Why? – discovering the secrets of public behaviour and the arts
29-31 July 2008 at The Sage Gateshead
In partnership with The Guardian, The Observer, guardian.co.uk
Sponsored by tickets.com
Supported by Arts Council England
The 2008 AMA conference will focus on public behaviour and the arts and on finding out what makes someone choose to take part in a particular arts activity and what makes someone else decide not to.
The challenge for the arts and cultural sector is that many people attend for a mix of different reasons and this conference will aim to help delegates understand the complexity of audiences / visitors / participants in 2008 and beyond. How is public behaviour changing, and how might we start to respond? The answer will also change over time, it is not static – people change, attitudes change, competition for their leisure time changes, technology changes. Arts organisations need to learn how to read and understand 'why' people engage or don't engage with their work on an ongoing basis if they are to continue to exist and thrive.
A great range of inspiring speakers will help delegates to develop a better understanding of their own audiences, visitors and participants and will enable them to go back to their organisations with ideas about how to use this understanding to develop audiences / visitors for the arts. Keynote speakers include Anne Lise Kjaer from Kjaer Global, Helen Marriage from Artichoke, Jeannie Arthur from FreshMinds and Mark Whiting from Moët Hennessy. The keynote presentations will be complemented by over 15 different seminar sessions at a range of different levels from introductory, to strategic, to conceptual level discussion and debate. The full programme is available at http://www.a-m-a.org.uk/conference08_programme.asp.
500 people are already coming to conference from a variety of arts and cultural organisations – not just arts marketers. For the delegate list, prices, social events and more information, please go to http://www.a-m-a.org.uk/conference08.asp.