Katy Raines shares her thoughts on the first six months of data from our 2023/24 Indigo Share UK audience benchmark.
Indigo Share is the collective approach to audience insight.
In the first six months of the 2024/25 financial year, together we’ve gathered 59,236 responses from theatre and venue goers all over the UK from more than 40 different theatres and venues.
Our audience benchmark allows venues to compare how they are doing against others in the UK - but also allows us to spot trends in audience attitude or behaviour, that it would otherwise be harder to do with only one venue or a small number of audience responses.
Coupled with our recent large scale surveys such as Tomorrow’s Audience and Act Green, we can easily see what the trends are.
So far this year, we think there are a few things to be really optimistic about:
- Audiences are your advocates: The Net Promoter Score across all our participating venues has risen from 71 in 23/24 to 75 - a score higher than Apple - demonstrating that our audiences really love the experiences they are having with us and are prepared to tell others.
- Frequency is increasing: audiences say they are attending arts and cultural experiences much more frequently - with over 54% now saying they go 6 or more times per year (compared with 46% in 23/24). It’s great to see frequency building back up again, having taken a dip since Covid.
- Audiences’ tastes seem to be widening: ⅔ (66%) say they have ‘eclectic taste and like to see a variety of things’ compared with 60% last year; and 45% say they like trying new or unfamiliar things, compared with 39% last year.
Other trends to watch:
- Our Tomorrow’s Audience research found that first time attenders would be much more likely to return for a ‘special occasion’ than repeat attenders - and our data here tells a similar story with first time visits - so it’s a great hook to use to secure that elusive second visit.
- Audiences are still largely unconvinced that we’re demonstrating a commitment to environmental sustainability. Only 50% think we are, and this hasn’t changed.
- Audience access needs deserve a renewed focus: in a new section, we asked audiences whether they had a particular disability or access need which was relevant to their booking experience or visit, and 10% did. We’ll be diving into that issue soon in our upcoming Hot Topic, Access Culture. Sign up now to take part.
