The 7th European Audience Data Alliance (EADA) Summit in Brussels on April 1st, 2025, marked a significant development as CultureTech companies were invited to participate for the first time. CultureSuite was among several technology providers attending, with CEO Coen van der Poll joining representatives from Activity Stream, Tessitura, and other industry leaders to explore how technology can enhance cultural engagement.
This invitation signals a growing recognition of the role technology plays in shaping audience data and engagement strategies. The summit brought together approximately 30 representatives from cultural organisations across Europe, including The Audience Agency, Baker Richards, and cultural institutions from Norway, Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, Czech Repubic and the Netherlands.
This comes at a critical moment when cultural organisations face increasing pressure to grow revenue, diversify audiences, and optimise limited resources through data-driven decision-making.
Representing our community on the European stage
"Being invited to this summit is significant for us and the venues we work with," explains Coen van der Poll. "We attended as representatives of our community of over 100 cultural venues who don't always have a seat at these policy tables. Our presence ensures their perspectives and needs are considered in these crucial discussions."
Frederik Fabricius, founder of Kulturdata and a key facilitator of the EADA Summit, reinforced this perspective: “Cultural sector meetings often focus on major institutions like the Victoria & Albert or Rijksmuseum, which have different resources and challenges than the rest of the venues. CultureTech companies have a unique opportunity to represent the broader ecosystem, especially the mid-size to smaller organisations that might otherwise be overlooked.”
The summit's timing is particularly relevant, coming just one day before the European Policy Forum on Data-Driven Audience Development on April 2nd. The high-level gathering focused on exploring existing EU data initiatives and defining concrete actions and investments for driving cultural engagement.
This dual-track approach demonstrates the growing recognition of data's importance in cultural policy, as outlined in the Ghent Manifesto's call to "promote cross-sectoral and cross-border collaboration with governments, academia, and commercial players."
Beyond commercial interests to elevate the entire sector
A recurring theme throughout the summit was the need to balance commercial interests with the greater good of the cultural sector. Coen emphasised CultureSuite's commitment to this balance during panel discussions.
"We're not just here as a commercial entity," he noted during the summit. "We created CultureSuite specifically to create space for thinking about how we can elevate the entire sector. A rising tide lifts all boats, and we genuinely believe that stronger cultural organisations benefit everyone, including technology providers."
This perspective resonated with many participants who have historically been cautious about commercial involvement in audience data discussions. A survey conducted during the summit revealed strong support for this collaborative approach, with participants scoring 4.7 out of 5 when asked if "the public sector should work actively with the CultureTech businesses”.
But the question remains. What will this collaboration look like and how will it support the sector to foster cultural engagement?
Standardisation as infrastructure
One of the key insights shared at the summit was the concept of "standardisation as infrastructure". This is the idea that common data standards create the foundation upon which innovation can flourish.
CultureSuite highlighted how its platform already enables venues to enhance ticketing data with rich metadata, content information and audience data from other integrated systems such as event planning systems and CRMs. By bringing data from various sources into a single platform, venues can build advanced audience segments that enable omnichannel marketing initiatives.
"We're uniquely positioned to contribute to these standards because we sit at the intersection of multiple systems," explained Coen. "Our platform doesn't just ingest ticketing data. It enriches it with event planning information, content details, and audience interactions that tell a much fuller story about cultural engagement."
Frederik highlighted another crucial challenge that could be fixed with standardisation: "It's difficult to compare the performance of different art forms from different countries and different regions. The Audience Agency has a list of 133 art forms which every theatre or opera is supposed to tag. Wouldn't it be nice if we just had one consistent list which everybody used across Europe?"
The European Policy Forum has identified this lack of consistency as a critical issue, with their working groups documenting challenges like "competing national data standards" and "interoperability challenges in data collection."
"The cultural sector needs to move toward common standards without stifling innovation," Coen suggested. "This isn't about forcing everyone to use the same systems, but rather ensuring that different systems can speak to each other through standardised data formats and protocols."
Data maturity: A journey, not a destination
The challenge for the sector though is that there exists varying levels of data maturity amongst cultural organisations.
"The problem isn't just implementing technology solutions," Coen noted. "It's about meeting each organisation where they are on their data journey. Some venues are still working with basic audience data collection, while others are ready for personalised recommendations and dynamic pricing. A one-size-fits-all approach simply doesn't work."
This observation aligns directly with findings from The Audience Agency’s survey titled Services for Data Haters which revealed that 98% of cultural practitioners have access to audience data, 93% believe data could bring positive benefits to the arts, but 85% lack the skills and confidence to realise those benefits.
This significant gap between data access and the ability to effectively use it underscores the importance of the summit. While there's clear consensus on the need to use data more effectively, the 'how' remains a critical question.
"Many cultural organisations are drowning in data but starving for insights," Coen observed. "CultureSuite's approach focuses on turning raw data into actionable intelligence that helps venues make better decisions about programming, marketing, and audience development."
Shifting focus to audience engagement
A significant development discussed at the summit was the sector's evolution beyond simple attendance metrics toward more nuanced measurements of audience engagement. Cultural institutions across Europe are increasingly interested in understanding not just who attends, but how deeply they engage with cultural experiences.
Frederik emphasised this shift: "To engage with audiences in flesh and blood in the future, we need to engage with them digitally. This means fundamentally rethinking how we collect, analyse, and act on audience data."
This shift aligns with CultureSuite's capabilities to track interactions across multiple touchpoints from website visits and content consumption to ticket sharing and post-event behaviour.
These insights support the "audience data hierarchy" presented at the summit, which places source data (ticketing data, surveys, demographics) as the foundation, with business intelligence and impact analysis building upon that foundation to answer crucial questions like "How does digital visits correlate with physical visits?" and "What touchpoints encourage visitors to engage more readily with cultural organisations?"
These insights could prove valuable as the sector works to develop standardised engagement metrics.
From policy to practice: Moving forward with task-based collaboration
The summit concluded with a call for more concrete collaboration between cultural institutions and technology providers. Participants discussed the potential for task-oriented working groups with specific objectives and timeframes to tackle key challenges in the sector.
"Large EU infrastructure projects often have problems gaining traction," observed Frederik. "What we need from public bodies is to provide the funding for improving data literacy so that cultural organisations can better use the tools being developed by CultureTech companies."
For CultureSuite, the summit represents an opportunity to deepen involvement in shaping the future of audience data across Europe. As we continue to develop our Peppered platform and our community, these policy-level discussions will help ensure that innovations serve the genuine needs of cultural organisations and the communities they engage.
The day after the summit, EADA representatives presented key insights to EU policymakers. This was an opportunity to shape how cultural data influences funding decisions and policy development. While CultureTech companies weren't present for these discussions, their perspectives from the summit were incorporated into the presentations and shared with policymakers.
"There are both opportunities and pitfalls in how data informs policy," noted Coen. "We need to ensure that data is used responsibly, with proper context and nuance. For example, we should avoid simplistic diversity metrics that might encourage 'box-ticking' rather than meaningful engagement with diverse communities."
For cultural leaders, the challenge isn't just technical but structural. Creating a data-positive culture requires clear vision from the top, coupled with practical steps to build confidence across teams.
Actionable recommendations for the sector
Drawing from the summit discussions and the broader European policy context, several clear paths forward emerge for cultural organisations seeking to enhance their approach to audience data:
- Invest in data literacy: As identified in both the EADA recommendations and European Policy Forum findings, building staff capacity to understand and use data effectively is foundational. Organisations should prioritise training and skills development at all levels.
- Embrace collaborative approaches: Individual organisations cannot solve data standardisation challenges alone. Participation in sectoral initiatives, data sharing consortia, and collaborative projects multiplies the impact of limited resources.
- Start with clear use cases: Rather than collecting data for its own sake, begin with specific questions you want to answer or problems you want to solve. Asking the ‘why’ yields more immediate value and builds organisational buy-in.
- Prioritise ethical considerations: As data collection becomes more sophisticated, ethical questions around privacy, consent, and algorithmic bias become increasingly important. Developing clear ethical frameworks should be part of any data strategy.
- Connect digital and physical experiences: The most valuable insights often emerge at the intersection of online engagement and in-person attendance. Organisations should work to bridge these data silos for a more complete understanding of their audiences.
As the cultural sector navigates post-pandemic recovery and evolving audience expectations, the collaboration between technology providers and cultural institutions will be critical in democratising access to sophisticated audience development tools. The goal is to ensure that organisations of all sizes can thrive in an increasingly data-driven landscape.
"We're honoured to have been invited to this event," concludes Coen. "As we look to the future, our commitment is to continue representing our venue community, contributing our expertise, and helping build data frameworks that truly serve the arts and culture sector for years to come.”
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