Agenda item

The Chair will lead a discussion on the Task Group review of “Engagement with Leicester’s Arts, Culture and Heritage Offer”.

The Commission is recommended to endorse the scope of this review.

On behalf of the Commission, the Chair welcomed Suba Das (Associate Director, Curve), Tony Flint (General Manager, De Montfort Hall), John Rance (Chief Executive Officer, Phoenix) and Claire Ward (Director of Communications and Fundraising, Curve) to the meeting.

The Chair reminded Members of the scope of the proposed review of engagement with Leicester’s arts, culture and heritage offer.  He particularly stressed the desirability of considering how people with limited resources could be encouraged to engage, how the offer was publicised and gaps in exposure to certain communities.

The Chair then invited the representatives of Curve, De Montfort Hall and Phoenix to give a brief outline of the methods and initiatives used to communicate with, and engage, communities.

Mr Rance welcomed the review as proposed.  He explained that one of Phoenix’s charitable aims was to reach out to communities, but the ways in which this was done were not always obvious.  However, Phoenix was a small charity, so there was some concern about the amount of time that was available and work that would be required, to achieve these aims.  It therefore would welcome the opportunity to work with the Council to identify what the Council would like the charity to be doing and how this could be achieved.

In reply, the Commission recognised that resources were limited, but expressed the wish to see tangible outputs of a high quality that could be expanded as they developed.

Ms Ward noted that, for Curve, audience development was key to all areas of its work.  Feedback therefore was regularly sought from staff in all of the theatre’s departments and gaps in the market identified in order to direct effort.  As a result of this, some initiatives had been trialled this year, such as offering £5 tickets to students and £1 tickets for public dress rehearsals.  Other things already offered included family days and various free activities, but people did not appear to be aware of some of these. 

To help address this, it was hoped that, over the next year, Curve’s “harder to reach” plan could be rewritten.  This could include an examination of the prices of tickets.  It was recognised that people had limited resources, so had to prioritise expenditure.  Theatre attendance was not always a high priority and for many it was an occasional activity, so needed to be an enjoyable experience in a safe environment.  It was hoped that initiatives such as the availability of £10 tickets for Made at Curve productions could help address this.  Consideration also needed to be given though to issues such as whether access shows were on the right days to enable people to attend and were shows that they were interested in.

Mr Das advised the Commission that:

·           Curve made various offers, such as discounted tickets and a non-audition youth group;

·           The theatre was gold-rated for physical access to the building and for staff training in access issues;

·           The theatre was increasingly focussing on its community ambassadorial role.  One way of developing this could be to create a community ambassador role, as had been done in other cities;

·           As part of its agreement under the National Portfolio Organisation (NPO) scheme, consideration was being given to Curve’s shared audience development plan, as it was known that when people accessed one arts space, it generated confidence to go to another;

·           It had been identified that approximately 65% of people attending the theatre over the last year had been from black and minority ethnic communities and that approximately 35% were first time attendees;

·           Over the previous two years, initiatives had been undertaken such as the development of a book club to read books relating to shows being staged at Curve, community projects and visits;

·           The quality of productions at the theatre also was very important in maintaining and extending community engagement;

·           An important part of Curve’s work was to produce work by authors whose work was not frequently seen, such as some of the English modern classicists;

·           The scale of some productions, and the subsequent costs involved, meant that theatres, including Curve, increasingly were having to do co-productions, (for example, with other theatres);

·           Curve continually tried to encourage smaller production companies to stage their shows at Curve, but touring dates did not always make this possible; and

·           Curve was seeking to expand its relationships with organisations such as those involved in disabilities theatre.

Ms Ward explained that Curve had joined Audience Finder, a national audience data and development tool, which gave the opportunity to analyse audiences in different ways.  For example, with this tool it was possible to look at a postcode area and determine the likelihood of there being a particular demographic make-up of that area.  This would help Curve target people by demographics such as age or socio-economic situation.  This information could be shared as part of this review.

Mr Rance confirmed that most NPO-funded organisations used Audience Finder, so this was a useful tool with which to find baseline data for the proposed review.

Mr Flint reminded the Commission that De Montfort Hall was a very different organisation to Curve or Phoenix.  All of the shows at De Montfort Hall came “ready made”, and usually were only on for one or two nights.  These tended to be populist shows and attracted large audiences, as the shows were based around one or more celebrities. 

The operators who provided these shows were financially driven, so were not interested in where their audiences came from.  However, the Commission agreed that there still could be opportunities to investigate where there was an overlap of audiences, and therefore any inter-relationships between them.  This could be beneficial in encouraging people to visit venues other than the one(s) they usually visited.

Mr Flint also advised the Commission that De Montfort Hall was working with the University of Leicester to find the best way to display, or otherwise enable public access to, some of the memorabilia from previous productions at De Montfort Hall.

The Commission also noted that:

o    Other arts organisations, such as Soft Touch Arts, also operated in the city and had community initiatives, such as discounted tickets;

o    As part of the review, account should be taken of issues such as the reluctance of some people to walk on their own through certain parts of the city, which cold restrict access to venues;

o    Clarifying the activities of NPO organisations in the city and adopting a strategic approach to marketing these was both a challenge and an opportunity, but could be very useful in seeking additional support for those organisations in the future; and

o    An important aspect of improving access to the arts was ensuring that initiatives were directed appropriately, (for example, ensuring that cheap tickets were bought by the people they were intended for, not those who could afford to pay full price).

On behalf of the Commission, the Chair thanked Mr Das, Mr Flint, Mr Rance and Ms Ward for attending the meeting and their contributions to the discussion.

AGREED:

1)    That the scoping document for the review of engagement with Leicester’s arts, culture and heritage offer be endorsed;

2)    That the evidence received at this meeting be considered as part of this review; and

3)    That the representatives of Curve, De Montfort Hall and Phoenix each be invited to make a written submission of the main points for their organisations arising from the discussions at this meeting, along with any other points they consider relevant, these to be received by 30 November 2017 if possible.