What is the Creative Scotland Data and Analytical services programme?
Creative Scotland appointed the Audience Agency in 2019 to provide Data & Analytical services for organisations in the arts, screen and creative industries in Scotland through an enhanced version of Audience Finder for Scotland.
How will my organisation benefit from taking part in the programme?
As the cultural industries across Scotland continue to plan a long-term recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic, the Audience Finder Data Tools are an ideal way to help create a data-driven and audience-focused return, regardless of your role within the arts.
Here are some of the key reasons why you should explore our tools further:
- Our tools – Audience Finder Original, Audience Finder Answers and Audience Finder Show Stats – are suitable for all organisations regardless of artform, size, type or location across Scotland.
- We have options available for all users, regardless of their existing data sources and your level of experience in using data and putting insight into practice.
- Over 1000 organisations contribute data to the Audience Finder Data Tools across the UK, over 50 so far in Scotland, or explore tour performance insights using Audience Show Stats. We have the largest service and dataset of its kind in the world specifically for arts organisations to utilise.
- It is completely free of charge to begin using our tools to access actionable insights. We do have some paid enhancements, but our standard free service is designed to support all organisations to begin collecting data, and see what their own audiences look like compared to those elsewhere in their region or nationally, using our free benchmarking tools.
- Our Support Team are available five days a week by phone or by email
- Even if you use similar existing tools for ticketing data analysis, or survey data collection, you can enhance this insight by applying our arts segmentation categories, Audience Spectrum, and use our unique benchmarking tools against wider arts audiences and population data.
How can I sign up to the Data and Analytical services programme?
To find out more about the program and how you can sign up, visit audiencefinder.scot.
More frequently asked questions
How is the Data and Analytical services programme delivered?
The programme is primarily delivered via The Audience Agency’s online tools Audience Finder Original, Audience Finder Answers (the next generation of audience insight in Scotland), and Audience Finder Show Stats, with additional support, training sessions and events delivered by The Audience Agency team.
The Audience Finder service is a data and development programme for cultural organisations to access, compare and apply audience insight. It combines data from all UK households with information about audience behaviour and profile to highlight opportunities for growth and change. It is an essential part of any audience development toolkit and provides useful benchmarks and reports.
Audience Finder Show Stats is an audience insight tool powered by Audience Finder, allowing touring companies and organisations to see their audiences across a full tour and performance by performance. By using Show Stats, touring organisations can create a clear picture of their audiences to create integrated marketing plans or build cases for funding and partnership work.
What are the funding requirements for Creative Scotland Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs)?
Creative Scotland requests all **Regularly Funded Organisations (RFOs)** begin contributing to Audience Finder by registering for a ticketing dashboard and fully [**artform categorising**](https://community.theaudienceagency.org/t/how-do-i-categorise-my-productions/234) their productions from the last three financial years and on an ongoing basis upon reopening from the Covid-19 pandemic. This allows organisations to explore their audience insights within their ticketed data and for their visiting touring companies to request access to their production data through [**Audience Finder Show Stats**](https://community.theaudienceagency.org/t/how-do-i-access-data-for-my-productions/214).Similarly, when applicable, organisations are encouraged to begin surveying audiences through the Audience Finder core survey for Scotland, and if appropriate and possible, undertake a retrospective survey of their pre-Covid audiences to benefit from the insight and benchmarking functionality the service allows.
Non-RFOs are also encouraged to explore the tools and services available to benefit from Creative Scotland’s investment in the programme, to help develop their own audience insight and contribute to a stronger post-Covid-19 Scottish arts sector.
Will taking part cost me time and money?
The programme is completely free for both data-contributing organisations and touring organisations to take part in and once requested, the setup process will be handled by The Audience Agency team in both a ticketing and survey capacity.
You will be requested to complete production categorisation of at least three years of historic productions if you are contributing ticketing data. Once you are set up there are no requirements on your time or for the use of the tools and services that are part of the programme – rather, they are there for you to make use of as and when you want.
Touring organisations can use Show Stats to locate and request their production data from their host venues as part of the program.
Is my organisation still part of the Data and Analytical services programme if we joined before March 2019?
If your organisation worked with previous iterations of the programme through Culture Republic, you will have benefitted from useful annual reports offering an overview of insights about your audiences.
Since The Audience Agency began delivering the programme in March 2019, newly signed up organisations have been able to use our free online tools Audience Finder Original, Audience Finder Answers and Show Stats not only to generate an overview report and ticketing/survey features like those you received in the past, but also to explore a host of tailored insights via interactive mapping, filter tools and benchmarks. In addition, you can look at your data through the lens of our powerful segmentation system Audience Spectrum.
If you are not already signed up to Audience Finder, you must do so to access the programme.