Know your audiences

Creating our Future - 2019 National Arts Participation Survey

Results from the 2019 (pre-COVID) survey of Australians attitudes to the arts. The 2019 survey was translated into community languages for the first time: Arabic, Dinka, Mandarin, Spanish, Urdu and Vietnamese.

The research found that the targeted CALD respondents were more likely to attend arts events than Australians overall, and 42% would like to attend more arts than they currently do. CALD respondents are also nearly three times more likely to give to the arts than non-CALD respondents.

Respectful Collection of Demographic Data

Excellent guide for designing respectful surveys. Describes the importance of giving users choice in selecting personal identifiers, such as race and gender, rather than limiting the available options.

Also recommends avoiding categories like ‘Other’, giving respondents the option not to respond and paying attention to the default answers.

Counting Culture: Six Principles for Measuring the Cultural Diversity of Your Workplace

Concepts of identity are crucial to benchmarking diversity. These principles describe the importance of gathering detailed, granular statistics that make room for nuanced identities when mapping the cultural diversity of your organisation.

Data by Region

Clickable map to provide data for 2011 and 2016 on every Australian local government area, including data on percentage of people born overseas, proficiency in English, occupations and incomes.

Engaged Communities

Infographic with top tips on engaging respectfully with communities, including outlining different types of community engagement (such as the difference between collaborations, co-creations and consultations) and tips on managing power, responsibility and the project's legacy.

Artistic Vibrancy

Subtitled 'A way for organisations to talk about artistic impact', this document outlines processes for gathering data and feedback on the artistic vibrancy of an organisation, along with case studies of arts organisations who've done this.

Suggested processes include alumni, artist and audience surveys, community consultation, benchmarking, guest artists interviews, peer review, annual strategic reviews, as well as numerical data such as artist and audience metrics (including items to track).

An open letter to reviewers, critics and editors

'Hello, lovely to meet you. I’m Cessalee: a Black woman, DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) consultant, director and performer, arts audience member, and advocate for a better industry – can we talk?'

'Comparing ... a play about a specific Asian community to another play ... from an entirely other Asian country tells me you’re not talking about the quality, talent or skill level ... you’re talking about the category you’ve created called ‘plays about Asian things I don’t understand'.'