Audience engagement as practice: From extraordinary to everyday

Abstract

This essay challenges the conventional view of audience engagement in arts and culture, arguing that it’s more about habitual, everyday processes than the usually highlighted exceptional moments. Current approaches to researching and teaching audience engagement overly focus on one-off events, overlooking broader contexts and long-term habitual practices. Through a practice lens, audience engagement emerges as interconnected, routinized processes within organizations. Changing engagement requires systemic shifts, acknowledging the stability and sociability of practices. Traditional methods of audience research and education must evolve towards deeper qualitative analyses; cultural policy should prioritize meaningful engagement over superficial metrics; and cultural management needs to care for genuine engagement recognizing diverse organizational practices. The essay is a call for embracing the everyday, underreported social interactions that form the true foundation of audience engagement.