What’s driving conversations in arts marketing? In the Arts Marketing Association’s (AMA) first Full House, Matt Ecclestone, Communications Lead, brings you sector insights – from bold campaigns to ticketing innovation
Welcome to the first edition of Full House – a new space where we’ll share the latest ideas, challenges and innovations shaping arts marketing today. So it’s only right that we introduce ourselves. The Arts Marketing Association (AMA) is the UK’s only membership organisation dedicated to supporting and advocating for the marketing community across arts, culture and heritage. We represent more than 4,400 arts marketers and leaders, helping them to develop their marketing expertise, connect with their audiences and thrive in their work.
Each edition of Full House will see us exploring trends, pressing challenges and interesting conversations from the world of arts marketing. At the AMA, we believe organisations should place their audiences at the heart of all they do. So we want to discuss ways you can connect with audiences to fill seats, warm hearts and energise minds.
To get us started, I’m going to delve into some key talking points that emerged from our annual conference in July, this year held in Edinburgh. We saw close to 700 arts professionals join us in-person and online for two-and-a-half days exploring the theme of “Amplify”.
Every year at the conference, it’s wonderful to feel the buzz in the air. It reinvigorates our members when they come together to learn, swap their successes, chat about challenges and exchange ideas. It’s a stage for our members’ achievements and a platform to hear from those inside and outside the cultural sector. As always, there were more takeaways shared than on a bustling Saturday night. Here’s a selection:
“Broad is bland. Bland doesn’t change things.”
Amber Kirby, Marketing Director at Channel 4, spoke about her career journey from steering customer experience and marketing at big brands like Eurostar and Boots to becoming the Marketing Director of Channel 4. She has taken risks from creating CGI tattoos on children in a suncream advert, to sparking national conversations about disability when promoting the Paralympics. At each step, there were critics. She encouraged us to “embrace the haters” – to understand them, use their feedback to improve and push the envelope. Her message was to be brave, trust our gut instinct and avoid the middle lane by getting “out there” and learning from our audiences. By understanding those critics, it’s much easier to improve or turn a bad situation around when something goes wrong.
“Be the artistic director of your online experience.”
Lucy Fox and Kaasam Aziz from Matthew Bourne’s New Adventures were stuck in a social media doom loop of chasing trends and accommodating endless post requests from across their organisation. They decided they needed to make a change, and after much research and discussion, they created three content pillars to apply to their Instagram: Why, What, and How. The goal of Why was to reach new audiences. What focuses on encouraging action and converts the audience to do something with the content posted. How aims to build community by showing the dance-theatre company’s values and driving engagement.
Evaluation shifted, with measurement based on percentages and how they are contributing to different organisational goals, rather than traditional metrics of views and likes. Why content is now measured by the percentage of non-followers engaging with posts, what content is measured by post saves and click-throughs, and how content is measured by meaningful comments (liberal use of love hearts and fire emojis don’t count!). What resonated the most with me was the importance they placed on internal communications, and the need for the pillars to be at the core of your organisation’s being and your team’s language to become second nature. Couple that with their move away from vanity social media stats towards a framework tied to business objectives, and you have a clear route to getting buy-in.
“People who look like they can pay full price often can’t.”
During a pricing panel, Jan McTaggart from Byre Theatre highlighted how in 2025 it has become much harder to establish who is struggling financially and is eligible for reduced tickets. You could be a parent in a nice neighbourhood using food banks after a difficult divorce, a long-standing resident of a now pricey postcode who is on pension credit and unable to heat their home, or an architect who has emigrated and is driving an Uber while they retrain. Eligibility is particularly tough for the theatre to identify as it is based in the affluent Scottish town of St. Andrews. First impressions can be deceiving, and a high average income makes the wealth gap to those from low-income backgrounds even more extreme.
McTaggart had the determination to drive through her long-held view that “Pay what you can” ticketing was the way forward. A three-option pricing framework was created with a low, mid and top rate that would vary depending on the show. The mid ticket was usually only £2 more than the lowest rate, with the top rate tending to be at least £5 more than the cheapest rate. The key to this framework was continued testing, refining and a great deal of scenario planning for each ticketing value.
A successful combination of clear evidence and McTaggart’s passion helped to win over the theatre’s directors. The theatre’s average yield has increased since “Pay what you can” began in 2022, with an overall average attendance increase and a rise in the number of first-time bookers per event. This was a successful outcome, and a couple of further points also resonated with me.
Firstly, the need for us all to be truly honest about the barriers to attending, many of which may not be within our own lived experience. Secondly, that “it’s pay what you can, not pay what you want”. It’s a small shift but one that reinforces that yes, it’s the audience’s choice; but it’s one based on real need, not what you think the experience is worth.
