Featured Image: WikimediaImages from Pixabay
JCA Performing Arts has published a new study on audience behaviour trends for the 2023-24 season, demonstrating that ticket sales for performing arts organisations in the US have almost fully rebounded since the COVID-19 pandemic, but income has not.
Data for the study was gathered from 21 major organisations in different US regions by JCA Performing Arts, a division of consultancy firm JCA that helps arts and cultural businesses leverage data-driven insights to grow audiences and revenues.
The 21 organisations were made up of eight theatre companies, six music organisations, three opera companies, three performing arts centres and one dance company. The analysis compared ticket sales for 2023-24 to past seasons: 2018-19, 2019-20, 2021-22 and 2022-23.
Additionally, JCA partnered with digital ticket delivery solution True Tickets to study the impact of individuals who attend shows with ticket buyers, known as shadow audiences.
The study found that while ticket sales were close to making a full rebound in terms of numbers compared to pre-pandemic levels, income was still lagging behind. This was particularly concerning when accounting for inflation.
Although annual ticket sales for the 2023-24 season were at 88% of pre-pandemic levels (2018-19), the number of ticket-buyers has increased to 103% compared to the same period. This indicates that each buyer, on average, was purchasing fewer tickets annually than pre-pandemic.
More than half of the audience members for most of the organisations studied appear to be new each year, but there is also an increase in the number of returning guests.
“It’s great to see that the number of unique audience members in our venues has rebounded,” said Jamie Alexander, director of strategy and insights, and co-author of the study.
“The challenge now is to encourage those individuals to attend more and buy more to make up for continued income shortfalls.”
Share this