Campaign gives boost to family arts

Changing practices brought about by the Family Arts Campaign are benefiting the public and pushing family audiences up arts organisations’ agendas, according to a new report celebrating the successes of the programme.

Since its launch in 2012, more than 2,000 arts organisations have been involved in the Campaign, which set out to better understand what families enjoy and value from the arts and how venues and producers can best engage with them. Through the campaign, three family arts festivals reached an audience of over 1.2 million and over 500 new and newly commissioned pieces were presented specifically for families.

The report, ‘Family Audiences: What Have We Learned?’ by consultants Catherine Rose, Catherine Sutton and Pam Jarvis, notes a range of impacts that were realised through the campaign, including a shift in organisational thinking “to meet the needs of family audiences”.

The adoption of a set of Family Arts Standards by over 300 arts organisations led to changes in their marketing and audience development activity, and 61% of respondents to a final survey said that the amount of work they target at families had increased. Collaborative working through 23 Family Arts Networks across England and Wales was found to be particularly successful.

The Campaign has been led by a consortium comprising eight umbrella bodies and organisations working across all artforms. It has been funded until 2016 by an Arts Council England Lottery grant. Plans to develop a Family Arts Campaign Europe are in place, and if a submission for funding from Creative Europe is successful, project activity will start in June next year.