Audience Attendance Trends 1

Audience Attendance Trends 1 Running head: AUDIENCE ATTENDANCE TRENDS: FACTORS FOR CONSIDERATION Audience Attendance Trends: Factors for Consideration in a Marketing and Communications Plan at the University Theatre, University of Oregon, 2002 Master’s Project Presented to the Arts and Administration Program and the Graduate School of the University of Oregon in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Science in Arts and Administration Julie L. Voelker-Morris University of Oregon June 2002 Audience Attendance Trends 2 Approved _________________________________ Dr. Beverly Jones Audience Attendance Trends 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to extend my greatest thanks to my advisor, Dr. Beverly Jones, for her support, advice, knowledge, and encouragement throughout this project; and to my beloved partner, friend, and colleague, Robert Voelker-Morris, for his continual patience, thoughtfulness, and care. Additional thanks are extended to Gina Tafoya and Kim Harper for their work as research assistants; to Joseph Gilg and the University Theatre without whom this project would not have been initiated; and to Dr. Doug Blandy for his encouragement and support. Audience Attendance Trends 4 ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to describe factors that affect patron attendance at University of Oregon University Theatre (UT) productions. The study included a partial literature review of effective marketing and communications trends in theatre in the United States during the past ten years (1992-2002). The study implemented a focus group of non-alumni UT patrons from the Eugene/Springfield, Oregon zip code area who seldom (two to three times) or rarely (once) attended UT productions in the past two to three theatre seasons. The study also included phone survey data from alumni participants who were unable to participate in a scheduled focus group session. For the purposes of this study, focus groups were viewed as small, temporary groups assembled to share information around a mutual interest. This descriptive study was used to develop recommendations for future marketing plans at UT. Audience Attendance Trends 5 Table of Contents I. Acknowledgements 3 II. Abstract 4 III. Overview of Project 7 Statement of Problem and Background 7 Statement of Purpose 13 Significance of the Study 17 IV. Discussion of Related Literature 18 V. Methodology 29 Participants 29 Apparatus 30 Procedures 31 Data 34 Data Collection Tools 35 Data Analysis and Interpretation 36 Data Presentation 37 VI.. Summary of Findings 38 Participants 38 Phone Survey Participants 38 Focus Group Participants 42 Data 44 Data Analysis 45 VII. Synthesis of Literature Review, Focus Group, and Phone Survey 65 VIII. Recommendations, Speculations, and Summary 72 Audience Attendance Trends 6 IX. Assumptions 97 X. Definitions 99 XI. Limitations 104 XII. References 105 XIII. Bibliography 108 XIV. Appendices Appendix A: Recruitment Device for Selecting Focus Group Participants 109 Appendix B: Phone Survey and Focus Group Participants Profile Data 113 Appendix C: Sample Consent Forms 121 Appendix D: Discussion Guide 123 Appendix E: Transcription of Focus Group Discussion 126 Audience Attendance Trends 7 Audience Attendance Trends: Factors for Consideration in a Marketing and Communications Plan at the University Theatre, University of Oregon, 2002 OVERVIEW OF PROJECT Statement of Problem and Background For centuries, theatre has satisfied the visual, verbal, physical, and other sensory needs of those who perform and those who observe. Theatrical performance has presented concepts in ways for new understanding. Socially, theatre has increased participants’ team-building, collaborative, and individual skills. Economically, theatre has provided work for artists in various performing, technical, and visual arts. Theatre has attracted residents and visitors to destinations, encouraging additional spending at local restaurants and shopping areas. Politically, theatre has been wielded as a powerful tool for creating social change or promoting accepted ideas. Wallace (1997) explored the value of theatre as nexus, bringing people together in significant and effective ways. Wallace explained that, Theatre has brought together old and young, religious and irreligious, intellectuals and tradespersons, and people of all colors and national backgrounds. The theatre can be a very flexible and useful space, valuable in both developing or showcasing a broad range of talents and interests. The action of theatre can reach out into the community and beyond. The place of the theatre can bring together people from within and without the region. Theatre, therefore, can strengthen bonds, develop talents, and connect a community to the larger world simultaneously. (p. 1) People have been recognized as a particularly essential element of theatrical performance. As Reid (1998) stated, Theatre is a people industry. Its plays, musicals, operas, and ballets explore personal relationships. The performances pivot on the interaction of acting people and audience Audience Attendance Trends 8 people....So the infrastructure to initiate and house a live performance is based primarily on the interpersonal relationships between all the users, whether workers or audience, of a theatre building. Consequently, user friendliness is the epicentre of the debate. (p. i) In this people-centered industry, could user unfriendliness be a major reason behind the declines in audience attendance at theatres across the United States today? Harris (1996) documented that from 1987 until 1996, the level of public attendance at theatre arts events decreased from 62% to 50%, except for opera or musical theatre which maintained a constant 23-24% of general public attendance (p.7). Harris’s study suggested that this decline was reflected in attendance across the broad arts sector. Libbon (2001) confirmed the decline in theatre arts audience attendance. Libbon stated that “watching television” topped the list of Gallup’s March 1999 poll asking American adults how they prefer to spend their evening hours. The category, “going to the movies or theater” ranked fifth in the poll at an 11% rating. Libbon suggested that, “If you take movies out of the equation, you might expect to find ‘going to live theater’ somewhere near ‘entertaining friends or relatives,’ which pulled a paltry 5 percent of respondents, or ‘listening to music,’ at 4 percent” (p. 28). Which people has theatre “brought together” as Wallace suggested? According to Peithman and Offen (1999), the early Guthrie Theatre audience researchers Morison and Fliehr determined that if the population of a given area was 100,000, only about 20% (20,000) of the population participated in arts. However, this number included all arts participants, the potential theatre audience, not actual attendance prospects (p. 18). Peithman and Offen advanced that, “Studies indicate that most arts organizations in the United States currently reach three percent or less of their population, and that attendance has peaked at about this level. Therefore, if your immediate community ...has a population of one hundred thousand, you can expect a potential audience of about three thousand (p. 18).” Eugene/Springfield, Oregon Audience Attendance Trends 9 statistics compared with this population figure. This information posed the question: could the University of Oregon University Theatre (UT), an opera company, a ballet company, and five other theatres in the area expect to share that potential audience of three thousand or were there ways the theatres could work together to increase each company’s share of attendance? This question was considered too broad to be addressed in this study. Peithman and Offen (1999) suggested that theatres have maintained the same demographic base for their audiences over the past two decades, those who were, “above the national average in education, income, and proportion of professional and managerial occupations represented” (p. 18). They suggested that this limited demographic audience base decreases the potential size of an audience. This brought up the questions: (a) who was intentionally or unintentionally being excluded from UT productions or season programming? and (b) how could UT reach those being excluded? These broad questions were unable to be addressed within the scope of this study. Libbon (2001) described the average person attending a Broadway production or Broadway show-on-tour as a Caucasian female in her 40s with a college education. Libbon stressed the 1998 League of American Theatres and Producers finding that, “In 1998, 69 percent of the audience for touring shows was female; the average age, 46; fully 88 percent of the audience was Caucasian; and two-thirds of all theatregoers had at least a college degree, and a median household income of $69,700” (p. 28). Libbon noted that younger theatregoers were also primarily women. The question arose: was this ‘average’ theatre attendee reflected in the ‘average’ attendee at UT? Answers to this question required a detailed demographic study; therefore, this study did not address the question. Libbon (2001) suggested that one reason many of those in the Gallup poll did not attend theatre arts events was the high price of tickets: “The Entertainment Marketing Letter reported that the average ticket price for live theatre’s 1998-1999 season was a hefty $50.30” (p. 28). Audience Attendance Trends 10 Other suggested reasons for the decline in theatre audience attendance were the competition between the large

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