Audience development is an emerging priority for many arts organizations. This paper explores the nature and purpose of audience development and considers the role of arts organizations in nuturing both new and existing audiences. Two styles of audience development are described, 'mainstream' focusing on existing arts attenders and 'missionary' focusing on traditional nonattenders. The authors have drawn on literature from relevant areas as a springboard for their ideas, given the lack of theory and empirical data in this discipline. 'Missionary' audience development projects appear to dominate in terms of resources and priorities. Whilst the focus on these audience constituencies is of value these groups are notoriously difficult and expensive to attract. This paper proposes that development initiatives should also focus on strengthening the franchise with existing arts audiences who may deliver higher levels of loyalty and have the dual benefits of being lower risk and less resource intensive. A map of audience typologies described by other academics is presented based on behavioural and attitudinal loyalty together with a map of audience development potential that identifies additional sub-groups. Using Rogers' integrated approach to audience development, functional and strategic responses for each group are then proposed. This discussion focuses on the arts, but is equally applicable to other areas of cultural tourism and leisure
Changes in the economic and political climate have resulted in income generation becoming increasingly important for cultural organisations and one method of achieving this is to develop closer relationships with individuals, for example, members. Friends' schemes (also known as membership schemes, societies and organisations) exist in a variety of formats and provide organisations with a range of benefits in addition to their income-generation potential. These include advocacy, influence and a stable volunteer base. This paper makes a contribution in three areas of cultural management: it presents the findings of a study of friends' schemes within large museums and galleries in London and identifies distinctive typologies of scheme; creates a framework that practitioners can use as a diagnostic tool to analyse their own scheme; and finally, provides strategic direction to assist in the evolution of membership schemes
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