Building Arts Audiences

APAP and The Wallace Foundation support arts organizations' efforts to reach new audiences and deepen relationships with current audiences. Together, we are proud to share The Wallace Foundation's findings and resources on audience-building efforts with the performing arts field.

What you’ll find here:

• Best practices you can start using now

• Small and Mid-Sized Presenters studies and reports

• Case studies of success and failure in growing audiences

• How you can engage more deeply with these resources

In September 2020, APAP released a new report, "Small and Mighty: A Study of Small and Midsized Presenting Organizations in the United States". The first national study of its kind, APAP and its partner Callahan Consultants for the Arts focused on Small and Mid-Sized Presenters (SAMPs), a segment of the performing arts ecosystem that has been largely overlooked and whose experiences have been largely underreported.

In June 2020, APAP asked the original respondents to provide feedback on how the COVID-19 pandemic was affecting them. The new data became the foundation of the COVID-19 Supplement to the initial report.

SAMP Study Executive Summary SAMP Study Full Report SAMP COVID-19 Supplement

This study is part of APAP's growing focus on SAMPs, and the purpose of this research was to provide a greater understanding of this segment in order to build greater support for SAMPs.

You can read the initial pilot study, Small and Mid-Sized Presenters in the United States: Stories and Perspectives here and the Inside Arts interview where the report's collaborators talk about the takeaways and next steps.

The Wallace Foundation has identified nine practices that successful audience-building efforts have had in common. Review the nine practices and read more about them in the downloadable report, The Road to Results: Effective Practices for Building Arts Audiences. 

1. Recognize When Change Is Needed

2. Identify the Target Audience that Fits

3. Determine What Kinds of Barriers Need to be Removed

4. Take Out the Guesswork

5. Think Through the Relationship

6. Provide Multiple Ways In

7. Align the Organization Around the Strategy

8. Build In Learning

9. Prepare for Success

Focusing on one of the nine effective practices, this guide Taking Out the Guesswork: A Guide to Using Research to Build Arts Audiences, seeks to help arts organizations get over the hurdles of research. It details how to carry out the research effectively – in both low-cost and more elaborate ways – and how to bring together an organizational team to manage the work. This separate infographic summarizes the guide’s key points.

These principles emerged from case studies of ten arts organizations that undertook audience-building projects as part of the Wallace Excellence Awards initiative. You can read more examples of successes and challenges from the work of museums, opera companies, a theater and other institutions.

Research and Studies

• NEW! The Alchemy of High-Performing Arts Organizations by SMU Data Arts. This report, published in partnership with The Wallace Foundation, studies 10 organizations with a track record of high performance and 10 who engineered a turnaround from low to high performance prior to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• CULTURE + COMMUNITY IN A TIME OF CRISIS - What does the public want from art in a post-COVID world? You can now download Culture Track’s special report on culture and community in the COVID era today. Approximately 124,000 culture goers and non-goers were surveyed about their thoughts on the role of culture in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Supported by the Wallace Foundation, the report provides valuable insights and possible ways forward.

• FEATURED! WORLD MUSIC/CRASHarts Tests New Format New Name to Draw New Audiences - How a festival and a rebranding effort could increase name recognition and draw younger audiences to an arts presenter in Boston.

• CASE STUDY UPDATE: New Media Gets New Audiences into an Old Art Form - Research, collaboration and web analytics help Seattle Opera make opera more meaningful to connected audiences.

• CASE STUDY UPDATE: Ambassadors, Advice and Strategic Discounts Bring Newcomers to Minnesota Opera - A midwestern company taps its networks and carefully crafts promotions to introduce new audiences to opera.

• CASE STUDY UPDATE: The Contemporary Jewish Museum Is Now (Also) a Family Destination - New strategies and a new space have helped the museum welcome young visitors and sow the seeds for future growth.

• Think Opera’s Not for You? Opera Theatre of Saint Louis Says Think Again - See how the company’s engagement of young people and diverse communities across the region is paying off.

• Denver Center Theatre Company is Cracking the Millennial Code...One Step at a Time - How the company's experimental offshoot, Off-Center, is creating new types of theater to attract and retain younger audiences.

• CASE STUDY UPDATE: Traveling a Long Road: A Decade of Efforts to Cultivate a New Audience at the San Francisco Girls Chorus

• Can the City's Boom Mean New Audiences for the Seattle Symphony? - In line with the community’s spirit of innovation, Seattle Symphony is using audience research to help target and woo recent transplants.

• CASE STUDY UPDATE: The Party's Still a Hit: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Builds on its Millennial Momentum

• Ballet Austin: Expanding Audiences for Unfamiliar Works - How one arts organization is using research to find new, effective ways to engage audiences with all forms of ballet.

Discussion Guides

• Global Arts Live Tests New Format, New Name to Draw New Audiences, A Discussion Guide - This discussion guide is designed to help arts administrators, board members, and arts practitioners working within varying disciplines and with a range of budget sizes to better understand and apply lessons from Global Arts Lives’ experience to their own.

• Ballet Austin: A Discussion Guide - This guide explores preliminary insights from Ballet Austin’s audience-building efforts as part of The Wallace Foundation’s Building Audiences for Sustainability Initiative.

• Can the City's Boom Mean New Audiences for the Seattle Symphony: A Discussion Guide - A tool for arts administrators and practitioners to learn how to apply Seattle Symphony's audience-building insights to their own context

• Denver Center Theatre Company is Cracking the Millennial Code...One Step at a Time: A Discussion Guide - This discussion guide is designed to help administrators, board members and arts practitioners working in organizations of varying budget sizes and disciplines apply Denver Center’s lessons in audience building to their own work.

Presentations

• Building Millennial Audiences: Barriers and Opportunities. Arts organizations could help attract millennials by clarifying pricing and better explaining the value of the arts, suggests this Wallace-commissioned synthesis of market research.

Case Studies

• Converting Family into Fans: How the Contemporary Jewish Museum Expanded its Reach. The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco moves to a larger space and secures a nine-fold increase in family visitors of all backgrounds.

• Staying Relevant In A Changing Neighborhood: How Fleisher Art Memorial Is Adapting To Shifting Community Demographics he Fleisher Art Memorial creates an initiative to bring residents of the surrounding ethnically diverse neighborhood to its on-site programs.

• Opening New Doors: Hands-On Participation Brings A New Audience To The Clay StudioThe Clay Studio experimented with a series of events and workshops aimed at persuading their target audience to try out the organization.

• Getting Past It's Not For People Like Us: Pacific Northwest Ballet Builds a Following with Teens and Young Adults. A Seattle-based ballet company garnered new interest in traditional and contemporary ballet among teens and adults under the age of 25.

• Extending Reach with Technology: Seattle Opera's Multipronged Experiment to Deepen Relationships and Reach New Audiences. To engage audiences, the Seattle Opera used technology including simulcasts, interactive lobby displays and behind-the-scenes videos.

• Someone Who Speaks Their Language: How a Nontraditional Partner Brought New Audiences to Minnesota Opera. Learn how an opera company found new audience members among women age 35 to 60.

• More Than Just a Party: How the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Boosted Participation by Young Adults. Learn how the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum Boosted Participation by Young Adults. View extra features for this case study.

• Cultivating the Next Generation of Art Lovers: How Boston Lyric Opera Sought to Create Greater Opportunities for Families to Attend Opera. Learn how Boston Lyric Opera sought to create greater opportunities for families to attend opera. View extra features for this case study.

• Building Deeper Relationships: How Steppenwolf Theatre Company Is Turning Single-Ticket Buyers Into Repeat Visitors. Learn how the Steppenwolf Theatre Company is turning single-ticket buyers into repeat visitors.

• Attracting an Elusive Audience: How the San Francisco Girls Chorus Is Breaking Down Stereotypes and Generating Interest Among Classical Music Patrons. Learn how the San Francisco Girls Chorus is breaking down stereotypes and generating interest among classical music patrons. View extra features for this case study.

• Wallace Studies in Building Arts Audiences - In in-depth case studies of arts organizations that worked to expand, diversify or more deeply engage their audiences, researchers examine what worked and what didn’t. The groups range from museums to opera companies.

5 Minutes to Shine: "Building Arts Audiences" Session

One of APAP|NYC’s most popular events, 5 Minutes to Shine (5MTS) showcases today’s most innovative engagement and audience-building work. 5MTS is an opportunity for artists, presenters, agents, and others to share their compelling story or idea in an exciting pecha kucha-format; one speaker will be selected to present their story at the annual APAP|NYC Awards Luncheon. Inspired by the Wallace Foundation’s Nine Effective Practices for Building Audiences in the Arts, this session highlights how to go from ideas to action.

Learn More

At APAP|NYC 2015, APAP and the Wallace Foundation hosted a professional development session on Welcoming New Audiences featuring participants from case studies. Listen to the audio recording to learn about their strategies, successes and setbacks.

Learn more about the vision behind the Building Arts Audience initiative, visit the Wallace Foundation website at ThrivingArts.org.

Inside Arts articles on Building Audiences

APAP has reported on the importance of building arts audiences, the tools and research needed to this and how the 5 Minutes to Shine competition brings forth new ideas.

Read the 2018 Knowledge issue article

Read the 2016 conference article

Read the 2016 summer article

Read the 2015 spring article