Lizzie Ridley

Dr Lizzie Ridley is a freelance communications specialist with more than twenty-five years of professional experience in the performing arts sector. Over the course of her career, she has worked with and for more than thirty arts organisations, undertaking roles in marketing, audience research, public relations, audience development, and project coordination.

After a substantial period working in industry, she returned to formal education to pursue an MA in Creativity, Culture and Entrepreneurship (2018) at the University of Leeds, subsequently commencing her doctoral studies in 2019. Her PhD thesis, Reconceptualising Audience Development: Using Social Worlds and Risk Reduction Strategies to Challenge Assumptions about Audiences for Musicals, uses the under-researched audience for commercial musicals as a lens through which to examine and challenge current performing arts audience understanding. Through this work, she demonstrates how motivations, goals, and perceptions of risk shape audience behaviour, and argues for the importance of understanding audiences on their own terms rather than through pre-existing sector assumptions.

During her Fellowship, Lizzie aims to further refine and extend the theoretical contributions that emerged through her iterative-abductive research process. In particular, she intends to deepen the application of social worlds theory to other under-researched performing arts audiences, broadening the methodological and conceptual foundations of audience research within the field.

Publications

Ridley, L. (2023). Book Review: Audience Development and Cultural Policy (Steven Hadley: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). Irish Journal of Arts Management and Cultural Policy, 10(1), 72–76.

Griffiths, H., Kavanagh, K., Piening, S., Prevor, B., Ridley, L., & Slack-Robins, S. (2023). Book Review of Routledge Companion to Audiences and the Performing Arts: (eds) Reason, M., Conner, L., Johanson, K., and Walmsley. In Cultural Trends, 32(4), pp. 443–447.

Conferences and Presentations

• TaPRA (Theatre and Performance Research Association), Sept 2024
  ‘Play the one we know’: the importance of familiarity in trying new things, a musicals audience perspective.
  Northumbria University
• AiMAC (International Association of Arts and Cultural Management), June 2024
  Audience development is dead! (long live audience development): an examination of the UK policy context.
  ISCTE, University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal
• TaPRA, Sept 2023
  From a Jack to a King or why do you have to be so dramatic all the time?
  University of Leeds
• Academy of Marketing, Sept 2023
  From a Jack to a King or why do you have to be so dramatic all the time?
• TaPRA, Sept 2022
  ‘Popular’: Musicals, audiences and risk
  University of Essex

Teaching

Audience Engagement, Arts Marketing, Research Skills, Culture, Cultural Policy,  Entrepreneurship, Festivals and Events Management

Qualifications

• BA Theatre Arts and Performance Studies with Media: University of Plymouth
• MA Culture Creativity and Entrepreneurship: University of Leeds
• PhD University of Leeds

Professional Memberships

• FHEA (Fellow of the Higher Education Academy)