The agency is uniquely placed to develop and lead on a range of audience development projects that can help members work together to build audiences across different sectors and art forms.

The strength in numbers that the agency can leverage through its membership is extremely powerful in attracting external partners to help with audience development. We have also commissioned specific pieces of research on the back of projects to give members more information and insight into specific areas, such as multi-culturalism.

Please contact alice.lewis@audiencesni.com if you want to develop a project.

Test Drive the Arts NI

Audiences NI is delighted to have secured funding from Belfast City Council and the Arts Council of Northern Ireland to run a Test Drive the Arts Online project. This is our largest project to date and one that will help thousands of people across Northern Ireland to experience the arts for the first time.

Test Drive the Arts NI has launched throughout Northern Ireland and has attrached over 1000 new arts attenders to date.

Click here to download more information

Black Book

Black Book is Audiences NI’s new annual benchmarking project for venues across Northern Ireland that use the Patron Edge box office system.

The Black Book Report will compile key statistics for each venue, presented in the context of other Northern Irish Patron Edge users and creating a NI specific benchmark. The six participating venues are the Alley, Burnavon, Down Arts Centre, Island Arts Centre, Lyric Theatre and Strule.

Run annually, the report will allow participants to monitor their performance year on year and target marketing budgets effectively. We hope that the findings will stimulate sharing of ideas and best practice. Additional outcomes of the project include skills development and standardisation of box office processes and procedures.

For more information email alice.lewis@audiencesni.com.

Beyond The Hood

Alice Lewis was on the road in June delivering introductory audience development training to voluntary arts groups in Belfast, Lisburn, Cookstown, Derry / Londonderry and Enniskillen. It’s all part of Beyond the Hood, a joint initiative between Audiences NI and Voluntary Arts Ireland, which offered a package of training and support to help voluntary arts groups enhance their skills to develop audiences.

Five training sessions were delivered across Northern Ireland in June and a number of groups will have access to support and mentoring to implement the learning. Participation in the project is completely free of charge. As part of the initiative one lucky group will win the chance to have professional photographs taken to help promote its work.

Retain and Gain

Audiences NI has launched an innovative new audience development project, which aims to help organisations retain more of their customers in order to gain more financially.

The project will quantify and benchmark current audience loyalty and increase the long-term financial value of customers. The project is funded by Arts Council Northern Ireland and will be delivered by Katy Raines of Indigo Consulting, in association with Audiences NI.
Download the Retain and Gain information sheet