This interim report explores the preliminary findings from thrive’s IMPACT survey, touching on the effects of the cost-of-living crisis, audiences motivations, advance bookings and more A report from thrive, the Northern Ireland charity which support arts, and heritage organisations to strengthen their relationship with audiences.

Independent research published  in June 2023 confirmed the huge contribution that Edinburgh’s Festivals make to the economic vitality of Edinburgh and Scotland. The latest study – conducted across the festivals in 2022 and surveying 22,000 people – shows that the Edinburgh Festivals continue to be Scotland’s world-leading cultural brands.

A straightforward tool to help arts and cultural organisations think about how we monitor and evaluate impact and improve our impact management. Developed by Arts & Culture Finance by nesta.

Learn about how best to integrate monitoring and evaluation into your organisation in this webinar from Arts & Culture Finance by nesta.

A theory of change (also known as a logic model) is the backbone for the strategy of any organisation. A comprehensive guide and template by Arts & Culture Finance by nesta.

A review of the barriers museums face in their digital work – from content production to building new websites, from setting up interactives to fundraising online. An Art Fund report with the Museums Association, One Further and Cultural Associates, Oxford.

A DCMS commissioned report that outlines ways to strengthen cultural sector data to help ascertain its value and contribution to UK economy and society, enabling effective policy development. By MyCake, in association with the Audience Agency.

Part of the Future Trends series, published as part of the Warwick UK Cities of Culture Project and commissioned by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The term ‘social value’ has increasingly been used within the cultural sector to categorise a way in which the arts impact individuals and groups. This paper provides a cross-disciplinary ... Read more

In March 2019 The Audience Agency delivered a series of evaluation workshops for libraries, commissioned by the DCMS Libraries Taskforce and supported by Arts Council England.  Four workshops were delivered across England; in the North West, North East, South West, and London / South East regions.  This Resource Pack brings together the evaluation workshop slide ... Read more

Today, the very existence of our organisations has audiences at its heart. Whether through choice or originally through circumstance, audiences have become part of our business model but more importantly they have to be part of our philosophy. How do we develop audiences now and how we might do it in the future? How can we ... Read more

Increasingly, cultural organisations and commercial sponsors are evaluating the impact of their partnerships – the return on investment. This factsheet explains the indicators – the outputs, outcomes and impacts that can be measured and evaluated during the life of a sponsorship partnership. It includes four case studies in different sectors of the arts.

The arts have a much richer role to play within a modern, competitive and sustainable business environment. This guide sets out how arts organisations can create new relationships with businesses and achieve a more varied set of outcomes.

Arts & Business has developed a framework to measure the benefits of arts-business partnerships. Two case studies demonstrate how the framework measures inputs, outputs and community and business impacts.

This paper by Dr Dennie Palmer Wolf and Dr Steven Holochwost from US cultural consultancy WolfBrown draws on new understandings of creativity, as well as a number of WolfBrown projects, to suggest that a focus on building creative capital is a powerful way to think about planning for, executing, and measuring the impact of the ... Read more

How can arts organisations measure if they have an influence on the quality of life that they might want? In this keynote speech we are shown a participative process in six stages that makes any impact visible and recognises the intangible value of arts activity and its contribution to the quality of life.

With plenty of anecdotal evidence of the benefits of the arts, this is a detailed account of a study exploring how it is possible to measure how people might be changed by an arts experience. Alan Brown discusses the design of the study, data collection, the results (intellectual stimulation, spiritual value) and the implications for ... Read more

Organisations are more readily working in partnership to create various initiatives and approaches to improve health and well-being.  Whilst cultural organisations are committed to this there is a need to evidence the impact and efficacy of work with health sector organisations. This publication is split into three sections. The first includes a model of well-being ... Read more

Is strong leadership from the cultural sector the key to changing attitudes and behaviours in relation to the environment? This paper articulates the challenge faced by those working in cultural organisations to raise awareness of the issues surrounding climate change, and to generate programmes of work that can make a real difference to the ways ... Read more

Assessing the Intrinsic Impacts of a Live Performance is an effort to define and measure how audiences are  transformed by a live performance. The study’s research design consisted of a pair of questionnaires – one administered in-venue just prior to curtain, and the other sent home with the respondent and mailed back. The first questionnaire collected information about the ... Read more

This report looks at the impact of the folk festival and provides some key findings about festival goers, funding, programming, partnerships and ticketing.