Engagement

How to: core approaches 

There are a myriad of tactics for overcoming the barriers people face. These barriers belong more to the arts and culture sector than to the people who currently are less likely to engage. Some things to try to start include:

• Get out and about and talk about what you to non-arts groups – in accessible language, not arts-jargon
• Ask some people who don’t currently engage to review your marketing and communications with you, and identify anything in the language, imagery or format that might be off-putting
• Emphasise this is about fun, not hard work
• Work in partnership with people who can introduce you, share networks and help people find their way to your activities, and help others get involved in shaping what you do, ensuring your communications approach does not exclude cultural activity that is meaningful to specific faith, ethnic, age or other groups that may define by identity 
• Create ways for people to connect with each other in facilitated spaces and processes
• Make it easy for people to engage on their terms, taking the risk out, is important for those not already committed. Payment upfront can be a risk or barrier for many people. Pay What You Decide models have been shown to help with this in some venues, though there is limited evidence across Creative People and Places.

Trust demolishes lots of barriers – use the tactics described in the previous section on community voice to build it

Perceptions of cultural venues and events are often a barrier. Several evaluation reports describe people who had never gone to their local theatre or gallery becoming engaged through work in non-traditional spaces, for non-traditional audiences.

Taster sessions and ‘Go Sees’ give a low-risk opportunity to engage and build confidence. The Go Sees work best when there is a trusted relationship in place to encourage some risk. (Again, this mimics in communities of low engagement what we know of communities of high engagement, where much attendance is either organised by or recommended by friends and families.) 

Dig deeper

• You can follow some individual stories of engagement in Blackpool in this report by Morris Hargreaves McIntyre: Left Coast: Journeys to Cultural Engagement
• Building Relationships with People New to the Arts shares a range of approaches to overcoming barriers to engagement
• Mapping and analysis of engagement approaches across the Creative People and Places programme by Sarah Boiling and Clare Thurman gives a comprehensive set of approaches to engagement across a wide range of Places
• You can find out more about work during the pandemic focussed on isolation and loneliness in Impact of creative & cultural activity during the pandemic on loneliness, isolation & wellbeing by Imogen Blood and associates