Being Human Festival: 2023 Evaluation

Flow Associates were commissioned to carry out an evaluation of the 2022 Being Human Festival, building on previous years’ research by assessing the impact of the festival for humanities reasearchers, the wider public, research organisations, universities, funders and cultural partners. We have shifted the focus of evaluation away from quantitative monitoring and towards a more impact and qualitative focused model, creating recommendations enabling the festival to:

• Become sustainable by identifying and understanding their visitors, creating an offer that keeps them engaged by visiting and supporting the festival
• Continue to develop their audiences
• Build new relationships, partnerships and collaborations

The Being Human Festival seeks to make contemporary thought, ideas and experiences connected with humanities research accessible to members of the public. The festival is run by the School of Advanced Study (SAS), University of London, in partnership with the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and the British Academy. It extends participation to universities, museums and (university) libraries across the country and is a chance for each organising body to connect with their local arts and culture provision and to reach out to members of the public of all ages to engage with them in what it means to ‘be human’.

We undertook a large scale review of festival activity including:

1. Audience survey with c.2,000 responses
2. Event organiser surveys and interviews in the UK and Australia
3. Stakeholder surveys and interviews
4. Festival team, funder and critical friend workshop after the festival to reflect on findings and set strategies for coming years