Commercial and audience consultancy, The Revels Office, celebrates 5th anniversary.
Commercial and audience strategy consultancy, The Revels Office, is celebrating its fifth anniversary of providing arts-powered business solutions to the cultural sector. With 5 years already under their belt, 2023 marks the introduction of a new strategic experience service and a growing team.
Kate Rolfe, who headed up teams at major cultural organisations including The National Gallery and Natural History Museum, founded The Revels Office in 2018. The consultancy offers a wide range of services, from setting strategies and delivering business plans to creative programming, community consultation, and training, across commercial and audience development.
“I was always interested in the cross-over between culture and commerce, and how I could bridge these areas to let museums do more - generate more revenue, reach more people, and have more relevance,” said Rolfe. The Revels Office’s first project was with the internationally-acclaimed Battersea Arts Centre. Over the years, the consultancy have successfully delivered numerous high profile projects for clients, including a fundraising project with Gucci and mothers2mothers; stepping in to support English National Ballet reinvigorate its commercial hires business mid-pandemic; as well as setting the Culture Strategy for Wentworth Woodhouse, the UK's largest private home, which is now a dynamic cultural hub for the community.
The consultancy has established itself as a sector expert by leading talks and workshops at various industry events. For example, they led a Museum Connections roundtable discussion on retail beyond the museum gift shop, presented a webinar on taking social and creative experiences to non-traditional locations in collaboration with Amsterdam-based creative design agency NorthernLight, and delivered Culture Sprint workshops for senior level members of the Association of Cultural Enterprises.
By 2022 The Revels Office officially began operating from London, Edinburgh and Amsterdam.
To bring together a powerful range of skills and expertise, the consultancy has collaborated with like-minded freelancers who contributed creative programming (Helen Galliano), digital arts production (Steph Clarke), artist and community engagement (Madeline Wilson), strategic research and development (Caroline Sharman, Becca Laurence), membership analysis (Rachel de Woollson), and income growth (Sarah Marfleet, Tanith Lindon). You can see our full list of talented collaborators here.
The core Revels Office team at the consultancy now benefits from all having worked in-house for major arts organisations, including the National Gallery, National History Museum, BAFTA, the Royal Academy of Arts, and RADA. The consultancy most recently welcomed Julie Molloy - previously Managing Director at National Gallery Global - to the team as part of her new portfolio career.
The Revels Office’s success has been measured not only by its impressive client roster but also by its advocacy to become a truly responsible organisation. The team strongly believe that the cultural sector needs to take action on issues around equality and diversity. They have identified ways to tackle these topics and created the “Equality In Focus - Arts Edition” framework, a free action plan and resource to help understand and overcome inequality within the sector. With the framework, the consultancy has been able to advise clients and other organisations on ways they can start to embrace responsible recruitment and actively address diversity within the organisation.
In this milestone 5th anniversary year, The Revels Office is launching a strategic experience service for cultural and commercial destinations. The new initiative will combine place-making with commercial strategy to help transform how people relate to and experience museums, hotels and hospitality venues, retail developments, community spaces and all types of visitor destinations. Through this work they will enable their clients to make memories, make money and make sense.
As The Revels Office looks ahead to the next five years and beyond, the consultancy remains committed to empowering arts and culture organisations to achieve their full potential.
“It's been an honour to work with so many fascinating arts, heritage and cultural venues over the past 5 years. We want to continue facilitating the exchange of ideas and uniting insights from commerce, community and culture” Kate Rolfe concluded “I'm particularly excited to now bridge even further into the world of commerce through the place-making and guest strategy work we're doing for commercial destinations. Our ambition is to continue to transform the world’s visitor destinations into truly responsible and highly magnetic places powered by cultural experiences.”
Contact
Phone: +44 07887 565 402
Email: kate@therevelsoffice.co.uk
Twitter: @revels_office
Instagram: therevelsoffice