The first Adeste Plus Summer School and Conference took place in Lisbon Portugal during September 2019 with over 300 participants debating new approaches to audience development.
Over 300 participants, including many from the UK, took part in sessions at the beautiful Calouste Gulbenkian Centre. It formed part of the Adeste Plus large scale Creative Europe project which considers the ways in which cultural organisations can move beyond the ‘audience development initiative’ to become more public facing in general. In an ambitious programme, the in depth Summer School took place alongside an open conference and a meeting of people working in cultural policy.
It combined powerful keynote presentations from the likes of Wayne Modest of the Research Centre for Material Culture in the Netherlands as well as workshops and visits as described by two other participants. A special innovation by the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation of the ‘Very Important Tree Talks’, which took place in the early morning in the park, was a particular highlight. Overall, the sessions were topped and tailed and brought together with intelligence and friendliness by Alessandra Garriboldi of Fondazione Fitzcarraldo, leaders of the Adeste Plus project and Anne Torreggiani CEO of The Audience Agency. If you missed out, don’t worry there will be two more! The next will be in Rijeka Croatia in September 2020 and if you are signed up to International Agent you will be one of the first to know - announcements and applications will be available from spring 2020.
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