Galway 2020
Prior to the Galway 2020 European Capital of Culture launching its year in February, The Audience Agency has been developing the requisite evaluation methodology and working with Galway organisations on their evaluation planning. Penny Mills and Jonathan Goodacre led a workshop with cultural partners in December and Daniel Cowley led training sessions in research fieldwork in January with some of the Galway 2020 Wavemakers.
Meanwhile, we say a big ‘Sretno’ to Rijeka 2020, the other European Capital of Culture which began their year last week. Over the last two years, we have been working as part of a group of trainers and mentors helping cultural practitioners there to explore how they might achieve their audience development aims. We will be back there in September to see how they are getting on.
Audience Finder Strategic Alliance
The Audience Agency is working in collaboration with Norsk Publikumsutvikling (NPU) in Norway and partners in Denmark, Canada and the Netherlands to develop an international version of Audience Finder. It will provide benefits to cultural organisations in those countries that are familiar to organisations in England, Wales and Scotland. It will use existing and collected data to help them to understand current and potential audiences. In Norway, it will be demonstrated at the NPU conference in Oslo later this year.
In the next International Agent, we will be looking at the International Audience Finder in more detail. In the meantime, if you would like to know more, please feel free to contact Cimeon Ellerton, Chief Product Officer at The Audience Agency.
ConnectUp Vienna
Jonathan Goodacre was invited to speak at the inaugural meeting of the ConnectUp project in Vienna in January on behalf of the Adeste partnership. This interesting and ambitious project is based around theatre for young people (aged 12+) and involves 14 partners in 10 countries including, from the UK, the University / Theatre Derby and Theatr Genedlaethol Cymru.
Led by the University of Agder in Norway over four years to 2023, it includes a range of practical initiatives as well as many specially commissioned theatre commissions. We will stay in contact and be reporting on news in future editions of The International Agent.
Crossing the Line
Kerry Massheder-Rigby was in Malmo, Sweden in January working with the Blue Teapot Theatre Company and their pan-European Crossing the Line Festival partners. Crossing the Line Festival, a triennial festival, will take place in Galway in May as part of the Galway 2020 celebrations. The festival showcases and celebrates the work of theatre-makers and actors with intellectual disabilities (ID). The Audience Agency has been commissioned by Blue Teapot to carry out an evaluation of the festival, plus audience development and digital audience development consultancy.
