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All press enquires should be directed to sara.gunn@audiencesni.com

Fergus Linehan, former Director of Sydney Festival
The International festival director and creative event consultant will be talking about the centrality of programming to every part of an organisation and how to build audiences by working together locally, nationally and globally.

Richard Slaney, Philharmonia Orchestra
The Director of Digital from Philharmonia Orchestra, resident at London’s Royal Festival Hall, will talk about RE:RITE a groundbreaking project which literally put the audience inside the sections of the orchestra with a holographic conductor.

Sandie Fisher, Assault Dance Company
Assault dance company will discuss audience involvement as a creative process and their plans to co-create a dance piece for audiences in this year’s Belfast Festival using social media as a tool for audience comment and collaboration.

Louise Miles-Crust & Tabitha Milne, Wales Millennium Centre
Programmer and Marketing Manager from Wales Millennium Centre will talk about the practical challenges and rewards of bringing the programming and marketing departments together.

Who is the conference for?
Artistic directors, programmers, and those involved in marketing and / or audience development.

Book your place now!
Email sara.gunn@audiencesni.com
Audiences NI members: Free
All other delegates: £195 + VAT

Test Drive the Arts NI launches!

Test Drive the Arts NI launches this Sunday in partnership with the Sunday Life. Hundreds of tickets will be made available each week to a range of events, and the PR will be supported by a strong marketing campaign to make sure the message gets out to as many people as possible. We’re thrilled that over 35 arts organisations have come on board and we hope that many more will do so as the project rolls out Northern Ireland wide. To see the site, click here. If you want to get involved please contact Miriam Crozier

Test Drive the Arts NI is funded by Belfast City Council and Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

KDS Systems ensure access for all

To make sure everyone can take part in Test Drive, we’ve teamed up with KDS Systems, who offer free internet access at 38 kiosks around Northern Ireland in job centres, hospitals and shopping centres.

Putting the audience in the picture

This year’s conference will be held in the new facilities at Theatre at the Mill, Newtownabbey on Tuesday 9 March.

The old saying goes ‘If the show sells well, it’s good programming, if it does badly, it’s bad marketing’. While we talk about audience development being a holistic approach, working across functions within an organisation, what does that actually mean? Does programming with the audience in mind compromise artistic integrity? Can audience development become a creative process in itself? Our conference looks at ‘Putting the Audience in the Picture’ – developing product for and with audiences.

Our speakers will look at a range of approaches: from the dance company that involves the audience in its creative process and the orchestra that puts the audience inside the music, to the venue that has brought the marketing and programming departments together. Our speakers are:

Fergus Linehan, former Director of Sydney Festival
Richard Slaney, Philharmonia Orchestra
Sandie Fisher, Assault Dance Company
Louise Miles-Crust & Tabitha Milne, Wales Millennium Centre

Book your place now! Email sara.gunn@audiencesni.com
Audiences NI members: Free
All other delegates: £195 + VAT

Sunday Life gear up for Test Drive

We're thrilled that Sunday Life are getting behind Test Drive the Arts NI with a weekly column featuring forthcoming shows available from the website.

This is a golden opportunity for participating arts organisations to be promoted in a newspaper with a circulation of 65,000 and growing. To find out how your Test Drive show can feature in the Sunday Life, contact sara.gunn@audiencesni.com

fonaCAB sponsor Test Drive

We're delighted to announce that fonaCAB are sponsoring Test Drive the Arts NI. fonaCAB's support means that the Test Drive initiative will be promoted via the fleet of 500 cabs to 2.5 million passengers over the next 6 months.

William McCausland, fonaCAB's Managing Director, says "fonaCAB are proud to support this new initiative by Audiences NI. By sponsoring Test Drive the Arts we look forward to supplying a first class taxi service to the participating venues".

New faces at Audiences NI

We’d like to welcome Sara Gunn and Miriam Crozier to the staff team at Audiences NI.

Sara will be responsible for member account management, handling Audiences NI’s marketing and communications, project and event management, e-marketing and ensuring the delivery of quality services to members.

Sara has been working in marketing and events for several years, working with companies including Outlet Recording Co.Ltd, The Francis McPeake School of Music, Cinemagic Film Festival, Ripfactory and most recently as a freelance marketing and PR consultant for the digital music industry. She has an ILM Diploma in Management from BMC and is currently working towards a BA (Hons) Open degree with the Open University.

To contact Sara please email or telephone 028 9043 6487

Miriam will be overseeing various projects at Audiences NI such as Test Drive the Arts NI, Classical Arts Forum and the Family Arts Forum.

Miriam is a graduate of the University of Liverpool, where she studied music and popular music for a BA and Ph.D. She has since worked on arts and culture projects for the Northern Ireland Music Industry Commission, the Northern Ireland Centre for European Co-operation and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. Prior to joining Audiences NI, she was project co-ordinator for the Art of Regeneration project in Antrim, Ballymena and Magherafelt.

To contact Miriam please email or telephone 028 9043 6486

Training programme continues

Audiences NI 09/10 training programme continues with two short sessions aimed at giving a brief overview of market research and audience development.



Bite Size: An introduction to Market Research
23 February 2010, 1.30pm - 4.30pm, Millennium Forum, Derry/Londonderry

Chris Palmer will look at conducting effective audience research: from setting objectives to designing appropriate questions.

Bite Size: Audience Development for Beginners
2 March 2010. 1.30pm-4.30pm, Audiences NI, Belfast

Alice Lewis will cover the fundamental Whats, Whys and Hows of audience development with practical exercises.

Cost: Free to all Audiences NI members

To book, please email marketing@audiencesni.com

New Chief Executive for the Grand Opera House

Michael Ockwell has been appointed Chief Executive at the Grand Opera House, taking over from John Botteley, who announced his retirement in June.

Anna Carragher, Chair of the Grand Opera House Trust said;“I’m delighted to announce this excellent appointment. Michael has a wealth of theatre experience, joining us from his current role as Managing Director of HQ Theatres, part of the Qdos Entertainment Group, where he has responsibility for their portfolio of seven regional theatres.  Michael will take up his new position early next year and I know that the theatre’s audiences, its staff and Trustees will give Michael and his family the known Northern Irish welcome.”

For more information on Michael’s career to date, please click here.

Awards for the ladies!

Congratulations to both Lydia Gamble from the Ulster Orchestra and Lisa May from Bruiser Theatre Company who both recently won prestigious awards.

Lydia picked up the Marketing/ Advertising Personality of the Year award at the local Business Eye awards ceremony and Lisa triumphed at the Belfast Telegraph’s Woman of the Year awards by being named BT Woman of the Year in the Arts.

Try a free demo from Ticketsolve

Ticketsolve have developed a unique browser-based system Ticketing/CRM solution that is customer-focused and built to intuitively reflect the real-time way in which organisations operate.

Some of Ticketsolve's features:

• Consumer Seat Selection Tool with At-home Ticket Printing & Barcode Functionality
• Integrated Memberships, Promotion Vouchers, Merchandise Sales and Reservations,
• Cross-selling and Up-selling Functionality
• Unlimited Concurrent Users
• Email Campaign Management
• Real Time Sales and CRM Frontline Reporting
• No Up Front Capital Expenditure
• Free maintenance and continuous updates
• Free Training
• Free migration of customer data
• Free website integration

To find out more information and to try a free demo click here

Discounted photography for members

Richard Watson Photography is a new photographic agency set up by Richard Watson in 2009.

Richard Watson Photography can capture and supply high resolution images for PR, events, products, portraits, architecture, production stills or landscape. Event photography can be quickly treated and distributed giving immediate access for online or print use.

Previous clients have included:
Ulster Orchestra
Lyric Theatre (appointed season photographer)
Belfast Festival at Queens (official photographer)
Audiences NI
Cahoots NI

Having recently worked for Audiences NI and a number of other performance based organisations Richard Watson Photography are pleased to offer a reduced hourly rate of £40 for photography for all Audiences NI members. For more details please contact Richard on 07525459116 or email info@richardwatsonphotography.com

You can see examples of Richard’s work here

Earagail Arts Festival win National Award

Congratulations to The Earagail Arts Festival who have rounded up a very successful year by picking up a major national award. 

Out of 400 festivals nationally, the festival picked up the Best Programme Award in the Carlton Best of Festivals Marketing Awards at the Association of Irish Festivals and Events Conference hosted in Ballinasloe on Friday 6th November.

To read more click here

Welcome to new members

Audiences NI would like to welcome their most recent members - Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin, Spectrum Centre and South Bank Playhouse. We look forward to working with you over the coming year.