Audiences for visual arts

One of the findings from the project was that whilst many of the galleries were asking about the same areas in their research, they were using such a variety of different questions and answers that it was impossible to make any comparisons across the data. To help remedy this, AL created a set of standard question and answer codes. These consist of 'core' questions which cover geo-demogaphic profiling, and other 'optional' questions based on the questions that most galleries are currently asking. The 'core' question and answer codes incorporate all of the organisations' reporting needs, and provide backward compatibility of data. They are based on questions used in other significant data sets such as the Census, Taking Part and MLA exit surveys, and they also take into account current best practice advice from agencies such as Shape and the Equalities and Human Rights Commission.

You may find these questions useful if they correspond to your research objectives and relate to existing practice within your organisation. Please bear in mind your research should be informed by the particular issues you want to explore; we are not suggesting these questions will be useful for everyone.

You can access the standardised questions and response codes for free and are welcome to use them if appropriate for your organisation.

If you are interested in monitoring the diversity of the audiences you should also take a look at our Diversity Monitoring Guidelines. If you would like to know more about Audiences London's project with London-based visual arts organisations, please contact Sarah Boiling, Strategic Projects Director at or on