Audience, Scale, Reach and Impact 2023 – 2025

27 April 2026

In 2025 Without Walls commissioned Indigo Consulting to produce a benchmarking report covering responses from audiences across the Without Walls Artistic Directorate (AD) and the Touring Network Partnership (TNP).

The Artistic Directorate includes a broad mix of festivals taking place in city centres, woodlands, waterfronts, green spaces and beyond. The AD annually invests commissioning funds into a programme of new outdoor shows that go on and tour across England and internationally. The Touring Network Partnership is made up of festivals of all shapes and sizes across England in areas without regular arts activity. Without Walls works with these partners to create an appetite for outdoor arts across the country.

‘This report from Indigo provides something we’ve collectively worked hard to build: robust evidence of the real impact of outdoor arts. It shows how festivals across the network are expanding access to culture, reaching diverse audiences across age, geography and socio-economic backgrounds. What makes this possible is the commitment of our partners, who have contributed their data year on year to create something none of us could have produced alone. That shared effort has given us a powerful, collective evidence base, one we can all use to demonstrate value and make the case for the sustained, long-term investment in the sector.’

Head of Festival Partnerships, Anaïs Biaux

Between 2023 and the end of 2025, Without Walls reached more than 408,863 audience members across 77 festivals and 168 events throughout England and internationally. Working through its Artistic Directorate (AD) and Touring Network Partnership (TNP), Without Walls continues to demonstrate the distinctive power of free outdoor arts to engage audiences beyond traditional cultural venues.

In a period marked by cost-of-living pressures and declining attendance in many parts of the cultural sector, Without Walls has not only sustained audience engagement but expanded it: reaching new attenders, younger audiences, families, and communities in Priority Places and Levelling Up areas.

This report analyses audience data collected via the Illuminate platform across three financial years (2023/24, 2024/25 and 2025/26 to December 2025). It explores:

Who Without Walls reaches
How audiences experience outdoor work
How this differs from venue-based audiences
How engagement is evolving year on year
What this means for the future of outdoor arts

The findings show that Without Walls plays a critical role in widening participation in the arts, particularly among first-time attenders, lower socio-economic groups, families with children, and audiences in areas of lower cultural engagement. Outdoor arts are not simply an alternative to venue-based provision. They are a gateway. Without Walls is helping redefine who cultural activity is for, and where it happens.

WHAT DOES THE DATA TELL US ABOUT OUR AUDIENCES?

Without Walls festivals attract new audiences. First time festival attendance in 2024/25 (32%) was slightly lower than 2023/24 (42%). However, one third of audiences remain new each year. We are more successful than the England average for attracting first time attenders to the arts.

Without Walls festivals attract younger audiences. 28% of festival attenders across the three years were under 35. Without Walls more than doubles the national arts average for under-35 attendance (13%), and is in line with the population average.

Without Walls festivals are diverse. 22% of festival attenders were of global majority (arts average 6%). Outdoor provision supports more ethnically diverse engagement than the national arts average.

Without Walls has a stronger representation of lower socio-economic groups than is typical across arts audiences. Attenders are more likely than other arts attenders to be from: Clerical/intermediate occupations, Technical occupations and Manual and service occupations.

Without Walls events are fundamentally social experiences. 83% of people attend with others, and 45% attend with children. Outdoor arts operate as shared, collective cultural moments.

Without Walls festivals take place in ‘levelling up’ areas. The number of Touring Network Partnership (TNP) Festivals in levelling up places is proportionally higher (42%, 35% are priority places), with most partners being located in Priority Places or Levelling Up for Culture.

Findings outlined in the article are drawn out from the Audience, Scale, Reach and Impact 2023 – 2025 report produced by Indigo.

If you would like to find out more about the research please contact us.

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