TG Community Research Results

Attending Arts and Cultural Events

We asked our community if they attend arts and cultural events, why or why not, and how they hear about these events. This is what we learned.

Arts Attenders
For those who attend arts performances, they attend because they:

  • Enjoy the experience (93%)
  • Believe the arts are important (65%)
  • Want to support artists (56%)

Takeaway: Creating an enjoyable experience is of utmost importance.

Their challenges in attending are:

  • They are busy (47%)
  • Cost of tickets (41%)

Non-Attenders
Those who rarely or never attend arts performances or events:

  • Are busy (59%)
  • Don’t find out about arts or cultural events (41%)

Everyone Is Busy
Everyone feels busy, both those who frequently or infrequently attend arts events (47%), and those who rarely or never do (59%).

Takeaway: Make it easy to take in an arts or cultural event by making them more convenient and accessible including times of days and locations.

Attending the 10×10
Among attendees of Hult Center for the Performing Arts 10×10 performances are those who frequently attend arts events (24%) or infrequently attend arts events (5%).

Takeaway: For encouraging art exploration, target those who are already engaged.

Where do people hear about arts performances or events?

  • Frequent attendees: Friends or Family (76%), Emails from venue (71%)
  • Infrequent attendees: Friends or Family (78%), Emails from venue (69%)
  • Rarely attend: Friends or family (67%), News Outlets (37%), Emails from venue (33%)
  • Never attend: Friends or family (75%)

Takeaways:

  • Incentivize people who attend arts to encourage friends and family to attend, including asking them to forward emails from the venue or artist.
  • When promoting arts events to those who don’t subscribe to emails, find them through news outlets and social media.

What is important in deciding whether to experience a new musician in a live venue?

  • Infrequent attendees: Time of performance (63%), Day of performance (61%), Cost of tickets (58%).
  • Rarely attend: Time of performance (52%), Day of performance (45%), Cost of tickets (45%)

Takeaway: The time and day of performance is critical. Venues may want to experiment and track attendance with different time and day of week combinations.

Cost of tickets
The cost of tickets is a challenge for:

  • People under 50 years old (52%)
  • Infrequent attenders (49%)
  • Never attenders (50%)

Age

  • Frequent: 50+
  • Infrequent and rarely: 30 – 64

Survey was conducted in March 2023, with 127 respondents. Responses were solicited from people who indicated an interest in participating in community research (17%), people who were encouraged to take the survey by the nonprofit who was the recipient of a donation made for every survey collected (53%), and those encouraged by Turell Group (30%). This is not a representative sample of the community.