In recent months, the Arts Council has been working with an arts sector advisory group to answer an important question: How can we get better information about audiences for the arts from the box office data collected by dozens of different organisations around the country?

I’m happy to say that we are about to begin our pilot project. We will be working with a company specialising in this area, Compass Informatics, to collect box office data from funded organisations in receipt of Strategic Funding and Venues Funding.

Our aim is to build up a picture of arts attendance across the country, and in turn to provide our organisations with comparison reports between them and other similar arts organisations, while also helping the Arts Council to better support audience development. I have written to organisations to provide further detail on the project  this month.

I’m also delighted to tell you that booking is briskly underway for our conference, Places Matter | building inclusion in the arts, which will take place on 27 and 28 March 2019 in NUIG, as part of our partnership with local government.

This is shaping up to be an inspiring event for organisations interested in growing and diversifying their audiences and participants, and being relevant to our changing demographics.  Tickets are still available here but probably not for much longer!

With best wishes,

Orlaith McBride
Director