Audience Development

Audience development that lasts beyond the project

Audience development is a long game and it is one of my two specialisms. I work with venues, theatres, galleries, museums and heritage sites who want to engage with audiences they have never reached before, and just as importantly, want those audiences to keep coming back. My job as a consultant is to come in, find out who you are already engaging with and who you are not, and put a plan together that does both, builds the new and sustains the loyal.

Most audience development teams I meet are small. Often it is one person doing 101 other things. That is exactly why a lot of clients engage me, because the work is worth it and there is rarely the in-house time to do it justice.

What I actually do on an audience development project

Every project is a little different, but the shape of the work tends to look like this.

Sit with you to understand who you are already programming for and who you would love to be programming for
Map the gap between your current audience and the audience you want
Bring in real-world insight from community leaders, schools, families and groups across the UK who will tell you what they actually want
Design the outreach plan, who we approach, when, how, with what offer
Do the outreach. I do not just hand you a strategy document and walk away. I pick up the phone, I send the emails, I meet the leaders, I disseminate the offers
Track who comes, what works, what does not, and feed it back so the next round is sharper
Help you build the systems and the relationships that mean you can keep doing this without me when the engagement ends

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Christina Rollander

A bit about how I see audiences

You cannot put an audience into a box. I have worked with families from the Black community who absolutely love opera. There was an aunt who would always find an opera to take her niece to, and her niece grew to love it as well. On paper you would not predict it, but in practice that is exactly the magic of audiences. You cannot be judgemental. You have to keep an open mind.

That is the lens I bring to every audience development project. Diversity in the widest sense. Open-minded targeting. And a real respect for the people on the other end of every invite.

Who this works best for

Audience development consultancy works particularly well if you are:

A theatre programming for the season ahead and wanting to broaden who walks through your doors
A gallery or museum mounting an exhibition that deserves a more diverse audience than your usual visitors
A heritage site wanting to engage local communities, including those whose stories are tied into the building’s history
A producer planning a tour and wanting consistent audience development support at every venue

If that sounds like you, I would love to hear what you are working on.

What you get when you work with me

A consultant who has been doing this for 25 years and is genuinely embedded in the industry
A real database of community contacts, not a list bought from somewhere
Honesty about what is realistic, what is ambitious and what will not work
Outreach activity that fills allocations, not just plans that sit on a shelf
Confidence that when I commit to bringing an audience, that audience arrives

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Christina Rollander