Audiences are playing an increasingly active role for institutions and organizations in the cultural sector. We are seeing demands from visitors and audiences for more relevant and participatory content and for this reason, cultural organizations need to examine their values and assumptions about their audiences and make the proper changes. Are we ready for this?

Adeste Plus aims to develop a blueprint for organizational change for the audience-focused organizations. It delves into the need of transformation and develops a methodology for change that encompasses:

• Listening to and understanding users
• Challenging assumptions
• Redefining situations and problems
• Creating innovative solutions
• Prototyping and testing

The Adeste+ European Conference was supposed to have taken place in Rijeka, Croatia, but the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown forced us to digitize Adeste Plus actions and so, the European Conference became digital.

Audience development took on greater significance in these circumstances and the crisis forced us to address the role of cultural organizations in this changed world. The digital conference entitled “Change within Change. Re-examining the role of the cultural organization and its relationship with the public” took place between June and September 2020.

The digital conference series was organized in six episodes: Thirty five speakers, twenty five sessions and almost seven hundred applicants from fifty nine countries. In a nutshell, seventeen hours of content to reflect on the impact of the new normal in the everyday relationship of citizens and cultural organisations.