We’ve been conducting research into how audiences are feeling about returning to events, and what they’ve been doing in the meantime, for over a year now. Indigo’s first survey, After the Interval, was launched in April 2020, and we’ve now involved almost 700 cultural organisations and heard from almost 600K audience members.
So as the sector prepares for reopening, the main concern I hear from cultural organisations is around audience confidence:
- Will people be happy to return after so long?
- What sorts of measures will they expect to see in place and for how long?
- What about vaccine passports or testing in order to come?
In our latest data release from March, customer confidence is shown to be increasing, but it’s pretty fragile - and we have seen it fluctuate quite a bit, and quite quickly.
76% of our respondents haven’t been back to a cultural venue or event since at organisations are planning now will be the first time audiences have been in a cultural venue for quite a long time.
Even with the encouraging movement in March there are a significant number of people who are open to persuasion, but will need a lot of reassurance: 60% haven’t got any bookings in the diary and ⅓ aren’t planning to book within the next 6 months.
What I think we’ve all discovered through the last year is that different people have different ‘tolerances’, anxieties or concerns. And the sorts of reassurances they’ll need might be quite different.
Looking through the research we’ve done over the past year, including some pre- and post-visit surveys for the short time when venues did open, and our work talking to customers directly through audience panels, we think there are five areas of reassurance that you must give audiences in order to build confidence.