About LIFT
LIFT travels the world to bring global stories to London for our biennial festival, creating spectacular performances and moments of magic in every corner of the Capital and presenting shows in partnership with London’s major arts venues, theatres and galleries including the Barbican, Southbank Centre, Historic Royal Palaces, Tate, Royal Court Theatre and Lyric Hammersmith, but also in countless hidden spaces and places across the city.
Alongside LIFT’s biennial London-wide festival, we run a programme of year-round activity that includes large scale projects, artist residencies, national touring and our previous ground-breaking placemaking work in Tottenham and now in the City of London Square mile.
LIFT stands for radical empowerment and inclusion. We promote the power and urgency of international perspectives, understanding that difference makes us stronger.
The theatre we present is compelling, meaningful, provocative, excellent, topical, singular; we advance contemporary thought, introduce new forms, ideas, and ways of experiencing art. We start necessary conversations and provide essential cultural experiences.
Dedicated to daring and relevant culture and international perspectives, LIFT celebrates the world in London and London in the world. We present a festival which connects London audiences with leading international artists, brave ideas, and unforgettable cultural experiences. We bring audiences to the city’s most iconic venues, landmarks, and unusual corners, celebrating the character of London and calling Londoners to gather for incredible art.
A charity limited by guarantee and based in Toynbee Studios in East London. LIFT is an Arts Council England National Portfolio Organisation with a biennial turnover in the region of £1.7 million.
Role Summary
Title: Head of Communications and Audiences
Contract: 2 years Fixed term, with possibility of extension
Salary: £42,000 FTE (£33,600 pro rata)
Working Hours: Part Time 28 hours per week pro-rata 4 days per week (worked flexibly; excluding breaks)
Holiday: 22 days annually excluding public/bank holidays & TOIL
Location: Place of work will be at LIFT offices, Arts Admin, East London.
Full time staff at LIFT normally work at least 3 days a week in office, alongside focused working from home days.
Reports to: Executive Director
Responsible for: Marketing and Communications Assistant, Audience Connectors (Freelance) external suppliers and consultants (PR, content creation and documenters), student placements.
Working relationships: Artistic Director/CEO, Head of Finance, Head of Development, General Manager, and marketing teams in other venues
Closing date: Thursday 19th October
Start date: As soon as possible
The Role
The Head of Communications & Audiences conceives and executes impactful communications, marketing, sales, and audience development campaigns to ensure LIFT’s ability to connect our programming and placemaking to audiences and maintain our profile as one of the country’s leading cultural organisations.
Calling on your ability to create and set strategies, your work will conceive of the best ways to connect the international and UK-based artists we champion to existing and new London audiences and our growing online communities.
The role is creative, strategic, and dynamic. You need to be an agile thinker and a clear, motivational communicator, able to articulate your ideas and plans to a diverse range of stakeholders and partners. You will enjoy working in a dynamic environment, at times responding to the needs of multiple individuals and organisations as we deliver events in partnership with local and international partners, whilst managing freelancers and contractors under your stewardship.
You will be an analytical and metrics-focused marketer with proven experience of leading innovative and successful communications and marketing campaigns. You underpin your flair for inventive communication with data, using evaluation to inform your practice and support our reporting requirements as a publicly funded charity.
This role involves articulating and formulating persuasive and compelling organisational and artistic messages, both internally and externally. Elevating LIFT’s brand and growing our audiences and community will be your passion. Your communications will inspire and give confidence to audiences, partners, funders and everyone LIFT collaborates with.
You have a growing interest in contemporary culture, internationalism and London, and an ability to translate this passion through multiple mediums.
Job Description
Marketing and Communications
- Take lead responsibility for communications, sales, and marketing to increase audiences, reach targets and promote the LIFT brand and values to its fullest all year round
- Develop and deliver content/strategies to reach audiences during the off-festival or off-programming periods
- Review and deliver LIFT’s communications and audience development strategy, building campaigns and tactical plans for festival, special presentations, as well as any other activity LIFT carries out as part of its year-round placemaking work, LIFT the City.
- Support the Artistic Director/CEO in developing a compelling communications campaign for festival editions and LIFT’s programming. You will incorporate programming themes and strands, artist copy and assets into a cohesive whole that can take on big ideas, is attractive, easy to understand and appeals to LIFT’s audiences.
- Work with Creative Producer and Administrative Producer to ensure publicity agreements for each production are on brand and timely delivered
- Coordinate communication campaigns and audience evaluation with LIFT’s presenting venues and festival partners.
- Work with the Head of Development on the strategy to build LIFT’s membership and donor base, including overseeing how materials are shared for monthly newsletters.
- With LIFT team devise and oversee a reputational management strategy (e.g. developing Q&A/FAQs, briefing notes based on artists work or identities and LIFT policies).
Brand, Audience and Sales
- Work closely with Artistic Director and external agencies on LIFT’s brand development.
- Develop LIFT’s brand among core and new audiences with particular focus on young audiences under 35, and reaching more Black, Asian, Arab, Latinx and other minority ethnic groups.
- Lead on the mandatory audience evaluation and audience insights tools mandatory for all Arts Council England funded National Portfolio Organisations.
- Alongside the Head of Development, devise strategies to promote the LIFT brand in ways that increase loyalty and sales over time.
- Work closely in partnership with venues, developing relationships and project focused campaigns with them and ensuring LIFT brand presence at venues
- Develop LIFT’s approach to audience development taking learnings from projects in 2023 and 2024 to inform the strategy for 2026.
- With the General Manager, lead regular Sales Meetings when LIFT productions are live and on sale.
Digital
- Drive the delivery of online and social media strategy, and support the Marketing Assistant to identify opportunities to exploit digital channels wherever possible
- Led by the Executive Director, project manage external teams (including website, videographers, photographers, web and design agencies and media partners) ensuring a powerful and cohesive visual representation across all programme activities and audiences
- Oversee the maintenance of LIFT’s website, working with external providers
- Support the Marketing Assistant to monitor all web analytics, social media statistics, sales and audience profile trends and report regularly at team meetings
- Oversee archival of LIFT communications materials and updates to the LIFT online archive.
Research, Analysis and Evaluation
- Provide detailed analysis and insight on campaigns to share across the LIFT team to help inform future strategy, including engaging external consultants to support this work
- Lead on the mandatory audience evaluation and audience insights tools mandatory for all Arts Council England funded National Portfolio Organisations.
Finance and Fundraising Support
- Work with the Executive Director and Head of Finance to set and prepare marketing budgets and spending forecasts.
- Share responsibility of managing Box Office targets as set by Executive Director and/or Artistic Director/CEO. Ensure incorporation of on-sale information with the General Manager and Creative Producer, and where appropriate, other relevant revenue streams (such as merchandise, online offers etc)
- Oversee pricing reviews with the Executive Director, General Manager, freelance Box Office Manager and artistic team
- Work with the Head of Development to ensure all communications and marketing functions of funder and sponsor partnerships are delivered, including materials for reporting
Relationship and Line Management
- With the Executive Director, oversee the recruitment, contracting and relationship management of external providers such as LIFT’s publicists/PR teams, graphic designers and other roles.
- Provide support and direction to the freelance roles of Audience Connectors and the Marketing and Communications Assistant (Paid Intern)
- Manage by good example, encouraging individual development supporting team members in their performance management as well as in their wellbeing action & personal development plans using LIFT’s organisational templates.
FT, please mention this in your application.
Person Specification
Essential:
- Marketing, communications, audience development and sales experience at a senior level in the arts, culture and/or visitor attraction sectors.
- Experience of creating, delivering and evaluating successful and inventive communications and audience engagement strategies and campaigns that drive sales, reach targets, extend reach, and develop strong brand impact.
- A creative thinker with the ability to take a 360 view and make an active contribution to the wider strategic development of the organisation in relation to our communications and profile.
- A track record for managing and interpreting data and using it to inform your work
- Experience of leading a department
- Advanced skills in both written and oral communication, presentation, negotiation and collaboration.
- Excellent organisational skills, with a great eye for detail and the ability to work effectively under pressure, underpinned by strong computer literacy including Microsoft Office
- A strong understanding of digital innovation and experience of delivering on digital opportunities.
- Experience of setting and effectively managing budgets.
- A passion for greater inclusivity and representation in all the LIFT does
- A passion for LIFT and the work we produce.
Desirable:
- Experience of working with and managing the work of external agencies, suppliers and freelancers.
- Experience and knowledge of CRM systems, particularly Spektrix.
- Broad understanding of technical aspects of the web (WordPress).
- Knowledge of Arts Council reporting requirements.
Terms of Employment
Salary
£33,600 per annum pro rata (£42,000 FTE).
Annual Leave
22 days paid holiday (27.5 days FTE), plus British public holidays and bank holidays (currently 8 per year).
Pension
Following completion of the probation period, LIFT offers a Workplace Pension Plan operated by Royal London, whereby we match employee contributions up to an agreed limit
Working hours
This is a part-time post, assuming 28 hours per week. Standard LIFT office hours are 10am – 6pm,
Monday – Friday. With this as a baseline, we are open to discussing flexible working options including reduced or compressed hours, remote working and flexible start and finish times. Due to the nature of the role and our sector, some evening and weekend work will be required.
Probation Period
Three months, during which either party may terminate the contract with two weeks’ notice. Notice period is three months following the successful completion of the probation period.
Base
The post is based at LIFT’s office at Toynbee Studios, London. The building and the office is wheelchair-accesible.
How to Apply
To apply for the post, please use our application forms to submit:
- an up-to-date CV
- a cover letter addressing the selection criteria, or a 3-minute video
- a completed Equal Opportunities Monitoring Form
Timeline
Application deadline: Thursday 19th October 2023
Interviews:
1st round: 26th October at Toynbee Studios
2nd round: Likely 1st November, TBC.
Anticipated start date: As soon as possible
If you are unable to start immediately, we would like to organise a number of handover days with our current Head of Marketing and Comms during November. As we are preparing to promote the festival in June 2024 a swift handover is desirable.
Each application will be judged specifically against the essential and desirable criteria; please ensure you address all of the mentioned points to give yourself the best chance of progression.
If you would like to have an informal, confidential conversation about aspects of the role, please contact recruitment@liftfestival.com to arrange a phone call.
LIFT is committed to being a truly inclusive organisation – from our Trustees and team members to our audience and participants. We treat all job applications equally, regardless of race, age, disability, gender identity or gender expression, race, ethnicity, religion or belief, sex, sexual orientation, or any other equality characteristic. We particularly encourage applications from groups who are underrepresented in the cultural sector including working class people, disabled people, and people from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
Our offices are wheelchair-accessible; please contact recruitment@liftfestival.com or 0207 968 6800 if you wish to discuss any access requirements ahead of making an application.
LIFT will reimburse travel expenses up to £25 to in-person interviews for all candidates. If your travel is likely to cost more than this, please contact recruitment@liftfestival.com to discuss options.
Our organisation has a flexible and adaptive environment that allows our small, dedicated team to flourish. We are open to discussing the possibility of reduced hours, remote working, flexible start and finish times, or compressed hours. We will explore this with candidates at interview stage.
This position does not meet the eligibility criteria for the sponsorship of international workers looking to travel to the UK.
