The Arts Marketing Association is the professional body for arts marketers in the UK with a membership of over 1,000. Each year members from across the country meet to discuss new ideas, share best practise and set the agenda for future development in arts management. This year the venue was Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the theme was collaboration. For three days at the end of July, over 400 delegates descended on Birmingham for keynote speeches, intense debate – and some serious networking!
Here are reports on some of the sessions attended by Shirley, Helen or Ruth during the conference:
The Conference opened on Thursday 26th July with keynote presentations by Andrew Wilson, Director of the Ashridge Research Centre for Business and Society and Anne Millman, co-Director of McCann Matthews Millman.
The Ashridge Research Centre conducts major research programmes investigating issues of global business ethics; social and environmental reporting; the convergence of values across public, private and voluntary sectors; and the changing nature of corporate social responsibility.
McCann Matthews Millman originally provided marketing consultancy and training for arts organisations and now encompasses policy development, business planning, research and management services in the cultural and voluntary sectors both nationally and internationally.
Andrew Wilson gave an overview on how to make partnerships work from a non-arts perspective. His starting point was ‘Why bother?’ – partnerships can be time-consuming and troublesome (and we’re going to avoid mentioning marriage here, at all costs!). The key issues were:
The main point Andrew was making was that partnerships are about process not outcome and often require different people, skills and commitment at different times. In order to be successful a partnership must go through 5 stages:
1) Formation
Identify the imperative for any initiative and the key stakeholders, clear define the reasons for getting involved and tackle the three ‘P’s’ - provenance (the history behind the issues); purpose (what the partnership would be trying to achieve); and participation (who else should be involved). It’s vital to understand stakeholders from both sides e.g. who wants to see it fail as well as who wants to see it succeed.
2) Vision Building
Agree a common purpose that is aspirational – the effort must be worthwhile. The enduring vision is the reference point throughout the initiative.
3) Designing the Structure
Establishing the operational process it is vital to:
4) Delivering results
Articulate specific targets and objectives – some of which should be achievable early on in order to increase motivation. It is important to communicate successes and recognise contributions to achieving results. Recommend SMART targets – specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, time-framed.
5) Exit Strategy
Partnerships shouldn’t outlive their purpose but should be continually benchmarked against the vision. Successful collaborations leave a legacy.
Anne Millman, who is project managing the two-year benchmarking study of audiences in the South West led by South West Arts and SWAM, presented case studies of successful collaborations in the arts and proposed that collaboration in the arts were a question of pragmatism rather than opportunism – shared resources got things done not funders reward collaboration.
The biggest collaborative initiative in the arts has been the BBC Music Live Project and the results of the research showed a remarkable 60% were first time attenders “at that kind of music” whilst 22% had never been to a live music event before. The primary motivation for attendance was that it 2was there2, immediate and accessible. 48% of attenders believed it would encourage them to experiment with different kinds of music events in the future.
Anne’s key issues for a successful collaboration are:
Collaborations amongst arts organisations are a reality for the foreseeable future. By entering into partnerships with an understanding of the issues and a clear sense of commitment, the results can be more than worth the investment.
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