Mix It Up Project Report: Building New Audiences - Multicultural Arts ...

Conclusions and Recommendations
Mix It Up Research Project 2006
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Centre For Leisure Management Research
The fact that we engaged so many stakeholders and we are still on speaking terms with them
and in fact still enjoy good relations with them is a tribute to something in the water in this
place. (Administrator, the Arts Centre)
Mix It Up demonstrated to its protagonists that the new cultural economy is made up of traditional, institutional
organisations, small flexible innovative organisations and fledgling, individual cultural entrepreneurs, freelance
practitioners and minority communities. Many of the latter are self-employed, self-taught and work with English
as their second language. The small and fledgling organisations and individuals have traditionally worked at the
fringes of the traditional, institutional organisations. Mix It Up provided the opportunity to create new
interdependent systems of cultural production and distribution. The lack of opportunity for development in the
larger, established and traditional sector has been a constant cry in the cultural industries (Bilton 1999). Mix It Up
provided one of those rare opportunities for this emerging and dynamic sector of individuals and small firms to
work with large established organisations.
On the other hand, Mix It Up also provided opportunities for traditional, institutional organisations, which are
managerially strong, offer development opportunities but may tend to adopt traditional ways of working.
Flexibility, opportunism and innovation as niche providers were skills transferred to traditional organisations. Mix
It Up required innovation in programming and audience development, team building and new ways of marketing,
as well as the development of new networks. Indeed, it was a change program on a large scale, undertaken in a
short time frame and with stakeholders who did not necessarily know one another or have experience working
together. After years of doing things one way, this project required everyone to find new ways of working
together, without a blue print for making the change happen successfully.
Overall, small organisations and individuals learnt the importance of managerial skills in putting on Mix It Up,
while traditional organisations have learnt the importance of flexibility, opportunism and being close to the
customer. Small organisations and individuals are compelled to be more entrepreneurial in order to survive in an
uncertain marketplace. Traditional large institutions are learning to appropriate these tactics, by forming strategic
alliances with independent organisations and individuals. In other words, large institutions are learning to act like
small ones and small independent operators are learning about the corporate approach to working in the arts.