Report and Toolkit: Understanding Drama attendance

SUMMARY

How do we attract new drama audiences and turn them into returning drama audiences? The Developing Drama Audiences Toolkit is a practical tool designed by Indigo to support organisations to develop new, and encourage returning, drama audiences.

Commissioned by the National Theatre, in collaboration with Theatre Nation Partnerships and primarily led by Curve Theatre, Indigo carried out sector-wide research to understand the motivators and opportunities to grow drama audiences.

The aim of the research, which informed the development of the toolkit, was to understand audience behaviour in relation to drama, develop a deeper understanding of current attitudes and motivation around drama attendance, and discover any key barriers in attendance such as price, positioning and communication.

There were four stages in the research methodology, which were:

1. Analysis of drama and (where relevant) musical sales data for the last 5 years

2. Sales and audience insights from the host venues of a touring drama production

3. Online survey sent to audiences of the Theatre Nation Partnerships venues

4. Focus groups with survey respondents and the Indigo Share Audience Panel

Key findings from the research included:

1. Age - non-drama attenders are more likely to be younger than drama attenders, with almost one third of non-drama attenders under 50 years old, compared to less than one fifth of drama attenders.

2. Tastes and preferences - drama attenders are more likely to enjoy a challenge and variety and (try) unfamiliar things - although there are signs of price sensitivity to unfamiliar things due to feeling of risk of enjoyment.

3. Attendance - drama attenders are much more arts-engaged than non-attenders, with 57% attending four or more times a year, compared to 26% of non-attenders.

Read the full report (PDF)

Indigo's Developing Drama Audiences Toolkit

This toolkit is designed for programmers and marketers to better understand the profile, attitudes and motivations of typical drama, and non-drama, attenders.

Based on surveys and focus groups of these audiences conducted by Indigo, they have built a plan of templates and checklists to provide insight-informed ideas, thoughts on programming, developing messaging for your targeting audience and general campaign planning support.