Friday Five - audience research
For my fourth set of Friday Five recommendations, I’m turning to audience research. Here are five that have been generously shared in the last year by agencies and commissioners and I’ve found provide incredibly useful benchmarking, insights and context. I’ve repeatedly referred to and recommended them to clients and training participants:
1. Baker Richards’s research commissioned by ALVA exploring the attitudes and needs of family visitors is a must-read for anyone working with (or wanting to work with) families. It’s packed full of insights including how families prioritise value and includes practical recommendations.
2. Indigo’s Membership Matters Report is a thorough exploration of what audiences most value about arts memberships, and also covers expectations, perceptions and an interesting disconnect between audiences and organisations. Indispensable for any organisation with (or considering introducing) a membership scheme. The report was sponsored by Line-Up and Substrakt and published April 2026.
3. The annual Participation Survey results (2024/25) from DCMS sets out latest trends in engagement in DCMS and digital sectors for England (including museums and cultural property, heritage, arts, libraries, archives, Internet use and more). The demographic breakdowns and main motivations and barriers to engagement are really useful, especially for organisations that don’t have their own data. T
4. Morris Hargreaves McIntyre’s Reframing the Exhibition report (November 2025) highlights interesting changing trends, competition, audience motivations, booking behaviours and much more when it comes to temporary exhibitions in London. Finished with some practical opportunities and challenges.
5. Regional Museum Development’s Annual Museums Surveys provide insights into non-national museums’ health, as a whole and broken down by region. As well as data on workforce, volunteers, finance and operations, there’s data on engagement, education and digital activity. The 2025 survey.