to be in a position to continue the ICEC role with Denise on a part time basis. She worked on the 2016 Blak Lines tour of Sugarland, and the 2017 tour of Saltbush, as well as taking on some Associate Producing responsibilities working with Narelle. We set aside resources to create the three evaluations as a suite of case studies for the performing arts sector in Australia. 

Narelle: Denise and I presented insights from the program at the Australian Performing Arts Centres Conference in 2016, and Head Full of Love, the first tour in the study, was also awarded best regional tour of the year. 

The evaluation was also featured in the Australia Council’s Building Audiences research in 2017, as a case study of interest to the wider sector. 

Karilyn: It’s important to have these kinds of evaluations available in a public forum rather than tucked away in the archives as acquittals.

 

For any questions about this work, please contact us at info@thepatternmakers.com.au

You can read more about this project in the Indigenous Community Engagement Coordinator Evaluation report. 

Image: Saltbush – photo courtesy of Performing Lines

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About the Author

Penny Cannan
Business Administrator

Penny has a background in Art and Design, Communications, Brand Identity and Project Management.  Her broad experience brings a fresh perspective to the team and her passion for all things creative meshes with the Patternmakers vibe.

 

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