Interests and Needs of Creators

It is also good and important for creators to know the added value of audience data. The Taskforce Audience Data wanted more insight into the needs and obstacles to better respond to them. Within the arts sector, and particularly within the performing arts, a lot of data is collected centrally or at the level of audience organizations and venues. Individual creators often have less visibility of available data, less access to this data, and often less capacity to make meaningful use of it.

One of the creators Winfred and Ezra spoke with, for example, said the following: “(…) We are always forced to shoot blindly with our publicity. We have no idea who is in the audience, who our customer is, so we cannot build customer profiles and customer loyalty.” The researchers spoke with a total of nineteen people: creators, commissioners, and experts in the field of audience data.

Recommendations

The report of the independent research - titled ‘Interests and Needs of Creators in the Field of Audience Data’ - includes many experiences and wishes. Based on this, four recommendations have been formulated:

• Facilitate and promote more collaboration between venues and creators
• Develop training and education on the use of audience data in collaboration with partners and educational institutions
• Support or initiate pilots and small-scale projects in the field of audience data
• Conduct further research to gain more insight into the audience, preferably in collaboration between venues and creators