One of the main objectives of the Department of Culture, Youth and Media (CJM) is to stimulate and support cultural participation. Unlocking cultural participation data can contribute to this, both in terms of increasing overall reach and broadening outreach to new audiences.

However, a major challenge within the sector is that ticketing and scheduling data is currently only shared to a limited extent and is fragmented in silos. A possible recommendation is to develop a functionality that allows data from the cultural sector to be exchanged in a uniform manner. The format in which this data should be exchanged should comply with an OSLO (Open Standards for Linking Organizations) standard that CJM and Digitaal Vlaanderen are developing. An additional challenge here, however, is that the data that culture providers currently have at their disposal are kept in various software systems, developed by only a handful of private software suppliers who currently make little commitment to open data.

Digitization allows process efficiencies to be realized, new products to be developed, better insights to be gained and increased market involvement in the development of cultural participation applications. The availability of open and free data is crucial for this.

In this PIO project, CJM wants to enable easy access to cultural participation data contained in the various ticketing and planning software systems. This with the aim of managing this data collectively and unlocking it for new applications.