The Geelong Performing Arts Centre Subscription Campaign conducted by The Dramatic Group and ARTS Australia, using the Geodemographic and Behavioural analysis collated in the Australia Council project, wins a Bronze Award for Effectiveness (Tourism, Travel, Entertainment, Sport, Leisure, Events & Retail) at the 1999 Australian Direct Marketing Association National Awards, held at the Crown Casino on 11 November 1999.

Tim Roberts of ARTS Australia and David Eedle of The Dramatic Group attend the November venue manager meeting of Country Arts South Australia to report on the National and State findings. The Project Team answer a variety of calls and correspondence for further information and assistance regarding geodemographic profiling and analysis from participant venues, and other venue management who were not lucky enough to take part.

The last of the individual venue reports is mailed off to the 28 venues involved in the project and the Project Team is compiling the State and National summaries that will be published as a information resource. The record of actual arts consumption the research summarises has a valuable potential to inform industry research such as the 'Nugent Report' Securing the Future (http://www.dcita.gov.au/cgi-bin/trap.pl?path=4168) the discussion paper released by the Commonwealth Government's Major Performing Arts Inquiry.

The Project Team attend VAPAC and INAPAC the state venue network meetings in October to report on: individual findings to participant venues as well as the state and national findings for other venues.

The Geelong Performing Arts Centre Subscription Campaign conducted by The Dramatic Group and ARTS Australia applying the findings from the National Market Research And Development For The Regional Performing Arts Industry project is named as a Finalist in the Australian Direct Marketing Association's 1999 Awards to be announced in November.

The Dramatic Group, in partnership ARTS Australia, won the Sporting, Leisure and Entertainment category of the Victorian section in the 1999 Australian Marketing Institute Awards for Excellence. Read the Media Release in Acrobat format. See a photo of the culprits. Now the campaign is a National Finalist at the awards to announced in October.

An article regarding the project, "Birds of a Feather", is published in the Autumn edition of ARTFORCE (No. 102) the newsletter of the Australia Council. The Geelong Performing Arts Centre Subscription Campaign with the benefit of Pacific Micromarketing MOSAIC geodemographic analysis also nominated for an Australian Direct Marketing Association National Award is recognised as a finalist. David Eedle of Dramatic Improvements presents a project update and interim results to the APACA national conference in Cairns. Article regarding the initial national results is published in The Australian newspaper 20 August. Rob Gebert of Bendigo Regional Arts Centre and David Eedle of Dramatic Improvements interviewed by Ben Knight on ABC Regional Radio Victoria 25 August. Starting to send some venue reports out and still wading through the rest of the individual venue data and finalising the state and national summaries.

Final venue data is received and dispatched to hurry the completion of the project. Steering Committee meets in Sydney to discuss reporting formats and the training package for venues and make recommendations.

The Geelong Performing Arts Centre Subscription Campaign with the benefit of Pacific Micromarketing MOSAIC geodemographic analysis is nominated for an Australian Marketing Institute National Award for Marketing Excellence.

Christine Woodland, Project Officer with the Australia Council Audience Development Division, who has been with this project since inception, leaves the Council to pursue other interests in education and Donita Hulme takes over as Project Officer involved. Thanks a lot Christine for all your help and advice, welcome Donita.

All the venue data is now in hand, bar two (you know who you are! :-)). This stage has taken much longer than hoped, but as you can imagine it does take a while to get thirty venues to respond with data and chase up the tardy or forgetful. Gary Swain (and staff) of Venue Technology and Ian English (and staff) of Select Ticketing have been very helpful regarding data access and data structure for the reporting. Tim Roberts with David Eedle spent several days at Dramatic Improvements in Melbourne finalising the reporting process, and putting the finishing touches to the analytical framework and report formats that will go to each venue. A draft of four venue reports is circulated to the Steering Committee (comprising Greg Randall, GM Glen Street and APACA representative and the Audience Development Division of the Australia Council) for comments and suggestions.

The first set of profiling arrives back from Pacific Micromarketing for five venues in week 1. Data for another five venues arrive by week 2 and four more by week 3.

The time difference in data dispatch does not affect the analysis as the project is focussing on four complete years: 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998. This will assist the validity of comparison between venues and states.

Tim Roberts of ARTS Australia is invited to Singapore to address Vis'Arts Asia 99, an arts management conference sponsored by the National Arts Council and the Singapore Tourism Board. The topic is Ticketing and Database Marketing in the Arts, this presents an ideal opportunity to inform industry attendees of the Australia Council project and similar geodemographic work that ARTS Australia and Dramatic Improvements have been undertaking.

The first data sets start to arrive soon after!

The Australia Council advises it will fund the full implementation of the remainder of the project

Tim Roberts of ARTS Australia undertakes the UK research leg of the project, interviewing representatives of the following organisations:

• Arts Council of England
• South Bank Centre
• Barbican Centre
• Society of London Theatre
• South Bank University, Arts Management Faculty
• Midland Arts Marketing
• Arts Marketing Warwickshire
• ARTS Ltd
• Data Culture
• Millward and Brown
• Select Technology

A total of 25 venues have already indicate that they wish to participate in the project.

David Eedle of Dramatic Improvements attended the Regional Arts Australia conference in Mount Gambier to deliver a presentation on arts marketing to the 370 delegates with reference to the Research Project. Margaret Seares, Chair of the Australia Council, also made special reference of the project during the launch of the new 'Miles Ahead' publication at the conference dinner.

The Australia Council, upon further submissions, agreed to fund one member of the Project Team to conduct research into similar work in the United Kingdom.

A start is made correlating the different event category schemes, namely TIKEX event type codes with those applied in the UK with the TGI and the ABS National Statistical Framework. This will ensure that the project is able to report results and translate nationally and internationally.

Pacific Micromarketing is involved in discussions with Roy Morgan Research to ensure the comparability of the two schemes in an integrated manner. Roy Morgan's VALUES has been applied by Arts Victoria and it is proposed to apply Pacific Micromarketing's MOSAIC for the Australia Council project. It is already possible to cross-tabulate segments between the two schemes, a significant step toward ensuring interoperability and a common framework nationally to build upon existing work in Victoria by Arts Victoria.

Request made to Australia Council to fund UK research trip as part of the process to scope, research and develop the project methodology and analytical framework.

Pilot project for SACAT in South Australia provides valuable experience and fine tuning for analytical framework.