Stage Exchange was a four-year programme of work managed jointly by Audiences Yorkshire and Arts Council England, Yorkshire. The project was funded initially for three years from 2002 to 2005. In May 2005 additional funding was provided for a further twelve months. In essence, the purpose of Stage Exchange was to enhance partnerships between companies and venues in Yorkshire to achieve shared goals in artistic, organisational and audience development.

Following the Stage Exchange project, the event The Exchange: Building the bridge between audiences and new work brought together experts and professionals from across the arts and performing arts sectors to explore the relationship between artistic excellence and audience engagement.

Presentations and resources from the day can be downloaded below.

Heather Maitland: Arts Consultant and Independent Evaluator of the Stage Exchange project - download Heather's presentation here

Snapshot: Heather's presentation examines the key findings of the Stage Exchange project

Keynote presentation 1: Marcus Romer, Artistic Director, Pilot Theatre and Stage Exchange partner - download Marcus's presentation here

Snapshot:  Marcus's presentation explored the concept of audience engagement and how it has been transformed through the development of social networking.

Closing the Data Gap: Mark Hazell, Marketing and Publicity Director, Theatre Royal Norwich and Roger Tomlinson, Senior Arts Consultant, ACT Consultant Services - download Mark and Roger's presentation here

Snapshot:  Mark and Roger's presentation discussed data sharing between arts organisations and how it can bring many benefits including increased knowledge and understanding of audience behaviour, greater honesty and trust, and more fulfilling partnerships. There are many justifications for not sharing data such as “the Data Protection Act”, “We haven't got permission” “We're in competition with you” “We're worried about what you'll do with it”, “Our Chief Exec won't let me”.  This session will explored why sharing data is a good thing in theory and practice and explained some of the issues, misconceptions, pitfalls and results involved.

Equal Footing: Audiences Yorkshire Big Picture Theatre Benchmarking Project: Anna Dunne, Membership and Consultancy Services Director, Haley Roe, Research Consultant, Audiences Yorkshire and Nick Boaden, Head of Marketing, West Yorkshire Playhouse - download the Equal Footing presentation here

Snapshot: Taking Audiences Yorkshire’s ‘Big Picture’ project, which has benchmarked the box office data of 12 of the largest theatres in Yorkshire and the Humber over the past three years, this session discussed benchmarking for arts and cultural organisations. From the point of view of both researchers and cultural organisations when benchmarking this session explored:

• why benchmarking data is strategically important
• what the benchmarking process actually involves
• and how the findings can be used to develop both audiences and organisations

Relevant articles, publications and resources

Arts Council England: Theatre Assessment Overview, August 2009 - download here

Snapshot: Arts Council England embarked on a Theatre Assessment to gather an up-to-date picture of theatre in England. In particular, they looked to identify changes that had occurred in the theatre sector and its environment since theTheatre Review of 2001 and the additional £25 million that ACE invested in theatre organisations from 2003 onwards.

Arts Council England: Encourage children today to build the audiences for tomorrow, March 2009 - download here

Snapshot: This report provides evidence from the Taking Part survey on how childhood involvement in the arts affects arts engagement in adulthood.

Arts Council England: Arts engagement in England from 2005/06 to 2007/08, September 2009 - download here 

Snapshot: This document examines the findings  from the first three years of the Taking Part survey.

How to get to know your potential attenders using Area Profile Reports - download here

Snapshot: A guide to using Area Profile Reports to understand your potential attenders.

Understand your Audiences using Arts Audiences: Insight - download here

Snapshot: A guide to using Arts Audiences: Insight (Arts Council England's market segmentation model that is focused on the Arts sector) to get to know your audiences. 

Pilot Theatre podcast following the event - listen here

Snapshot:  Members of staff from Pilot Theatre who attended the event briefly interviewed delegates during the day about what they thought about the day so far. 

Notes from the roundtable delegate discussions - download here