An analysis of Audience Finder box office data for classical music events 2014-2016

Audience Finder is the Arts Council England commissioned audience data and development programme, enabling cultural organisations to grow audiences and revenues by sharing, comparing and applying audience insight. The aggregated dataset provides a unique and hitherto unavailable level of audience analysis and benchmarking across the nation, regions, organisations, artforms and performances.

An Audience Finder classical music cluster was set up in 2013-14 which agreed specific areas of focus. Those it has been possible to address in this report are:

 What are audiences like? Using Audience Spectrum segmentation. o How do tastes differ?

 What are the booking behaviours of classical music audiences?

•  How frequently do people book?
•  How much do people pay for their tickets?
•  How late do audiences book?
•  What are the trends in party size?

 Are audiences for classical music ageing?

Inspired by the findings of the Audience Growth Initiative, marketing and development directors from nine orchestras undertook a follow-up Patron Growth Initiative with Prescott & Associates to tackle the more complex issue of building sustainable support, factoring in both attendance and donations — thus helping orchestras grow total lifetime value. This presentation outlines the findings and recommendations of the yearlong effort that included data mining (on a database of 545,000 concertgoers and donors), qualitative, and quantitative research. This presentation debuted at the League's 2011 National Conference.

This study has been published by Macarena Cuenca-Amigo and Mercedes Albaina Hernández. The goal of this study consisted of analysing whether educational intervention by means of a Musical Training as a Leisure Activity programme had any significant impact on sensorial, affective and analytical listening levels among senior citizens who had and had not previously studied music. To do so, we designed our own measurement scale and applied it to a sample of 37 students over 50 years of age at the University of Deusto (Bilbao, Spain). Both the scale as a whole and each of the subscales of the different listening levels presented adequate reliability, with Cronbach’s alpha values greater than 0.8. The questionnaire was administered in the classroom on the first and last day of class, after hearing the same piece of music. The measurements before and after the educational intervention were compared by applying a Student’s t-test for paired samples. The research concluded that the only listening level to have been significantly affected by the Musical Training as a Leisure Activity programme was the analytical level, and when examining this in greater detail, it is noted that the impact was only prominent among members of the sample who had not studied music before.

Article published in april 2018.

In his talk, Douglas McLennan stresses the importance of technology in the world of culture and describes how it can connect, improve and measure everything it touches. Proper use of technologies allows us, among other things, to get to know our audience better, to draw up questionnaires with the right questions and to obtain results on what we can do for lovers of music. By way of summary, we can quote one of his conclusions; “Today no experience is complete until it is shared”.

Video of Douglas McLennan in 3rd AEOS-BBVA Foundation, April 2015.