Agenda item

Report of the Managing Director.

Members received a report of the Managing Director providing updates from the Barbican Directors on their respective areas. The Directors spoke to each update, with a number of questions asked and comments subsequently made by Board Members.

A Member, also the Chairman of the Education Board, commented positively on the work being done by the Creative Learning department as part of the cultural hub scoping exercise, which was drawing together the extent of cultural educational work across the totality of City departments. The work of cultural institutions in supporting education was also becoming an increasing area of focus for central government.

In response to queries around the financial benefits to the Centre of the Antigone production, which was currently touring, the Director of Arts undertook to provide the relevant financial information for the next meeting. The Managing Director also advised that Members would be provided with the financial information relating to the benefits accruing from the Hamlet production at the same time.

Responding to questions around the Hamlet production, the Managing Director advised that it was too early to analyse the full suite of lessons learnt as the production was continuing to run until the end of October. However, a number of points were already apparent, such as the issues associated with the amount of time that front of house management had needed to allocate to deal with the volume of fans.

A Member commented on the range of new audience members attracted to the Barbican by Hamlet, which meshed well with the Centre’s vision of Arts Without Boundaries. The Managing Director echoed the Member’s comments, observing that 56% of those booking tickets for the show were booking tickets for an event at the Barbican for the first time. Not only this, but it was apparent that a significant proportion had never been to a performance of a Shakespeare play or in some cases any theatrical production before, and it was therefore particularly exciting to be bringing the arts to an entirely new audience. In response to further queries, the Director of Audiences & Development confirmed that targeted emails were sent to those attending performances highlighting similar events or those which might be of interest, in an effort to retain audiences and encourage future visits.

RECEIVED.