Last week, local nonprofit arts and culture sector personnel participated in RENEW 2023: Audience Regeneration, a one-day conference hosted by the City of LA’s Department of Cultural Affairs and CNM.
The 90+ attendees looked at the future of events and practical ways nonprofits and other arts and culture creators can evolve their programming. Spurred by the pandemic and evolving technology, audiences are changing the ways they engage with events. Access to arts and culture is associated with positive outcomes in health and education, so it’s important to ensure our creative sector is diverse and thriving.
Key takeaway ideas included:
Arts and culture programming can be transformed through technology and new media.
WolfBrown’s Alan Brown, the keynoter, noted that audiences are not likely to return to pre-pandemic levels, so it’s imperative that organizations engage the next generation. Much like the commercial sector producing immersive events, nonprofit arts and culture organizations must find ways to effectively compete – and with fewer resources.
A panel on New Ways of Engaging Audiences featured CultureHub’s Billy Clark and Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles’s Asuka Hisa. They emphasized the importance of innovation to engage audiences through the use of virtual reality, digital performance, and digital archives.
Listen to, and involve your audience.
For a panel on Centering Youth Audience Development, panelists spoke about younger audiences becoming part of creating the experience themselves. Joel Arquillos of Snap Foundation, social media consultant Eli Edwards, and Allison Whorton of TeenTix LA offered thoughts on tailoring messages to youth and using digital space to bring people together in person. Allison spoke about including young people in conversations around inclusion and access and ensuring young people know that the arts are not just for an older generation. She said it’s a priority to not only include youth behind the scenes, but also to have them at the forefront of the content the organization is creating.
To learn more about the conference, visit the RENEW 2023 event page for presenters or see a list of participating organizations. Visit the City of LA Department of Cultural Affairs site for additional resources.
