Development work is underway for the Dunard Centre a new, world-class 1,000 seater music venue situated right in the heart of Edinburgh. The venue will be Edinburgh’s first new concert hall in over 100 years, located between the St James Quarter shopping mall and St Andrew Square.
The construction and operation of the Dunard Centre is the responsibility of IMPACT Scotland. Their vision is to create a world leading musical centre of excellence which will both inspire existing music lovers and ignite others to start their own musical exploration. So, while Dunard will become the home of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and a new venue for Edinburgh International Festival, their ambition is for it to become a ‘hall for all’, hosting live music all year around and across of all genres including rock, jazz, folk and blues, traditional and world music.
A programme of formative research to define and understand Dunard’s potential audiences
Construction of the Dunard Centre began in early 2023 and was the catalyst for the start of an extensive programme of audience research which would provide the information Impact Scotland needed to finetune its audience proposition.
Given the scale of this project and the wide range of research approaches to be used, we undertook this project as part of the JRS consortium, incorporating the broader methodological expertise of our partner agencies at Jump Research, Red Tree and SMG.
Over the last year we all worked closely together with Impact Scotland to complete an ambitious programme of research which addressed the following key areas:
Defining the audience – which groups are most likely to visit the Dunard Centre – what are their demographics and what is their geographical catchment?
Understanding the potential amongst warm audiences – which markets are most open to the concepts of the Dunard Centre and why?
Understanding the potential amongst harder to reach audiences – given Dunard’s ambition to be a space for everyone, an equally important question was how to engage those who are initially less interest in the venue, understanding the potential barriers and how these can be overcome to ensure inclusivity.
Given the wide range of areas to be addressed by the research the JRS team delivered a programme of research which used a mix of methods, with each stage informing the subsequent element:
Workshop – a half day session involving the JRS team and Impact Scotland, visiting the site, discussing and aligning on the priorities for the project and sharing existing insights and hypothesis.
Desk research – a review of existing research covering a range of sources, from stats on cultural engagement in Scotland available from organisations such as the Scottish Government and Creative Scotland to in-depth studies regarding the benefits of live music. These insights built our knowledge and informed our planning of the primary research stages which followed.
Detailed audience survey – a survey of almost 850 residents in the South and East of Scotland, with a detailed questionnaire covering a range of related areas including music listening habits, live music attendance, the role of music and live music in life (occasions listened to, benefits gained, barriers to attendance) and interest in the Dunard Centre’s mission.
Audience segmentation – using the data collected in the audience survey we worked with Impact Scotland to create a market segmentation, identifying a targeted number of unique segments based on their current frequency of live music attendance, the music genres they favoured and their openness to attending live music in future. Each segment was profiled in detail to create a ‘pen portrait’ of who they are, their aspirations and the opportunities for the Dunard Centre to meet their needs.
Focus groups – a series of six focus groups with segment representatives, allowing for a longer, more a detailed exploration of their music listening and live music attendance habits, as well as canvassing their opinions on how the Dunard Centre can best meet their needs
National population survey – a short survey of the Scottish adult population including the key ‘golden’ questions needed to allocate participants into the audience segments, allowing us to quantify the size of each audience across the overall population.
By following this staged approach over the last year the JRS team have provided Impact Scotland with the vital insights they require to make key strategic decisions as construction of the venue continues
Jenna Frost, Communications Lead at Insight Scotland commented that:
“As a charity with a small in-house team we need our agency partners to be expert, proactive and flexible – but most of all we need them to share our passion for bringing more music to more people.
“We were impressed with JRS’ credentials from our very first conversations, which set the tone for the twelve month project. Although representing different disciplines their integrated approach was effective; every team member was diligent and responsive. The bespoke segmentation solution they developed has given us a very practical way to group local and national audiences, identifying both what unites kinds of music fans, and what sets them apart. We will be using the insights in our public awareness and advocacy campaigns as well as to drive future planning across the organisation; I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend their energetic and experienced team to others.”
More details on the Dunard Centre and progress towards opening can be found on their website here https://dunardcentre.co.uk
If you would like to find our more about the approaches we took in the research or how we can help your organisation with similar audience insight needs let us know, we’d be delighted to discuss.