Understanding Audience Engagement in the Contemporary Arts

Stephanie E. Pitts is a professor of music education at the University of Sheffield. Her research and teaching interests are in musical participation, concert audiences and music education and in the qualitative research methods used to understand people’s uses of music in their everyday lives. Sarah M. Price is audience researcher and member of the Sheffield Performer and Audience Research Centre (SPARC). As both an academic and a freelance audience researcher, Sarah has conducted audience research projects collaboratively with numerous arts organisations, including a Collaborative Doctoral Award with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Her research interests are in the value of arts engagement, understanding audience behaviour and patterns of attendance, and the role of academic research within the arts industry.

'A refreshing, eye-opening insight into gaining, growing and nurturing audiences for contemporary culture. As artists and arts organisations, too often we fall back on tempting people to attend who already know and love our artform. This study has thrown a light on a whole community that thrives on the new, the challenge, the experience of our boundary-breaking work. Understanding Audiences for the Contemporary Arts demonstrates if we are bold, responsive and collaborative in our engagement with our cities, we will thrive alongside that community.Everyone: every artist, every programmer, every curator, every marketing manager, every gallery assistant – and yes, every Executive Director – should read this book.' Seb Lovell-Huckle, Executive Director of Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, UK‘Stretching across disciplines, arts organisations and regions, the qualitative research insights in this book offer valuable new answers to some of the most urgent questions which preoccupy arts makers and their audiences today.’Helen Freshwater, Reader in Theatre & Performance, Newcastle University, UK

• 1. Introduction: Who Goes to the Contemporary Arts? 2. Understanding Audiences: Research Methods and Approaches 3. "But is it Art?": Defining the Contemporary Arts 4. Cities for the Arts: The Importance of Place in Arts Engagement 5. Art forms, Venues and Audience Decision-Making: Navigating the Cultural Ecology 6. Routes to Engagement in Contemporary Arts 7. "It’s Okay Not to Like it": The Appeal and Frustrations of the Contemporary Arts 8. Making Sense of the Contemporary Arts: Programme Notes, Gallery Panels and Arts Talk 9. Uncomfortable Questions in Contemporary Arts Practice and Research: The Formaldehyde Shark in the Room 10. Audience Development and the Future of the Contemporary Arts: Learning from Audiences