60% of Leap into Live Music! audience from least engaged postcodes

60% of Leap into Live Music! audience from least engaged postcodes

By Liverpool Philharmonic

SUMMARY

Liverpool Philharmonic shares its experience of building relationships with audiences from disadvantaged groups through the Leap into Live Music! programme.

Background

In May 2013, as part of their 25th anniversary gifts, Paul Hamlyn Foundation announced the Paul Hamlyn Club Awards. The awards totalled £2.5 million to be shared among five UK performing arts venues.

Royal Liverpool Philharmonic was one of five organisations awarded £500,000 over five years.

The awards would allow the organisations to make significant progress in their work to attract and build relationships with audiences from disadvantaged groups within their local communities.

The aspiration was that the venues would develop models that have a long-term impact on diversifying audiences and sustaining involvement and interest. Each organisation created their own scheme, tailored to local needs and building on the strengths of their work to date.

Leap into Live Music!

Leap into Live Music! was designed to increase and sustain Liverpool Philharmonic audiences from economically disadvantaged communities in Liverpool.

The programme provides free and discounted tickets for people who have never attended a concert or event at Liverpool Philharmonic Hall. The subsidy is designed to decrease gradually over the five-year period.

Planning Leap into Live Music!

A cross organisational working group was set up in order to decide what to do and how to focus the project.

We set up two half-day sessions with staff from across the organisation inputting into the workshop. Through those sessions we identified three groups we wanted to work with more closely:

  • Families - building on the strong links through our learning programme, particularly in North Liverpool
  • Employers with a large minimum-wage or part-time workforce
  • Community groups across Liverpool City Centre through Liverpool Centre for Voluntary Services (LCVS) and beyond

We then set up the Paul Hamlyn Working Group, which involved:

  • A board representative
  • Chief Executive
  • Paul Hamlyn Club Manager
  • Director of Audiences and Development
  • Director of Learning
  • Artistic Planning Executive
  • Head of Programming
  • Box Office Manager
  • Marketing Manager

Other staff members from those departments also joined in depending on the focus of the meeting.

The group was deliberately created with high level members of staff to ensure that the programme was firmly embedded within Liverpool Philharmonic and that links to the strategic plan were strong.

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Resource type: Case studies | Published: 2016