You have searched a key word or phrase and then need to remember to be very objective about what you get back. There may be links to respected and authoritative research in there and some facts you can rely on but only as long as you have established their provenance.
The majority is somebody's opinion.
After all, what you're reading is my opinion!
A good deal is commercially motivated and worse, bloated with ads. Trust me, I'm not.
And let's be honest, there is a good heap of garbage in there. Hopefully, I'm not.
Example. The search "Why do people go to theatre" brings back some interesting opinions and comments and even some research. It also brings back a huge amount of garbage.
My favourite line on one results page read:
"Theatre and live performances tend to attract a diverse group of people, from wealthy people to homosexuals."
What?! Have I just stepped back 100 years?
Is that a continuum, a range leading from one group to another?
If you go to theatre, are you either gay or wealthy?
Are you not allowed to be both?
Please tell me the writer is not giving me advice about audiences? I'll pass thanks, as my head and my sensibilities are now significantly damaged!
So I think we can safely agree to consign that comment, opinion, to the 'garbage' file.
But it discloses a really interesting and simple starting point to getting an audience and that is, you need to appreciate them. I've not suggested 'know' or 'understand' them because, quite simply, you don't. And you don't because you have probably never taken the trouble to.
OK, you can clearly do it by assessing previous attendance, receipts, the repertoire they are attracted to and have bought a ticket for.; even profiling the person based on what they have come to see. From there, eliciting feedback on their perceptions of the piece, the production, the venue is a trick many do not attempt as it is in the 'too hard to do' pile.
But is it really?
The vogue these days is being asked to surrender your identity and privacy by handing over your email address...and then the 'we value your opinion' emails start, even from theatres. Having bought a ticket for a London show recently, within 24 hours of getting home, the email arrived.
Response rates to questionnaires can vary wildly, because many are sent out blindly, unsolicited and are classed as spam as soon as the recipient reads the subject line. But there is a simple way to overcome it, to get valuable and timely feedback from your audience, about your theatre and your audience: just ask them.
You have a theatre bar teeming with people, so why not send your people out to chat very informally, very quickly and with a very focussed set of questions to gauge opinion.
And it just needs to be:
- Is this your first time here?
- Why have you come to see us?
- What do you think of the production so far?
- Will you come again?
And you will have conducted your very own qualitative research that can inform so much. Do the maths: seven volunteers ask seven people each, at seven performances. That's 343 sets of data about your production. 343 sets of data that have cost nothing. 343 sets of data that will provide an understanding of how you came to get an audience and how you might get them back.
How hard was that?
How inexpensive or time consuming was that?
And you are so grateful for them helping aren't you? And if they would do an online questionnaire you will send them a free ticket for your next production won't you? And suddenly you get a chance to drill down into so much more. Because when you buy a ticket to a show, you buy the right to having an opinion and if you take the time to respect both components, people will gladly tell you what they think - warts and all. And this is priceless.
This is the beginning of an informed approach to running this business, maintaining it and growing it.
How to get and keep an audience is an involved business, but you can make it so much easier by having an intelligent approach and that means, taking the risk to stop doing what you have always done and try something new.
New ideas are not wrong, they're just new.
And you never know. A new approach can bring you to an exciting place: a place where you will find new audiences which in time and with respect, might become regulars.
Copyright Martin Paul Roche (2015)
www.martinpaulroche.com or www.stagescripts.com
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