copyright © 1998-2007
Durham Arts Council, Inc.
120 Morris Street
Durham, NC 27701
919.560.ARTS

OR, How the Audience Development Initiative of the Durham Arts Council in Durham, North Carolina might be useful to your arts organization

The narratives, reports, instruments, and resources on this website represent the results of more than five years' work in the Research Triangle region of North Carolina to collect audience data and then enhance the marketing and audience service skills of local arts organizations. Participants developed a number innovative ideas and best practices. By means of this site we offer both anecdotal and hard evidence of trends in the behavior of arts audiences along with some practical tools that may have broad application for other arts groups across North Carolina and beyond.

How the Project Worked

In 1995 Durham Arts Council and the United Arts Council of Raleigh and Wake County invited arts organizations in the Triangle region to work together to compile and analyze the current audience for the arts as represented on their combined databases.

ArtsMarket, Inc. of Bozeman, Montana was hired to conduct the consortium study. Thirty-four organizations contributed information. The database created by this project was unprecedented. It documented the arts participation habits of some 170,000 households.

A final report based on geodemographic analysis, focus groups, and a phone survey was presented in the spring of 1996. This project set the stage for future collaboration between organizations conventionally separated by geography, audience base, funding, and size.

The study also spurred new interest in the universe of potential and known audience groups in an area that was beginning to feel the impact of major population growth. It made substantial data available to organizations who had never before had information beyond records on their immediate customers. Planning informed by audience data was now an option. The Durham Arts Council and United Arts of Raleigh and Wake County hosted follow up workshops in data base management and cultural diversity in the following year.

At the end of 1997 Durham Arts Council was awarded a Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest grant to continue the work that came to be known as the AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE (ADI). From 1998-2002, nineteen organizations have tested marketing and customer service strategies, piloted an awareness campaign, and commissioned a follow-up study.

Let Us Hear From You

We'd like to hear from you about what parts of this information are useful to you, and we welcome your questions. The arts organizations represented here also invite direct correspondence if you have further questions about the individual initiatives documented here.

Durham Arts Council, Inc.
120 Morris Street
Durham, NC 27701
919.560.ARTS

Arts Market, Inc.
112 North Black Ave., Suite A
Bozeman, MT 59715
406.582.7466

Participating Arts Organizations

Ackland Art Museum
American Dance Festival
The ArtsCenter
ArtSplosure
Carolina Ballet
Carolina Theater
Carolina Union (UNC)
Contemporary Art Museum
Duke Institute of the Arts
Duke University Museum of Art
Durham Arts Council
The Durham Symphony, Inc.
Mallarme Chamber Players
North Carolina Museum of Art
The North Carolina Symphony
PineCone
PlayMakers Repertory Company
Raleigh Little Theatre
St. Joseph's Historic Foundation, Inc.