Audience development

There is a significant gap in understanding audience development for disabled people, yet they are part of a growing audience cohort. Over the last decade, their participation in the arts in Australia has been increasing, contrary to prevailing perceptions. Given the potential of the arts to promote social inclusion, the participation of disabled people as one of the most marginalised groups in Australia has instrumental and intrinsic value. Including disabled people as audiences in the arts is not only a sociological issue for cultural organisations to address the challenge of shrinking homogeneous white, middle-class and privileged audiences, but it is also a moral one, seeking inclusion of disabled people. Drawing on audience development theory and semi-structured interviews of people with and without disabilities in the broader arts ecosystem, site visits of cultural organisations and analysis of archival sources, this chapter expands our understanding of how disabled people are included as audiences in the arts and the barriers faced in this process. Our findings provide a useful starting point for cultural organisations seeking to include disabled people as part of their audiences and facilitate their social inclusion: a topic which is of sociological relevance in the context of a global disruptive environment.