Audiences

Audience Engagement

As a cultural hub for the community, we are always striving to mean more to more people. We have a comprehensive Audience Engagement Strategy that focuses on retaining our much-loved older visitors, attracting younger people and growing our crucial family audience.

This is achieved through an ambitious and sector-leading exhibitions and engagement activity and a hugely varied events programme that includes talks, tours, workshops and festivals. Equity, diversity and inclusion are at the heart of this activity, to ensure we are truly a place for everyone. Equity, diversity and inclusion are a cornerstone of all our work, with new initiatives developed both as part of our public programming and organisational practice to ensure we are truly a place for everyone.

Learning

Tullie’s sector-leading and award-winning learning programme engages with almost 30,000 people each year through bespoke programmes of on-site and outreach activity in Carlisle and further afield.

Our programme is split into four key audience groups: schools, families, communities and young people.

		Delivered through in-house, outreach and digital engagement activities, and all inspired by the museum’s nationally significant collections and linked to the school curriculum. Topics include Prehistory, Romans, the Border Reivers, Cumbrian Art and Habitats. We also deliver special workshops and activities inspired by our temporary exhibitions programme. The programme is the largest in the county and engages over 10,000 pupils every year.

		The team deliver over 60 free activities each year for local families, ranging from drop-in craft activities and storytelling sessions to workshops, performances and festivals. This includes ‘Little Explorers’ a special programme for under 5s, and a regular programme of ‘Relaxed Craft’ sessions for families with children with additional needs who may find our busy drop-in sessions overwhelming. The programme delivers over 12,000 engagements a year and helps drive footfall all year round.

		Our award-winning young people’s programme and strategy develops creative opportunities for 14-25 year olds through volunteering, work experience and paid placements. Provision is responsive, youth-led, and accessible, working closely with partners such as Carlisle Key, Queer Cumbria, PAC Therapy, and local schools to engage young people facing disadvantage, discrimination, or social isolation. This includes young people experiencing poverty or homelessness, LGBTQIA+ youth, and those in care or neurodivergent young people.

		We are incredibly proud of our community programme, which targets five priority protected characteristics: age, disability, sexual orientation, race & ethnicity, and socio-economic. The programme has a particular focus on supporting wellbeing amongst vulnerable adults. It includes regular monthly sessions for adults with dementia and their carers and art groups for people experiencing loneliness and isolation, alongside bespoke activity with partners including Prism (inclusive arts charity and fellow NPO), Multicultural Cumbria and Healing Arts at the Cumberland Infirmary. The programme also has a particular focus on supporting people seeking refuge and asylum, especially during the summer months when our outdoor community space – the Secret Garden – hosts weekly drop-ins, workshops and celebration events.