Symposium on Audience Research
Date: Thursday 14 September 2017
Location: School of Performance and Cultural Industries, University of Leeds
Event information
The International Network for Audience Research in the Performing Arts held a symposium in the School of Performance and Cultural Industries at the University of Leeds on Thursday 14th September 2017. The symposium comprised of keynote speeches from Professor Lynne Conner (University of North Carolina at Charlotte) and Alan Brown (Principal, WolfBrown) and featured academic and practitioner papers as well as panels and other interactive sessions which illustrated audience research methods in use.
The overarching theme of the event was Innovative methods of researching audiences. Time was dedicated to discussing emerging methods and the impact that approaches from disciplines beyond the arts and humanities can have on audience research.
To see photos from the day (Photos by Simon and Simon Photography)
To see recordings and transcripts from the day
Keynotes
- Opening keynote – Alan Brown: Audience research gone wild
- Closing keynote – Lynne Conner: Getting to a culture of arts talk: a call to arms
Invited speakers and papers
- Amanda Dalton (Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester) and Rachel Clements (University of Manchester)
You, The Audience: From punter to collaborator: how arts venues might change their relationship with audiences and why they might want to try - Lianne Pelletier (Laurentian University)
Audiences as seen beyond the sociodemographic divide: encounters with dissonant arts consumers - Steven Hadley, Orian Brook (University of Edinburgh) and Oliver Mantell (The Audience Agency) on Theorising big data and quantitative methods in the art
- Hilary Glow, Katya Johanson and Anne Kershaw (Deakin University, Melbourne)
Diversifying Audiences in the Performing Arts: Easy to say, Hard to Do - Echo Fan (University of Leeds)
Sojourning: a study of audience experience of Chinese theatre in the UK - Matthew Reason (York St. John University)
Where in your body? Digital platforms and playful questions in online audience research - Jutta Toelle (Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics, Frankfurt)
Approaches to (experimental) audience research: An introduction to studies undertaken at the MPI for Empirical Aesthetics - Sarah Astill (University of Leeds)
Physiological methods for evaluating community dance projects (a research initiative with Yorkshire Dance) - Bridgette Wessels (Newcastle University), David Forrest (University of Sheffield), Andrew Higson (University of York), Huw Jones (University of York/Southampton), Peter Merrington (Newcastle University), Michael Pidd (University of Sheffield), Liz Robson (Newcastle University), Simeon Yates (Liverpool University) with Film Hub North
Innovative methodology for researching audiences of specialised film in English regions - Kirsty Sedgman (University of Bristol) and Martin Barker (Aberystwyth University)
Developing Quali-quantitative Research Designs: Why and How - Stephanie Pitts and Sarah Price (University of Sheffield)
Researching with arts networks: shaping questions, sharing knowledge - Charlotte Gilmore (University of Edinburgh) and Celia Duffy (Royal Conservatoire of Scotland)
Knowledge and Knowhow: a qualitative research toolbox for small- and medium-sized creative organisations