West Kowloon team hosts arts programmes to draw in the crowds
The West Kowloon Cultural District team will host an array of arts programmes over the coming six months in the hope of attracting audiences beyond the 500,000 who have attended its events in the past year.
The arts hub authority is working on attendance quantity - in the absence of a detailed plan to evaluate audiences from the perspective of quality.
It had conducted audience surveys that collected demographic profiles and opinions, said Wendy Lam Yuen-mui, the authority's head of communications and public affairs.
But a system of analysing the data was not yet in place, Lam admitted. "We have just started building such a portfolio."
Performing arts chief Louis Yu Kwok-lit cited surveys held during their Cantonese opera programme, Bamboo Theatre, in the past two years that showed it now had broader appeal - not just to dedicated fans of the artform but to a more diverse audience.
The programming for the next half a year will see the Freespace Fest of music, dance, theatre and literature return in December to a site at the West Kowloon Waterfront Promenade. Bamboo Theatre will restart on January 17 with an extended four-week run, while visual culture museum M+ will stage two exhibitions in February and March.
The West Kowloon site will also be rented out for events. The authority said the rental income from five events slated for November and December would subsidise in-house ones such as Freespace Fest.
