I want to be completely clear about my message here. You could read The Stage article and think I'm suggesting the sector does not need to a) bother with, or b) evidence social impact. To my very core I wholly believe in the social impact of the arts and working with new partners to make the world a better place. My point is that as it stands, we have to do far more evidencing, to retain less funding. And the 'evidencing' bit is near impossible to do properly if you don't have the infrastructure, skills set, or capacity to do it.
When I was touring Universities with my son last year, looking at performance degrees of varying types, the pitch from all of them was basically "don't worry, when it comes to the business planning module, we skim over it".
We have exceptional leadership development provision and that shouldn't change as it produces brilliant thought leadership, but we get zero opportunities to jump on a 1 day AI in the Arts course, or a Data Analytics course because the only money left in training budgets is needed for safeguarding and first aid.
I attended a major industry conference last year where the topic of conversation was (still 🙄 ) the lack of data sharing between venues and touring companies. Not a single person mentioned AI and the seismic shifts it could bring to the industry. And AI could probably write the audience development strategy the touring company need the data to help them write. So...
At every level there is a systemic failiure to support freelancers and organisations to upskill themselves in a way that helps them keep up with the demands placed on them by a rapidly changing external environment. It just feels like we're facing the wrong way.
Our executive director Amy Vaughan has spoken out about the lack of leadership development training to help arts organisations demonstrate their social impact so that they can obtain vital funding.
At a panel hosted at the National Theatre last week, Amy spoke about the urgent need for upskilling in data analysis in the sector so that cultural spaces can stay afloat.
Read more about Amy’s position in The Stage Media Company Ltd here.
https://lnkd.in/diw42hja
Congrats! Love WDRB! ❤️