Phrased & Confused Research

Back to Research »

When Arts Council England approached us in 2004 to investigate the barriers to attendance at and promotion of live literature events, our response was to produce the first Phrased & Confused national tour. Our three artists ? Patrick Neate, Charlie Dark and Earl Zinger – visited seven live music venues across the country with their unique and explosive brand of music and spoken word. At each date we asked the people who came along to fill out a questionnaire designed to find out who they are, why they came and what barriers they faced. The results were compiled in a report for the Arts Council and make for interesting reading ? our hunch that music fans are a potential new audience for high quality live literature events and tours was right. And the biggest barrier identified was a lack of awareness; people simply didn?t know what was going on.

Our initial research has doubled our ambitions to work in this exciting and growing artform, and is informing our future plans directly.. Because we think that the best way to encourage the live literature scene to grow is to support those at its epicentre ? producers and promoters ? we are currently putting together a professional development programme for live literature producers around the country, as part of the follow-up Phrased & Confused tour. The programme will include a comprehensive training course to give producers the skills to put on high quality events and tours, and we will give these producers the chance to work with their local music venues to present a series of live literature events in 2007.

Similar projects

Music Connections: Training and mentoring programme in Northamptonshire

Phrased & Confused: Tour that asks ?Which Comes First? The music or the words??