How do we experiment with audiences when we’ve got no live work to experiment  on? #ADA

At Tête à Tête, our main work is producing our annual festival of new operas in the Summer, with over 30 of them this year alone. The rest of the year is largely devoted to  tidying up that Festival (usually in the autumn), fundraising and planning (usually in the winter), and then helping all the composers, librettists, directors, conductors, singers, instrumentalists, technicians, and everyone else get ready for their bit of the Festival (usually in the spring and early summer), as well as our own productions in the North East, Cornwall, and the Royal College of Music in the Spring. 

Anna and I’s Audience Diversity Academy Fellowship runs from about September to about March, but our festival and other shows are not on at this time of year. 

Readers who are paying attention may notice that means we don't have any physically-present audience during the Fellowship. So, what can we do to make a Scrappy Experiment? 

Disadvantages: we have no building, office, or other permanent space or ongoing programme that we can make more diverse. We’re a pretty digital company, and that means that all the in-person connections that can overcome barriers to access get a bit lost in cyberspace. 

Advantages: we can make some breathing room and we have our whole team on board. 

While lots of other organisations in the ADA have to slowly blend in new initiatives as a part of continuous work, we have a gap. In that gap, we can reflect on what we want to do better, and work out how we’re going to make it a reality. 

So (and this will probably be what I talk about in the next blog), we’re able to take some time to chat to people about what draws them to our shows, what stops them coming, and what would make them come. And then we’ll have time before the Festival to do something about it. 

I hope. 

Leo Doulton (Digital Content and Promotion) and Anna Gregg (Administrative Director ) at Tête à Tête