Conference 2022: Programme

A New Adventure

Birmingham, 14-15 July 2022

The AMA Conference programme brings you an opportunity to explore and discover.

The programme is built to reinvigorate purpose, inspire your work and help you plot new routes to your goals.

This year we will be exploring:

Bringing audiences with you on your adventure — from the challenges being faced to making your organisation truly accessible
Responsible adventuring — including sustainability and equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI)
Adventurous ways of working — focusing on career development and achieving key goals
Adventures in the online realm — from new trends to case studies of inspiring campaigns
Plus much, much more

We’re currently putting together a jam-packed timetable for you, which you can explore below. We will be sharing further sessions in the run up to July.

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A Night In at the Theatre — building digital theatre experience

When lockdown hit Original Theatre had to move fast and get their closing shows online. Over 2 years later, with 40,000 users and 18,000 strong mailing list, Original Theatre Online are in the process of building their very own online theatre experience for users.

This session explores their journey and how we might take digital theatre forward in 2022 and beyond.

Session Souvenirs:
— Ideas on how to market digital theatre
— Examples of building digital theatre platforms
— An exploration of where to go next when working in a digital space

Session Guide:
Emma Martin, Head of Marketing, Original Theatre

Creating Wonder at Jodrell Bank — an adventure in branding

This session explores how the team at Jodrell Bank harnessed the sense of wonder the iconic landmark instils to inspire their visitors.

From finding the perfect agency, to all-staff Zoom workshops about shared values and 3D maps of the telescope’s colossal structure resulting in a bold new narratve and an out-of-this-world visual identity.

Session Souvenirs:
— An overview of a branding journey from start to finish
— An understanding of the value of a core narrative
— Tips on how to bring everyone with you on your adventure

Session Guide:
Amy Bishop, Marketing Manager, Jodrell Bank

Diversity and Inclusion — the bottom line

This case study explores Wolverhampton Grand’s ground-breaking Ambassadors programme, which has resulted in a vital shift in audience demographics.

The programme has impacted the way budgets are allocated and how income is generated — and will continue to impact their future planning.

This session is best suited to delegates thinking strategically about widening audiences.

Session Souvenirs:
— An example of how to achieve true audience diversity and not tokenism
— An outline of the benefits of including audience development as a continuous part of your overall business strategy
— Tips on how to engage your entire workforce

Session Guides:
Vicky Price, Associate Director Audiences and Communication, Wolverhampton Grand Theatre

Hardish Virk, Audience and Organisational Development Consultant

Growing Communities

The Community Champions project was developed in the height of the pandemic to understand appropriate ways to prevent and control the spread of COVID-19 including social isolation support, Test and Trace, social distancing, rumour dismantling and importantly vaccine take up.

The vaccine rollout was the biggest and most complex vaccination programme in UK history. So what can we learn? This session will explore how the WHO Report on Vaccine Hesitancy, and the Community Champions model, provides a useful framework for building engagement with local people.

Session Souvenirs:
— Ways to be a better listener to communities
— Practical solutions to overcoming barriers to engaging with local people
— An understanding of how the WHO Report on Vaccine Hesitancy (Confidence, Complacency and Convenience) can apply to community engagement for the arts

Session Guide:
Sian Booth, Cultural Services Manager, Mansfield District Council (Mansfield Museum and Mansfield Palace Theatre)

Exploring Balance in Arts Marketing

Since lockdown, we’ve had to adapt our craft in order to ensure engagement and profit, but how can we create a more holistic workstyle in terms of arts marketing?

This interactive session invites you to take part in a new approach to analysing marketing campaigns, work practise and self-care.

Session Souvenirs:
— Tips on how to collaborate with other marketers at a variety of different levels
— Confidence to be adventurous with your ambitions, focus on your campaign’s strengths and overview their weaknesses
— An arts marketer’s manifesto

Session Guide:
Holly Adomah Thompson, Tour Marketing and Community Engagement Manager, Shakespeare’s Globe

The A-Z of Library Touring, Starting with B for Blackburn

This case study explores how Culturapedia diversified their output due to local government cuts, and found their core focus in library touring.

Beginning with their first foray into arts programming in libraries and ending with their development of new digital and print services post covid, they will share their insights into developing new audiences in an area of the UK heavily under invested in by public arts funding; challenging notions about quality, ticketing and hyper local marketing.

Session Souvenirs:
— Insights into developing audiences for arts events by simply going where the audiences are
— Top tips for cultivating library audiences by challenging notions about quality,
ticketing and hyper local marketing
— Examples of how to market a show when you have no venue, no box office, no marketing team and 150 flyers

Session Guide:
Lyndsey Wilson, Company Manager, Culturapedia

Beyond Marketing — improving diversity among your audiences

This session explores how to develop inclusive, anti-racist practices into events and related marketing from the start of a project.

Power of Stories is an ongoing adventure for all involved. It’s attracting diverse and minority communities because of the genuine intention and curatorial transparency behind the exhibition. This challenging (for the curators) approach engaged the Black community from the planning stages, so the marketing / PR was widely shared within and by a diverse community.

Session Souvenirs:
— Deeper knowledge of how to co-create with diverse audiences
— An understanding of how to weave anti-racism into marketing and PR
— An example of how arts can be inclusive, from curation to PR

Session Guide:
Elma Glasgow, Director, Aspire Black Suffolk CIC

The Travel Guide to your Perfect Website

Creating a new website, or updating an existing one, can seem like a daunting undertaking. This practical session will break down the steps and help you plot out your journey from planning to completion.

The session will be packed with practical advice that can be applied to projects of any scale, size and budget. Plus plenty of top-tips on free or low-cost tools you can use to help navigate your way and bring stakeholders on the journey.

Session Souvenirs:
— An understanding of the key staging posts in developing the perfect website
— Tips on how to take your key stakeholders on the journey with you
— Examples of how to travel light and create a greener, more sustainable website

Session Guides:
Nick Kime, Project Manager — Websites, Cog Design

This session is sponsored by Cog Design.

Setting The Old Vic up for a Successful Season

The Old Vic approached After Digital in 2021 following their closure due to Covid-19, looking for a digital partner that could support their marketing efforts through paid search.

This session outlines how After Digital harnessed pay-per-click (PPC) activity to achieve an overall return on ad spend, and delves into how in-depth account audits can identify quick wins that have a huge impact on results.

Session Souvenirs:
— An understanding of why PPC audits are important and what they can help you discover
— Ideas for harnessing PPC campaigns to support your marketing
— Ways to utilise your budgets effectively across campaigns and channels to maximise conversions

Session Guide:
Lynn Aitchison, Head of Marketing, After Digital

This session is sponsored by After Digital.

Experience is Everything

Bringing your audiences along for the ride

If we’re bringing our audiences along with us on a journey, we need to consider when that journey starts and how we guide people through it — and make sure we’re not leaving anyone behind. 

The welcome we provide should add to our guest’s experience, rather than just fulfilling the functional necessities. But how can we make sure organisational priorities don’t take precedence over what’s best for visitors? With practical tips and strategies, we’ll look at how to create an experience that will keep your audiences coming back. After all, the first visit is just the start of their adventure.

Session Souvenirs:
— Ways to identify aspects of visiting your organisation that need attention, using a visitor-first perspective
— Tips on getting the whole organisation on board
— Advice on where technology can help (and where it can’t)

Session Guide:
Hugh Topping, Founder, crowdEngage

This session is sponsored by crowdEngage.

Why are you Measuring That?

This session will cut through the hundreds of data points your organisation is currently collecting and help you focus on the few that matter.

Together you will whittle them down into three clear categories to see if you are growing, converting, and retaining your audiences.

Session Souvenirs:
— An understanding of the right metrics for your organisation
— Ways to align performance with your strategic goals
— A map of the next steps needed to bring your data together

Session Guide:
James Akers, Data Analytics and Insight Tech Champion, Digital Culture Network

This session is brought to you by Digital Culture Network.

A Voyage into the Metaverse

How is the arts and cultural sector preparing for the future?

The Metaverse represents a new frontier for the internet. This session will bring delegates up to date with what has been happening in the Metaverse so far, explore where real progress is happening in our industry now and look ahead to what is inevitably coming.

Venturing into the Metaverse is the ultimate adventure.

Session Souvenirs:
— An overview of what the Metaverse is and how it connects with arts and culture
— Real case studies from arts organisations that have experience with Web 3.0 technology
— Insights into how other arts marketers are evaluating the potential impact of the Metaverse from a recent survey

Session Guide:
Hans de Kretser, Director, HdK Associates

This session is sponsored by HdK Associates.

A Website is a Journey, not a Destination

When it comes to your website’s purchase path, it can be a bit like building your own adventure. How can you make use of your CRM system and other tools to streamline your customer journey and strengthen audience and donor engagement?

This session will focus on real world examples of best practice fundamentals and some more advanced approaches to maximising revenue and engagement during the booking process.

Session Souvenirs:
— Examples of great online customer journeys that don’t break the bank
— An understanding of how to interrogate what best practice might look like for your organisation
— Inspiration to build a successful business case for investment in your web experience

Session Guides:
Nina Primeraki, Client Integrations Lead, Spektrix

This session is sponsored by Spektrix.

Effective User Research with Limited Resources

The best digital experiences are created with a clear understanding of who they’re for, so user research is crucial.

This session will cover some of the ways you can gather effective user insights with limited resources, including practical guidance around the different methodologies you can use.

Session Souvenirs:
— An understanding of what user research is, why it’s important and how it can benefit you
— Knowledge of some qualitative and quantitative research methodologies that can be used to start doing effective user research
— Realistic and achievable ways to carry out user research despite limited time and money

Session Guide:
Steph Clark, Strategy Lead, Substrakt

This session is sponsored by Substrakt.

Why you should Get Rid of your “What’s On” Page

“What’s On” is a ubiquitous phrase on venue websites. If it’s not in the main navigation, it’s somewhere else on the homepage. But is “What’s On” actually useful to users, or is it something we include out of habit?

In this session, we’ll look at how some recent websites are moving past “What’s On” and towards a more modern way of connecting users with events they care about — and selling more tickets in the process.

Session Souvenirs:
— An understanding of the limitations of the “What’s On”section
— Practical alternatives to a “What’s On”section
— A set of principles for coming up with new alternatives for your own website

Session Guide:
Andrew Ladd, Project Manager, Ten4 Design

This session is sponsored by Ten4 Design.

Adventures in Forecasting

Deciphering audience clues through a new lens

As arts marketers, we often use historical data to model and forecast future revenue. But, with pandemic effects still lingering, how do we plan for the future when the present bears little resemblance to the past?

This session explores why analysis of previous data trends remains crucial to understanding how to engage with audiences moving forward. At the same time, it outlines why success might mean examining traditional behaviour metrics through a new lens.

Session Souvenirs:
— A high-level overview of audience and visitor behaviour trends during 2021, as well as early trends seen across our industry this year, based on benchmarking results from a pilot group of Tessitura members in the EU
— An understanding of why it’s important to evaluate traditional customer roadmaps to address new patron behaviours
— A three-pronged forecasting approach to use at your organisation

Session Guide:
Rachael Easton, Business Development Director — EU, Tessitura Network

This session is sponsored by Tessitura Network.

Your Website vs. the Planet

The content you share on your website directly impacts its carbon footprint. And, as we share more content digitally, grow audiences, and experiment with digital events — our digital carbon footprints are getting bigger.

Supercool have analysed a number of cultural organisations’ websites over the past few weeks — assessing their environmental impact through a series of 1-to-1 consultancy sessions.

In this session we’ll share our key learnings, shining examples, and practical ideas to help you reduce the negative impact your website has on the planet.

Session Souvenirs:
— Easy to implement ways to make your website greener — no need for technical changes
— An understanding of some of the technical things that can be done to make your website more environmentally sustainable
— Examples of how cultural organisations are reducing the negative environmental impact of their websites, while still engaging audiences

Session Guide:
Kate Mroczkowski, Strategy Director, Supercool

James Coleman, Managing Director, Supercool

This session is sponsored by Supercool.

Are Institutions Equipped for the Modern Internet?

Are cultural institutions too static to survive in the chaos of the internet? Digital tools and platforms have given communities the power to produce, share and celebrate their own heritage and culture — often completely ignoring galleries, libraries, archives and museums.

Using insights from the Cultural Participation Monitor and the National Lottery Heritage Fund’s Democratising Archives project, this session will explore the future of the internet for cultural institutions.

Session Souvenirs:
— An overview of how cultural participation is being redefined online
— An understanding of how audiences are behaving as we emerge from the pandemic
— Inspiration for how cultural organisations may need to change to grasp the opportunities of digital engagement

Session Guides:
Adam Koszary, Head of Digital, The Audience Agency

This session is supported by The Audience Agency.

How Royal Museums Greenwich Raised £15,000 in One Day with Art Happens

The Save Solebay campaign was so popular that it was the first crowdfunding campaign on Art Happens to exceed their target in just 24 hours.

This session will explore the many elements which combined to make the campaign so successful — from the use of rewards to making a splash on launch day — reaching a completely new donor audience in the process.

Session Souvenirs:
— A case study on careful planning across marketing and fundraising teams to reach brand-new audiences
— Ideas on how to engage donors
— Inspiration for creating strong messages for different audiences, across different platforms, both online and offline

Session Guide:
TBC

This session is sponsored by Art Fund.

With thanks to our AMA Conference 2022 Sponsors:

Pioneer Sponsors:

Explorer Sponsors:

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