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This roundtable symposium brought together some 30 invited experts, including arts practitioners with interest and experience in issues of participation and spectatorship; funders;  commentators and academics who have explored the field; and experts from other fields of study to provide some different perspectives.

While participation and spectatorship can often overlap, there is a broad distinction between, on the one hand, getting up and doing (participation) and on the other hand, sitting or standing and watching (often described as ‘attending arts events’ and in this symposium categorised as spectatorship). 

The premise of the symposium was that the arts would increasingly be called on to justify public funding on the basis of providing measurable benefits. Such benefits are much easier to quantify when arts consumption involves direct public participation. However, as most arts provision is and will remain non-participatory, arts organisations will also need to consider making spectatorship more active, engaged and interactive. Many arts organisations already strive to involve audiences in new ways. The symposium was conceived as a contribution towards the sharing and development of this experience and its best practice. 

The first session of the day was chaired by Jocelyn Cunningham, Director of Arts & Society, RSA, and brought together playwright and BTC member David Edgar; Leila Jankovich, Leeds Metropolitan University; and Jonathan Petherbridge, Creative Director London Bubble Theatre Company.  Their discussion set the context for the day's proceedings in the history of justifications for government funding of the arts.   

The second session, chaired by Steve Waters (BTC member, playwright and academic, University of East Anglia), explored the current state of theory about how the arts impact on participants and audiences. Contributors to the discussion included Lynn Froggett (Psychosocial Studies, University of Central Lancashire); Jane Woddis (independent arts researcher and DICE European drama education study); Clive Parkinson (Arts for Health, Manchester Metropolitan University); and Tristan Bekinschtein (Consciousness and Cognition Lab, Cambridge University).

In the third session of the day, the chair was taken by theatre director Kully Thiarai; it examined how arts organisations seek to encourage the public to participate in arts activities and to engage them as audiences. Drawing on their present and past experiences, contributors to the session were: Dick Penny (Bristol Watershed), Ivan Cutting (Eastern Angles), Jean Nicholson (Birmingham Opera Company), Marcus Romer (Pilot Theatre), Claire Doherty (Nowhere Island project), David Lan (Young Vic), Tony Butler (The Happy Museum, East Anglia), Chris Honer (Manchester Library/Cornerhouse), Andy Field (Forest Fringe), Dave O’Brien (City University).

The symposium ended with a session entitled Looking Forward. Chaired by Jocelyn Cunningham and Dan Rebellato (BTC member, dramatist and academic, Royal Holloway University of London), it was introduced by Matthew Taylor, RSA’s chief executive. The session outlined and developed thinking about where the symposium might go and what could happen in the future, emphasising the value of networks for future work in this field. David Edgar’s closing remarks considered issues of funding and access; and expressed the idea of expanding participants’ and audiences’ experience of the artwork and of creating a “community of understanding” through the arts.