The Laidlaw Opera Trust will partner with The Grange Festival to help the organization build audiences, attract younger opera goers, and utilize data systems to help with its outreach.

The two started working together in 2025 with Laidlaw Opera Trust providing the Festival with a data-led audience recruitment campaign and recruited new skills into the team. Other tactics included offering subsidized tickets for audiences ages 18-35, including £5 for those 18-25 and £15 for those 26 to 35. The results have been strong.

The Grange Festival saw a year-on-year ticket growth of 76 percent, which is its highest attendance on record; the production of “La Traviata” was the best-selling in its entire history, and the company even added an extra performance set for July 4, 2025.

“What a thrilling time this is for our Festival, embracing a new era of connecting with our audiences and helping many more people discover what is so truly special about our Festival and the opera artform,” said Tyler Stoops, CEO, The Grange Festival, per an official press release. He noted that the aims of the two organizations aligned and emphasized his gratitude for the partnership, especially “in this very challenging funding climate for opera.”

“Opera is nothing without its audience, and building, developing and understanding audiences is so vital for opera to thrive,” added Kate Roberts, CEO, Laidlaw Opera Trust. “LOT is excited to see The Grange Festival fully embrace this ethos and put in place a comprehensive and resourced audience development structure to build the audience of the future. We are thrilled that more people in Hampshire and beyond will get to enjoy the world-class opera produced by The Grange Festival for years to come.”

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