A changed format of cultural events, adapted to the pandemic, marked the third Kaleidoscope of Culture, held from 4 September until 9 October. The audience welcomed this new approach and focus on the local artistic scene, and prominent artists from Europe as well, which was proven by their evaluation of events.
During the Kaleidoscope of Culture, an independent team of evaluators from the Faculty of Philosophy and the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Novi Sad conducted a survey with the audience expressing their remarks, praises, critiques and suggestions about the programmes, based on which next year’s events will be created. This evaluation represents the fourth phase of the Kaleidoscope of Culture – a unique project of culture of togetherness, which lasts throughout the year.
More than 86 precent of visitors of this year’s Kaleidoscope of Culture ranked the events and programmes good and excellent, 96 percent of them wish to visit similar events in the future, while 96,7 percent of them would recommend some of the events to their friends and acquaintances.
The grade average of the organisation and quality of events are also high, thus within the Kaleidoscope of Culture the grade average is 4,3 (out of the maximum 5), while respondents highly ranked the whole implementation of the programmes and events and their aims. It all met their expectations.
Majority of people visiting cultural programmes are the highly educated ones, thus 84 percent of people attending the Kaleidoscope of Culture have faculty degrees.
The motives for visiting the Kaleidoscope of Culture are the accessibility of events, combination of the programme quality and performers themselves, the fact they offer something different, as well as an opportunity for having fun and hanging out with other visitors.
It is interesting that the majority of respondents said they visit cultural events once a month (54,2%) and once a week (32, 5%). If we compare these statistics with the audience’s habits of visiting cultural events in 2019 and 2018, we can see a huge growth in number of people visiting cultural events regularly, i.e. once a week (which is twice as much compared to last year). This shows improvement in forming cultural habits among people.
The audience had a chance to share what could be improved when it comes to the organisation of events, thus they mentioned respecting the set timetable and need for better directions in certain places. Part of respondents thought the logistics of the events should be better, with more information desks where food and drinks could be bought. All these suggestions are of great importance for the future events within the ‘Novi Sad – European Capital of Culture’ project.
The research on visitors of cultural events and programmes within this year’s Kaleidoscope of Culture was done on the sample of 14 events of different character, such as exhibitions, film screenings, operas and other artistic achievements.
