Ask the right questions

Horse + Bamboo’s latest show Red Riding Hood has been touring theatre venues throughout the UK and Ireland since September. It has been a great success having been seen by over 10,000 people; unfortunately I do not know who many of them are. I can know how many attendees were children or adults, whether they bought their tickets in advance or simply walked in on the day, even their postcodes in some cases, but being able to contact them directly is apparently a step too far.

The difficulties posed by data protection – a term wielded to keep me from knowing the full details of our audience – are a constant frustration in marketing a touring company. I have asked programmers, marketing managers and CEOs alike why they would not trust me with that data. For some it is not an issue of trust, it is the wrongly held belief that data protection prevents them from sharing. As a sector we need to get more intelligent in how we ask for data.

At The Civic, in Barnsley the small print states: ‘We will add or retain your details to keep you informed about future events, special offers and other developments. If you do not wish to receive further information from us or other approved parties, please mention at the time of booking.’ These four key words, ‘or other approved parties,’ could change the world for touring companies. The law on data protection does not stop venues sharing data, asking the wrong question does. Would audiences stop giving their data if you ask to be allowed to share it, specifically with the company they saw? A few perhaps, but the value of asking is far greater than those few, in my view.

Having said this, my personal approach to data has changed recently. I came to realise that 10,000 names and addresses is a massive database to manage and, time pressured as we all are, I am not sure I could make best use of it. I have instead worked hard to make sure we have good relationships with marketing staff in the venues we visit and that they have access to all the materials I can provide. We are producing a strand of children’s work that allows for audience development and we return regularly to the same venues. They know me, they know the company, and their audiences do too.

In times when audiences are considering so very carefully every visit they make and every penny they spend, we need to work much more strategically in our approaches to them. In the alphabet soup of ACE’s KPIs for NPOs (Arts Council England’s Key Performance Indicators for National Portfolio Organisations), one which has survived the simplification process is: ‘Implement an improved method for audience data collection and interpretation.’

As a sector we will need to work more intelligently together to do that.