AMA Conference 2026 - Together

Last week our Head of Marketing Anne Dillow headed to Leeds for AMA Conference 2026, and came back with a notebook full of notes, a brain full of new ideas, and a renewed sense of why this sector is worth all our hard work. This year's theme was Together - and across two packed days at Leeds Playhouse that word kept showing up, not just as a conference theme but as a genuine answer to the pressure arts marketers are facing right now. 

We started with an intro session from David Reece of Baker Richards about The Age Of Worth It – to be completely honest a bit of a soul destroyer to start with as we looked at stats around incomes and population going down and so many more outlets like wellness and streaming fighting for our cultural budget. BUT there was hope to come! Looking at ways to defend ourselves and survive, creating trust with our communities and partnering up with peers all felt like things we as the arts sector are genuinely good at (yeah, have that Netflix).   
Shawab Iqbal, Leeds Playhouse’s Chief Exec, reinforced that message in his key note speech; emphasising our importance in keeping spaces safe for the diverse voices and communities that we all serve even in the wake of ever changing and otracising governments who won’t put their needs first.   

Sometimes listening to the speakers you really see why they’re good at what they do – Callum Madge of Edinburgh International Festival gave us such a practical and considered advice on how to communicate the access messages of venues and spaces in such an accessible way you couldn’t fail to understand and absorb it. Similarly, Helena Fewkes of Z-arts' discussion of working with family influencers was so full of passion and fun that it was clear why she excels in family focused venues!  

Rebecca Usher of Clore Leadership talked us through building communities and genuine trust, how content series don’t just go nuts overnight (ok fine, maybe one or two do but actually that’s just really annoying when you’re working on one of the far more common slower burners!), and how important it is to listen to your segment and grow gently and consistently. Have you heard of Clore’s The Motherhood Series before? No, me neither but I’m absolutely following it now.   

We covered horizon scanning with Ranjit Atwel (Unlimted) Sarah Ogle (Royal Liverpool Philharmonic), David O’Hara (ATG Entertainment) and Tega Oke (Revoluton Arts), which also had the potential to be really bleak as we looked at the challenges the culture sector is currently facing. But actually (aside from the fact we learned the average attention span is now 1.3 secs...), it was a really positive look at ways to maintain and develop what we do and yet another reminder of the arts’ value to communities across the country. Plus we all agreed that although AI actually does have some use in dull day to day tasks like pulling data and leaving us to spend time on the creatives, humans are still irreplaceable when it comes to understanding a show, interpreting the data and constructing it into story led marketing that builds emotional connection and fulling understanding how audiences engage with it. So it’s always positive to know the robots aren’t going to be taking our jobs.   

Having said that, Jaron Ghani and Catherine Warwick of Numiko ran us through the ins and outs of findability in the wake of AI searches now overtaking Google considerably and staying one step ahead of the robots. It’s tempting to try and remove ourselves from AI given myriad reasons, but a valid point was made in that, if we don’t optimise ourselves to be the answer that chatbots give our communities looking for our advice – who is that voice of authority that shows up at the top of their AI search results that they then turn to?  

The conference finished with David Larbi’s beautiful talk and reading from his new book Frequently Happy on finding happiness together, how to share joy, and how easy it is to improve the lives of people around you with that outlook. And to be fair, the proof was in the pudding as a bunch of tired arts marketers left the auditorium with such a positive bounce! 

Overall, another insightful and inspiring event from the AMA with space for some additional lovely chats with people from What’s On Stage, Bradford Arts Centre, Your Trust Rochdale and HDK. It’s easy to feel ground down by arts marketing in a time when so many leaders don’t see its value in the way they should but being brought together like-minded people who are all working towards the same goal feels warm and supportive. It’s also nice to step back from the day to day logistics and targets and be reminded of the communities we do our work for and how important that is. Plus the brownies during the coffee break are always slamming. 

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