Culture Restart Audience & Visitor tracker (January 2021 update)

Summary

Responses gathered in January 2021 to the Culture Restart Audience & Visitor Tracker research by the Insights Alliance (Indigo Ltd, Baker Richards and One Further) show that:

• Among those audience members who have had a live in-person cultural experience since March 2020, confidence levels have dropped by 17% compared to November 2020 – now at their lowest level since tracking began in October 2020.
• Over half of respondents say that socially distanced seating would be essential to their return to cultural organisations, with only 6% saying they would be uncomfortable with this measure in place.
• Only 15% of respondents who have not yet returned to in-person cultural experience would consider booking within the next three months, down from 26% during October to December. A third of respondents still say they are ‘not sure when’ they will be ready to start booking again.
• The proportion of audiences waiting for a vaccine before attending has increased to 35%, compared to 25% in November and 14% in July – and nearly a third of over 75s would prefer to wait until they can attend again in ‘the usual way’ without additional safety measures such as social distancing in place, however long that takes.
• 57% of respondents have engaged with culture online since March 2020 and 76% of those have bought a ticket, donated or given a ‘pay what you can’ amount.

Lowest levels of audience confidence

Responses gathered in January 2021 indicated the lowest levels of audience confidence that we have seen since the tracking began in October 2020.

For those audience members who have attended an in-person cultural experience since the first lockdown in March 2020, net confidence now stands at +43%. This is a relative decrease of 17% compared to the highest point in confidence levels in November 2020.

This is despite the majority of those respondents having not made another in-person cultural visit since November, showing how strongly external context continues to influence confidence levels even following a positive experience at a cultural venue.