Adeste+

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The Adeste+ project continues a chain of transnational initiatives and a growing consortium of partners who are generating and experimenting with answers to the challenges of the relationship between cultural institutions and cultural audiences. In the four-year project, fifteen partners in seven European countries came together to think about how to help cultural organisations focus on their audiences. To this end, the consortium set up three action fronts: an experimental one, led by museums, theatres and multidisciplinary centres, a consultative one, carried out by entities that provide services to the cultural sector, and a political one, undertaken by foundations and other partners capable of disseminating the project's learnings among those who design the budgets and guide the efforts of the institutions.

At its core, the project wanted to intervene in the organisational dynamics of cultural agents, guiding multidisciplinary teams to collaboratively design programmes to strengthen existing audiences or win over new ones. Building on previous learning, the working models attempted aimed to intervene in organisations in depth, seeking to integrate the contributions of leaders with those of operational and technical staff. The ACED (Audience Centred Experience Design) methodology, developed to establish procedural coherence, was then tested on the project's artistic partners. This experimentation led to several audience development pilot-projects and important reflections on the methodology. The aim was to find the skeleton of the adaptation processes of the major cultural creation and programming entities. Instead of related patches, a patchwork quilt was discovered. 

A cascade programme accompanied this process. Its purpose was to "sprinkle" other organisations and players in the cultural sector with audience development techniques. This programme was achieved by holding three European conferences offering a curated perspective on the subject, accompanied by three summer schools in which participants could design and develop their own projects to focus institutional action on their audiences. Alongside these, a second round of application of the ACED methodology to organisations outside the consortium, and webinars presenting the methodology, consolidated the tools that the project makes available to professionals. 

Services 

  • Editorial production: Pedagogical manuals
  • Cultural management: Audience studies; Impact analysis; Change management
  • Training: Training activities; Seminars & Conferences; International Speakers
  • Consultancy: Innovation & Prototyping

Find out more about Adeste+, the partners involved and the results obtained at: https://www.adesteplus.eu/