SPARC Consultancy:
About Us
We help arts, heritage and performance organisations gain insights into audience behaviours, experiences, needs and expectations.
SPARC Consultancy is an offshoot of SPARC (Sheffield Performer and Audience Research Centre) and was founded by Professor Stephanie Pitts and Dr Sarah Price to make our research expertise more widely available to arts organisations.
We have been working collaboratively with arts sector organisations for over 10 years and this has allowed us to develop rigorous, interdisciplinary approaches to understanding the how, why and when of audience experience.
We’re now bringing this expertise and knowledge to SPARC Consultancy. With a team of researchers, headed by Stephanie Pitts (Professor at the University of Sheffield and member of the DCMS College of Experts), our services can help you to build new strategies for audience engagement, learning and participation, programming, and increased reach.
A selection of our academic research
Handbook
Our handbook is designed as an introduction to the main findings of the Understanding Audiences for the Contemporary Arts project. Download the handbook here.
Chapter: "The Violin in the Attic..."
“The violin in the attic”: Investigating the long-term value of lapsed musical participation (Stephanie Pitts) In The Oxford Handbook of Music Making and Leisure (2016). The book can be purchased here, copies may be also be available at your academic institution.
Making Music, Making Communities
Findings from an online survey of Making Music member organisations, investigating connections between leisure-time musical groups and their local communities. Read more about this project here.