Full House: AMA Conference 2026

In this edition of Full House, Arts Marketing Association’s (AMA) Matt Ecclestone explores how this year’s conference will challenge the cultural sector to examine not just how it communicates with audiences, but how it communicates with itself 

There’s a moment that happens at almost every AMA Conference. You’re sitting in a session, coffee gently warming your hands, and someone says something that makes you feel seen. An exclamation of “yes, a hundred per cent of that!”, something you’ve been trying to articulate for months, and they have just done it in a sentence. That moment of recognition, of connection, of not being alone in doing this work. That’s what our conference exists to do, and why our time spent in Leeds next month (15–17 July) matters more now than ever. 

Together (and what that actually means) 

We’re working in a sector that talks constantly about community, belonging and connection, and yet many of us are doing it largely alone: isolated in small teams, battling the overwhelm of high targets and fielding the emotional labour of crafting our organisation’s public voice. The conference theme asks us to explore what it means to work together – as arts marketers, as organisations, as a cultural sector.  

The theme invites us to honestly examine the internal communications breakdowns, the unrealistic targets born of poor collaboration, and the quiet toll of being the person who holds the line between institution and audience day after day. If that sounds more like therapy than a marketing conference, good. At the Arts Marketing Association we know that the most useful conversations happen when people feel safe and secure. Only then are they able to be fully open and honest about their day-to-day challenges. 

Keynotes and conversations that set the agenda 

The conference opens with a keynote from Shawab Iqbal (Chief Executive at Leeds Playhouse) – a fitting choice given they’re hosting us, but an inspired one for reasons that go far beyond geography. Iqbal will explore what it means for the arts sector to create connection, trust and belonging in an increasingly fragmented society. Drawing on their experience of leading cultural work through public tension, political pressure and deeply contested conversations, Iqbal will ask how cultural organisations can hold space for complexity, difference and shared experience at a moment when communities feel more divided, disconnected and unheard than they have in a generation. 

It’s the kind of keynote that lands differently when the person delivering it is the person responsible for keeping the lights on and the doors open – the person making those difficult decisions while the outside world is often preoccupied by polarising conversations. Expect it to be honest, uncomfortable in the best way, and to set the tone for the two days that follow. 

From pressure to practice 

The programme this year aims to continue the conversation of our Together We Act (TWA) campaign that explored three key challenge areas shared by AMA members: Communicating in Polarised Times, Financial Pressures and Income Generation, and AI & Digital Confidence. As we move into an action-based solutions phase of the campaign, we want this year’s conference to be a place where delegates can exchange ideas that are working, discuss new ways forward, and be inspired by their peers. 

The research findings from Together We Act have been woven through the programme this year as we’re keen for delegates to take away learning that supports each of these challenge areas. 

Financial sustainability will be covered through a session exploring new models for income generation and audience growth. Three organisations will share their experiences tackling financial pressure from different angles: The Albany, which developed a new income stream through its Creative Communities Membership, making better use of under-used space; to Opera North, which introduced pay-what-you-can tickets to attract first-time audiences (particularly Gen Z and millennials) to opera; and Reading Rep Theatre, which scaled its marketing capacity by using freelancers rather than growing the payroll. Three different problems, three different solutions, one urgent shared context. 

The pressure to do more on lower budgets was a recurring theme in the TWA research, and Dimple Meera Jom will address this directly, sharing how she applied strategies developed in India’s arts landscape to the UK and how high creativity, lower budgets and deeply human storytelling produced sold-out shows without heavy ad spend. 

Ideas for internal comms impact 

An overarching theme from the research was that internal communications need to be improved in many cultural organisations, with a growing disconnect between departments and an increase in siloed working. It was clear that the organisations where internal comms are strong and internal messaging is shared clearly were working most effectively. 

With this in mind, Maddie Risbridger and Jo Borg from Turner Sims at the University of Southampton will share the story of their Connect Strategy – built because their Marketing and Audience Development Plan was invisible to everyone outside the marketing team. Their solution was to create a simple visual framework called the Connect Strategy Tree to help their whole organisation to better understand how everything links together. It will be a session about co-creation, about marketing as a whole-organisation endeavour rather than a single department’s concern, and homes in on what happens when you stop talking at audiences and start building relationships with them. 

Keeping it practical 

Sessions are divided into tactical, strategic and leadership levels, and the tactical strand is always crucial in offering marketing takeaways that can be immediately applied once delegates are back at their desks. In this vein, Callum Madge, Access Manager at Edinburgh International Festival, will explore something that should be keeping us all up at night: the gap between having a brilliant access offer and actually getting that information to the people who need it. Guided by their Access Panel of disabled people, the festival has developed five animations explaining their access provision, including what’s available, how to use it, and where to find out more. It’s a story about listening first, creating second, and about sharing the communication breakdowns that can still happen even when everyone’s trying their best. 

Helena Fawkes from Z-arts – the UK’s only dedicated arts centre for children and families – will be unpacking the often-messy reality of Instagram influencer marketing for family audiences. She will discuss practical tips on working with influencers, including what works, what doesn’t and what the surprising outcomes have been. Just two of many sessions in which we hear directly from cultural marketers about their on-the-ground experience.

Demonstrating your impact 

Evidencing impact is becoming ever more important in a difficult funding environment. It’s also crucial to ensure that audiences are being put at the heart of what we do. Sarah Derbyshire (Chief Executive of Orchestras Live and Arts Manager) and Nicola Dixon (East Riding of Yorkshire Council) will share what they learned piloting Social Return on Investment methodology through the Classically Yours programme, which brings orchestral music into community settings and does the hard work of translating social outcomes into economic value. For anyone who’s ever felt that evaluation fatigue is real but the pressure to prove impact is equally real, this session will offer a useful path through, sharing how to align partners around shared definitions of impact, how to map existing data onto social value frameworks, and how to ensure lived experience is placed front and centre rather than buried in the depths of a spreadsheet. 

Time away to connect 

The arts marketing community is full of people who are brilliant at making the case for other people’s work: for why a concert matters, why this performance deserves your precious child-free evening, or why this festival is worth your time and money. What we’re often not great at is being able to take the necessary time to pause, to step away from the canvas. It’s this time away from our desks that can inspire us, reinvigorate us and reconnect us to the work we love. 

 Three days with the people who understand exactly what your job requires of you. Three days of learning from colleagues who’ve tried things you haven’t, who’ve made mistakes you can now avoid, and who’ve cracked problems that are currently on your “to-do” list feeling all shades of impossible. Three days of being reminded why arts marketing matters, why the sector you’ve chosen to spend your working life in is worth fighting for, and why you are not as alone in this as the silence of your office can sometimes suggest. 

Each year we come together to connect. You’ll leave knowing more, feeling less isolated, and if you’re anything like me, with numerous conversations still whizzing round your mind on the train home. One of our core values at the AMA is “We are Human” and there’s nothing more human than being together. 

Arts Marketing Association will bring cultural marketers and leaders from across the UK together for the AMA Conference 2026. The UK’s biggest cultural marketing conference travels to Leeds from 15 to 17 July for three days of learning, connection and inspiration. 

Find out more at: a-m-a.co.uk/conference