Reporting & Evaluation
STANDARD: Conduct substantial end of tour reporting and share outcomes with all relevant stakeholders.
Minimum Practice
End-of-tour evaluation is undertaken and documented upon completion of the touring exhibition including key statistics, outcomes, and learnings, ensuring contractual obligations are fulfilled.
Best Practice
End-of-tour reporting is both an evaluative and celebratory process that contributes to sector knowledge and future practice. Insights gained are used to inform future projects, strengthen partnerships, and refine organisational approaches. Beyond meeting contractual obligations, best practice prioritises evaluation as a form of care for the people involved and the work produced.
Guidance
Internal and external evaluations of touring exhibitions are a necessary part of the touring process. If funding bodies have been involved, you may have very specific parameters that you need to report against, but it is also important to come back to the ‘sector relevance’, ‘internal goals’, and ‘feasibility’ of your touring project and evaluate what worked well, and where you may do things differently next time. Speaking to the value of unexpected outcomes is another key part of the evaluation process of your touring project. It is also important at this point to act upon any end of tour promises made to funding bodies or partners. For example, you may have said that you would calculate the carbon footprint and pay for carbon offsetting, or you may have agreed to send a copy of all collateral produced to an archive for their records.
End of tour report
An end of tour report should be an informative celebration of your touring exhibition. Compiling a document that can be distributed to all stakeholders and attached to funding reporting is a great way to create this evaluation resource, but a dedicated webpage could also be created if preferred to make future updates easier.
The end of tour report should set out the premise of the exhibition, the main relationships and creatives, the itinerary, key statistics (such as visitor numbers, distance travelled, days on display etc), collateral and materials produced, interesting venue feedback, visitor comments and experiences, images from each iteration, public programming or engagement opportunities provided, media and/or clippings, social media posts, and collaborator credits. Most of this information will be gleaned from the review forms/surveys conducted at the conclusion of each iteration of the tour (see Touring Updates and Assessment section). It is recommended to collate the information within the review forms/surveys at the conclusion of each iteration, particularly as there may be staff changes or organisational shifts that can make collecting data difficult many months (or years) later when the tour concludes.
Internal reflections
A touring exhibition can last many years and involve both rewarding and challenging moments. With the exhibition being mounted, exhibited, communicated, and deinstalled multiple times, there are more opportunities for varied experiences, opportunities, and incidents to occur that together create the depth and complexity of a touring project. Taking time to evaluate the impact of the exhibition on you, your organisation, the people involved, the connections made, and the partners invested is essential and may take time. You may choose to host forums, provide opportunities for phone/in-person conversations, or even celebrate with your team. Internally reflecting on the ‘who’, ‘what’, and ‘why’ of your decision to tour your exhibition, and connecting them with the outcomes achieved and obstacles faced, is a recommended conclusion of tour process. As projects can traverse many months or even years, environmental impacts, global shortages, changes in personal circumstances for stakeholders, financial shifts, and venue closures may have impacted your tour.
Holding space for these changes and challenges alongside the positive developments is important.
Standards In Action
Artback NT – We Eat We Are End of Tour Report
[IN DEVELOPMENT] An example of an Artback NT End of Tour report for their tour We Eat We Are.