Rethinking cultural diversity: strategic communication and value for pop music venues - Eight qualitative case studies in The Netherlands

Dutch multicultural cities are becoming increasingly culturally diverse. At the same, Dutch politicians are urging cultural organisations in the Netherlands to implement cultural diversity more structurally into their organisations. In reaction, the cultural sector initiated a Code Cultural Diversity, suggesting cultural diversity can be implemented regarding the organisation's program, public, partners and personnel. At the same time, cultural organisations are relatively running behind when it comes to applying a strategic communication. By conducting in-depth interview with eight pop music venues and a qualitative content analysis on online communication, this study examined how cultural diversity can be efficiently implemented as a value proposition by Dutch pop music venues in Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Utrecht. Results showed that cultural diversity is collectively understood as different groups of people being represented together at one place. Program and publics are discussed mostly in relation to differences between music genres and sub cultures. Even though most music venues perceive cultural diversity as an important additional societal value, few venues are actively implementing cultural diversity as much as they'd like to. At the same time, some venues experience improvement in a more culturally diverse program and public, even though most of them are still exploring the opportunities for now. Partnerships and personnel are considered as highly influential to stimulate cultural diversity in the organisations. External factors including a venue's capacity, history and the degree of social segregation in the cities are considered as complicating for efficient implementation. Nevertheless, some external factors can be used in advantage to transform pop music venues into a meeting place.