We help museums and cultural venues grow venue hire and partnerships.

atrium works with cultural spaces and their marketing teams to grow commercial opportunity, strengthening marketing and positioning towards the brands and businesses that are already looking for them for events, offsites, product launches and cultural collaborations.

  • atrium is led by Jack Shottel, a marketer and strategist specialising in venue hire and partnerships for arts and cultural spaces. Based between Newcastle and London, Jack's background spans cultural institutions, nightlife and fast-growing tech companies.

    The practice is built on two and a half years working with Nxt Museum in Amsterdam, where venue hire and partnerships were developed from scratch — improving visibility, sharpening the proposition, and building long-term commercial activity with partners including Mastercard, Porsche, Adobe and On Running. That experience shapes how atrium works: practical, grounded, and built around what venues already have – spaces that inspire.

  • atrium is built around a hands-on, direct approach to each project.

    I work closely with each venue, from initial thinking through to implementation.

    Every project is shaped around the space itself, its audience, and the realities of the internal team. The focus is on making practical improvements that can be implemented quickly and built on over time.

  • atrium works with small to mid-sized cultural venues, including museums, galleries, and independent spaces.

    These are often organisations with strong programming and a clear identity, but limited time or resource to develop venue hire and partnerships in a structured way.

    The focus is on venues with the potential to host brands, events, and collaborations.

In 2026, museums, galleries and cultural venues offer exactly what many brands and businesses are looking for — memorable experiences, cultural credibility, and creative and inspiring spaces for events and offsites.

The reality for most marketing teams

Cultural marketing teams are built to drive footfall, sell exhibition tickets and deliver innovative programming.

However, as commercial revenue becomes more integral to cultural venues’ success, many small teams are increasingly expected to develop and market for venue hire, brand partnerships and B2B corporate events. In many cases, they lack the time and knowledge to do it well.

This means that enquiries are inconsistent, past collaborations aren’t given the spotlight they deserve, and there is no clear line between marketing activity and commercial outcome. The opportunity exists, but the infrastructure to capture it doesn't.

atrium works with venues to change that — making it easier for the right clients and partners to find them, understand what's on offer, and take the next step.

How atrium can help

Every atrium project is led by Jack Shottel, and starts with a fresh look at what already exists, the spaces, assets and current marketing setup. From there, we’re focused on delivering practical and hands-on solutions, focused across three stages:

Audit and strategy

We’ll run an audit of your current venue hire and partnerships offer and deliver a tailored, phased and target-driven strategy document.

Set-up

We’ll work together across any or all of the following: optimising enquiry flows, developing website page content and case studies, increasing impressions and clicks via LinkedIn, implementing email nurture campaigns, and testing and learning with paid Google Search ads to capture existing demand.

Support and optimisation

We’ll consistently test, learn and iterate to optimise and grow the most effective channels for building visibility, outreach and inbound enquiries.

Our work in practice

atrium is based on work delivered at Nxt Museum over a 2.5 year period, building the commercial marketing function from scratch at one of Europe’s leading destinations for digital and new media art.

The focus was on making the venue more visible, easier to understand, and more compelling to brands and event agencies.

Results

  • +136% increase in bookings value (year-on-year)

  • Over 220 enquiries in the first half of 2025

  • Partnerships and events with brands including Mastercard, Porsche, Adobe, Vogue, On Running and Prosus Group

What changed

  • Clearer positioning of the venue hire offer across key pages

  • Development of case studies to showcase past events and partnerships

  • Improved visibility through search and targeted campaigns

  • More structured approach to outreach and inbound enquiries

Start a conversation

If you're exploring how to develop venue hire or partnerships at your cultural venue, feel free to get in touch. We’ll be happy to share thoughts or take a look at your current setup.