ABSTRACT
Measurement of aspects of the arts and culture to support how decisions are made and performances are assessed has become a source of national, indeed international, obsession (McDowall et al., 2015), although an interest in the importance of arts to society is a much longer preoccupation stretching back before Plato (Belfiore and Bennett, 2008). There has been considerable contemplation by both arts practitioners and arts and humanities academics about how to ascribe value and quantify impact in order to support policy making and account for the allocation of public moneys, improve the effectiveness of arts organizations in satisfying audiences, and develop new business strategies (see, e.g., Belfiore and Bennett, 2010; Crossick and Kaszynska, 2016). As with other sectors, the epistemologies of accountability for publicly funded arts organizations are being changed by shifts in external environments, and the recent attention given to big data and their potential to revolutionize everyday practices of arts management has interested the arts sector greatly (Lilley and Moore, 2013).
