The missing box office factor

What is it that accounts for such a marked difference in approach to leadership and management between the theatre and visual arts sectors? Over the course of the past few months I’ve been interviewing people involved in running theatres and galleries around England and we keep coming back to one thing – the audience factor. Audiences simply aren’t a measure of success for most organisations in the visual arts, in the same way they are for theatres: that is to say, financially. So the principal measure of success in the contemporary visual arts is critical peer-regard. Sure that’s also important for theatre directors, but it’s also understood that you also need to be able to attract an audience.

Box office income is a critical part of a performing arts business model (and for galleries that charge for exhibitions such as the Royal Academy or Tate) whereas for most galleries there is no financial incentive to attract audiences. This must account, at least in part, for the lack of monitoring of audiences in visual arts. And of course there is the related argument that is because entrance is free it’s much harder to capture information about your audiences which is why we’re led to believe so few galleries know anything about their audiences beyond numbers, or possible periodic snapshots of demographic profile to satisfy their funders.

But let’s not let ourselves off the hook so easily – there are plenty of galleries that seek to understand the profile, behaviour, and satisfaction of audiences who haven’t bought tickets and they do this through a wide range of techniques including training staff to observe visitor behaviour, questionnaires, focus groups, social media, low-cost membership schemes which enable better tracking of activity. Of course it takes time and money – but if you’re serious about your audience (and your long-term financial success) then it’s essential. Galleries including Baltic, Arnolfini, Tate, and Whitechapel are all investing in understanding their audiences beyond the basics and many of them can show the clear benefits of doing so including:

• Increasing audience size and demographic diversity
• Being able to target marketing spend more effectively
• Increasing secondary spend in trading outlets through better understanding of visitors needs an behaviour.

In the words of one of the people I interviewed recently for my research:

‘If you don’t know your audience then how can you run a sustainable business? The only way the gallery can be sustainable is we create a strong bedrock of a loyal audience that comes repeatedly, that become advocates for you, that recommend you and hopefully invests in you financially. Unless you know who your audience is you could be spending your marketing budget in a shot-gun approach, we don’t have that sort of money so we have to target it more effectively. When we spend money to attract people or give info we know that a) the people welcome that information and b) they’ll respond to it.’

But, as the Arts Council’s RFO survey analysis shows each year, with visual arts business models relying far less on earned income from tickets sales and trading than performing arts the business case for focussing on the customer is less apparent. Indeed, if entry is free and organisations are not seeking to monetise in any way (through membership or trading) their relationships with audiences then attracting more visitors actually costs the organisation rather than rewards it. That sounds crazy – and it is – but sadly that’s the model that we have in many contemporary visual arts galleries.

Of course, given that for at least ten years if not more, it has been the stated policy of DCMS and its agents, including the Arts Council, to increase audience size and diversity then perhaps you’d expect funders in their guise as  ‘wholesale’ customers to be ensuring galleries were reaching more visitors? But research shows that despite subsidy rising steadily during the past decade audiences have plateaued so in effect the level of subsidy per visitor to contemporary spaces (and I should add art museums are a very different picture) has increased.

So what’s the answer?

Well, I’m not sure there’s a simple or single answer to this – and I’d welcome your views – but here’s a few I’ve been discussing with people recently:

1. Funders (and principally the Arts Council) need to hold larger* (ie. receiving over £250K per annum) contemporary visual art galleries to account about their audiences – we should understand who they are, their needs and be able to demonstrate how this informs all aspects of planning and operations.

*Smaller spaces which are about profiling emerging artists – such as Chisenhale or The Showroom – shouldn’t be expected to be reaching a wide or large audience. These are clearly incubator spaces whose audience rightly is their peers and ‘early adopters’.

2. Trustees of larger galleries, when appointing senior leaders, should check candidates are committed to engaging with audiences of all types, beyond their peers. Asking a few questions about their vision for the audience and types of relationships they might want the organisation to have with them ( as opposed to just asking about the vision for the programme) might be a start. Here’s my starter for ten. Also, Boards need to include people who understand marketing and audiences and scrutinize this aspect of the programme.

3. Those responsible for business models in the visual arts need to ensure engaging with audiences is at the heart of what we do and how we generate funds. We need more win-win (mission-money) strategies such as membership, micro-philanthropy, income generating visitor services (cafes, shops).

4. Those involved in curating and programming venues need to revisit their charitable objectives (as most are charities) and if developing understanding of the artform is part of your mission then either take that on board fully, or be honest and see if the Charity Commission will let you enjoy the tax perks for a different, more peer-focussed, mission.

5. Audience members should be willing to put our hands in our pockets if we enjoyed an exhibition rather than expecting things to be free – you don’t expect the theatre to be free so why an exhibition? They are offered free – and I hope they will continue to be – but please contribute if you want exhibitions. I never did this until recently – but I’ve started, and if this Yorkshire woman can change her penny-pinching ways then anyone can.