@rfletch0
Orcid: 0000-0002-9016-7028
I’ve tried to make this list as comprehensive as possible. It’s a bit unwieldy as a result but you can rest assured, if I had anything to do with, it should be in here somewhere!
Publications
Technical skills
Recent and ongoing projects
Presentations
Teaching
Design, events and miscellany
Publications (Books & Journals)
2020, Book review of ‘How to take Smart Notes’, Journal of Neurodivergent Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (link)
2020, Review of Survey Methods in Events Management research, Event Management, (link)
2019, Public libraries, arts and cultural policy in the UK, Library Management (link)
2019, Disabled Student’s Allowances: What is awarded and what is the impact?, Journal of Inclusive Practice in Further and Higher Education, (link)
(associated poster link)
2018, Young people and greenhouse gas emissions at music festivals, Journal of Applied Environmental Education and Communication (link)
2015, Festivals of Transition; Greenlight festival, Leicester, chapter in “Focus on Festivals” (link)
2008, The Artist Entrepreneur in the new creative economy, Aesthesis journal (link)
Publications (Websites & Other)
2019, Festivals, technology and knowledge management, case study in Chapter 10: Principles of Festival Management
2019, Creative industries and Higher Education: partners in inequality? (WonkHE)
2018, Open Source and Low Tech disruption in event technology, (Festival Insights)
2018, Out and about in Leicester, Arts Professional (link) or longer version here
2015, Does more data mean more progress? Arts Professional (website)
2015, Social Learning at Festivals, Face Your Elephant, (Festival Insights), (Julie’s Bicycle)
2013, A five capitals investigation into festival impacts, Msc by Research disseration
Download: Full version / Discussion paper / Just the bibliography
2011, Making an impact: economic impact studies in the arts, Arts Professional (website)
2011, Peer education in the arts, Arts Professional (website)
Technical Skills
Advanced Excel and Intermediate SPSS
Open Data Kit (XLSFORM, Enketo, Aggregate, KoboToolbox)
Retrieval and use of data from: National Census, NOMIS/BRES, Ordnance Survey/QGIS, DEFRA, HESA and others
Google Forms, Fusion Tables, Tableau
Photoshop for photo editing, illustration, general CMYK layout
Google Sketchup (Basic 3D modeling)
Recent and ongoing projects
The following list of organisations are those I have worked with on a range of evaluation and research projects. In some cases the reports are finalised, published and available, but sadly not always, as they are often principally for
internal use. In many cases the work has been longitudinal and may be ongoing.
2020, Artreach, Light up Leicester, audience survey
2020, East Midlands Caribbean Carnival Arts Network, Carnival in Education project evaluation
2018-2019, Handmade Festival, audience survey (link)
2016-2017 and ongoing, The Spark Arts for Children, Among Ideal Friends, evaluation report for year 1 here (link)
2017, East Midlands Caribbean Carnival Arts Network, Tour evaluation (link)
2016-18, The Real Junk Food Project Leicester, Director (link)
2016, National Institute for Health Research, Cambridge University, forms developer (link)
2016, Understanding Everyday Participation, Leicester University, interviewer and archiving (link)
2016, Creative Industries Diversity and Austerity, Leicester University, quantitative analysis (link)
2016, Tetrad and D.A.N.C.E, Audience questionnaires (link) and (link)
2016 and ongoing, DMU-CAN, Disabled Student Allowance assessor (link)
2015, Creative Leicestershire, state of the sector update (link)
2015, Leicester Arts Festivals, omnibus survey of audiences and member organisations (link)
2014-15, Face Your Elephant, Research Assistant (website), supported by Royal Academy of Engineering, Public Engagement “Ingenious” (link) – I have also been a reviewer on other Ingenious applications.
2015, Festa Senora da Agonia, Viana de Castelo (PT) audience survey (website)
2013-14, Creative Leicestershire Arts Resilience Programme, membership survey, labour market (link)
2012-15, Dave’s Leicester Comedy Festival, brand awareness/analysis
2012-14, Night of Festivals, ArtReach, touring event survey, Nottingham, Boston, Slough and Leicester (website)
2013, Leicester UK City of Culture working group, Research and Evaluation subgroup, lead author (link)
2013, Festivals in Focus, European Cultural Foundation/Budapest observatory, minor editing (link) (amazon)
2013, Leicester City Council, 3 venues value for money study (link)
2013, British Dance and the African Disapora, AHRC funded, workshop evaluation, general support (website)
2013, UK Music, Wish you were here, contribution of primary data (website)
2013, The Spark, case study and evaluation of ‘Tree Child’ collaboration with libraries service (soon)
2013, Chester Theater & Library development, economic impact advice
2013, Sandwell Arts Festival, general fieldwork and research advice
2012-14, Basingstoke Festival & Basingstoke Live, pricing investigation, business survey
2012, Leicester Cultural Partnership Board, general public and stakeholder consultation (link)
2012, Love Luton, audience and business survey
2011, Voluntary Action Leicester, State of the sector, City and County, Lit. review and economic impact (website)
2011, Leicester Comedy Festival, print & social media analysis, business survey, focus groups (BBC) (link)
2012, Arts Fresco, Market Harborough, businesses survey
2011, Glastonbudget Festival, audience survey
2011-12, Leicester Caribbean Carnival/Leicester City Council, audience and business survey
2010-15,The Spark Childrens’ Arts Festival, audience and schools survey
2010, Face Your Elephant, EPSRC funded, festival based public engagement, project evaluation
2010, Performing Arts Leicester/Creative Leicestershire, Economic impact study (website)
2009, Secret Garden Party, audience survey
2009, Lamport Hall Antiques and Collectors Fair, audience survey
2008-10, Leicester Comedy Festival, audience survey
2008-12, Summer Sundae Weekender, audience survey
2008-10, Big Session Festival, audience survey
Presentations, conferences
I’ve uploaded slides and/or notes where applicable, and a quick description. Slides are .pdfs to save file size.
What can be measured about festivals?, Various conferences
I’ve put this one first as this is probably my most ‘re-used’ presentation. It is pitched at festivals who may never have thought about doing any kind of formal research or evaluation, so is quite straightforward and covers typical economic, social and environmental methods, with some real data examples.
(Download slides here)
I’ve used a couple of handouts with this too:
Top tips and pitfalls of audience research (Download here)
Cultural economics glossary and reading list (Download here)
2014 – Cultural Mega Events: what are the conditions for a succesful legacy?
As a spin off from Leicesters’ bid for UK City of Culture in 2014, a network of researchers from the three universities (De Montfort, Leicester and Loughborough) planned to “explore the cityscape of Leicester, including its people, heritage, civic identity, socio-economic and cultural infrastructure, and connectivity as a world city.” (programme here) Myself and Chris Maughan presented a brief piece on what, exactly, Leicester was hoping to gain from a ‘cultural mega event’ such as the City of Culture, and what we know about the cultural strategy of the city besides this.
(Download slides with notes here)
2013 – Big Data: supportive, straightjacket or shambles, British Arts Festivals Association (Conference)
Can ‘big data’ work for festivals? Well, yes, but we will need to straighten out a few things first! With reference to work carried out for the UK City of Culture, UK Music and Creative Leicestershire, we look at the possible benefits and pitfalls of adopting the ‘big data’ label.
(Download slides with notes here)
2013 – Audience development: Live and/or digital? , Yorkshire Events Network ‘Staging Events’
Given this was a sports/arts/events conference, I looked at the broader trends in live and digital/broadcast audiences, consumption and general leisure habits. For example, the average person in the UK might spend 3000x more time in front of a TV than they do in a museum or gallery. What does that mean for ‘the arts’?
(Download slides with notes here)
2013 – Making research work for you, British Arts Festivals Association (Roadshow)
This started as a general ‘tips for practitioners doing evaluation’ presentation, but became much more esoteric covering the fundamentals of research, knowledge production and the natural / social sciences divide (and whether I think it is more percieved than actual). Particular reference to the work Bent Flyjbjerg.
(Download slides with notes here)
2012 – Economic impact, British Arts Festivals Association (Conference)
I chaired this panel, with Ian Ritchie (City of London Festival), Richard Heason (St Johns Smith Square) and Alan Freeman (London Metropolitan), however I did write up some thoughts afterwards which became part of an article subsequently published in Arts Professional.
(The bit I wrote / The final article)
2011 – Greening the laughs, British Arts Festivals Association (Conference)
Alongside Geoff Rowe (Leicester Comedy Festival) we presented a small breakout session on the actions LCF has taken to broadly raise awareness and reduce emissions. This tied into the ‘bike guides’ I designed and distributed in 2011-2012. (See under the Design heading)
(Download notes here)
2010 – Festival audiences, Global Events Congress 4, Leeds Metropolitan University
I principally attended this conference to listen to others, about 60 speakers over a couple of days including many of the top names in events. (Programme here) My colleague Chris presented a general presentation on our research.
(Download notes here)
2008-12 – Festivals and sustainability, Cultural eXchanges, De Montfort University
Between 2008 and 2012 I contributed to an ongoing series of debates / panels on the topic of Festivals and environmental sustainability. At various times we hosted colleagues from the Institute for Energy and Sustainable Development, Leicester City Councils’ Environment team, Bucks New University, Julies’ Bicycle, Shambala Festival and A Greener Festival. The focus was generally on discussion, so there aren’t many slides or notes to share, though I was able to dig up a Prezi from 2011 I put together with Ben Marchini of the IESD which summarizes a lot of the key data.
(Link to Prezi here)
04
Teaching
The following are those I have contributed to (at some point) in Arts & Festivals management (AMAN) and Performing arts (PERF) within the faculty of Art, Design and Humanities at De Montfort University. Post and undergraduate.
AMAN5005: Festival and Event Practice
AMAN5003: Music Festival Management
AMAN3039: Music Industry Management
AMAN2101: Creative Management: Finance and Law
AMAN2012: Engaging Audiences
AMAN1011: Cultural Leadership
PERF2011: Collaborative Performance Project
PERF1015: Arts Management in Context
05
Design, events management and miscellany
2016-2019: The Real Junk Food Project Leicester CIC, (currently reincarnated as ‘Perfectly Edible’). I was a director of this environmental food waste CIC for around 3 years. My contributions were in helping develop their external events business, internal research/evaluation and of course, doing my fair share of washing up.
2011-2014: Greenlight Festival, Leicester’s Festival of Sustainable Living (website)
I have been a committee member from the first year. My main contribution aside from general event management, has been on the design side, including the logo, posters, flyers, main programme, website, larger format banners and even some work on two videos (here and here). Links to: 2011 Programme, 2012 Programme, 2013 Programme
2011-2012: Bike Guides with Greenlight, Leicester Comedy Festival, Leicester City Council
A small project tied in with these two festivals and funded by the City Councils Bike Grant scheme, I was able to design some (hopefully) fun and informative cycle advocacy guides. We could only afford to print a few hundred of them but they got a fair amount of traffic online. Links to 2011 Guide, 2012 Guide
2005-2008ish: Wildcard
During university I put on 3 reasonably successful mixed-arts events at the Firebug bar/venue. Of course it never really went anywhere but it was a laugh and a good way to meet a range of future collaborators. Flyers for the 3 events can be seen here: one, two, three.
rfletch0 
