History and context
Audiences London was set up in 2002 as a resource supporting audience development for the cultural sector in the capital. Colleagues from around 40 arts organisations worked over a number of years to establish an agency for London (under the banner of "LAMP"). Audiences London is one of a number of regional audience development agencies around the UK which make up Audiences UK.
Our philosophy
We consider audience development to be:
A planned activity to develop the range of relationships between a cultural organisation and identified audiences as an integral part of its mission. It is both a process and a philosophy. Essentially, audience development is all the activities an organisation delivers that aim to engage with audiences, visitors or participants. It covers everything that is done proactively to:
- Retain and increase the frequency of existing audiences or visitors.
- Attract new audiences to existing performances, exhibitions or events.
- Develop audiences to experience different types of performance, exhibition or event.
- Develop new types of performance, exhibition or event to meet the needs of new audiences.
Audiences London supports good practice in audience development and seeks to develop this through its relationships with its clients and the projects it initiates. The key elements are:
- Recognising audience development's importance at leadership level and ensuring that it is an organisation-wide mission, relevant to all staff roles.
- Audience development should be planned and clearly lead by the organisation's core objectives.
- Appropriate resources of time and budget should be allocated to achieving audience development objectives.
- Audience development activity is most effective when based on sound market intelligence so that it is 'audience-focused' and shaped by evidence about what audiences want and need.
How we are funded
Audiences London is a Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) of the Arts Council England, London office. In addition Audiences London receives funding from London Councils.
Project funding comes from organisations such as Arts Council England, the London Development Agency, Film London, Museums Libraries and Archives London and other strategic and policy-making bodies. Other projects are funded by the participating arts and cultural organisations, while the service packages, events and bespoke consultancy are paid for by the organisations benefitting from them.
You can link to the websites of our major funders by clicking on their logos in the footer anywhere on our website.