Demographics of the Broadway Audience (ongoing)

In contrast, the Broadway TOURING audience statistics are quite different in certain places, especially what influenced ticket buying:

* The most commonly cited sources for show selection (other than being part of the subscription) were: the music, personal recommendation, Tony Awards and articles written about the show.

* The reported influence of the Tony Awards in deciding to see a show continued to grow. Twenty-four percent of respondents said that Tony Awards or nominations were a reason they attended the show, compared to 8% in the 2005–2006 season.

* Only 15% of respondents said that an advertisement influenced them to select the show and 12% said they were influenced by a newspaper critic’s review.

Updated On: 10/18/15 at 10:45 AM

Odie2 said: "Interesting info.

I wonder how much Twitter and social media influences ticket sales. I know that if I follow someone who tweets about a she they went to I'm more likely to be interested in that show"

That counts as word of mouth (personal recommendation), but breaking down the numbers further into online/offline sources would be interesting, especially with the way tech is now.

It's not just for gays anymore!

HorseTears said: "Very interesting. Thanks for posting, Pootie. Have any of the numbers changed dramatically (or moderately) from prior years? Interested to see if there are any trends happening in demos on gender, ethnicity or age. "

I love graphs/charts! There are a lot of other data on the BL website too. When I have a moment....

Now you see why Broadway caters to tourists.

In addition, the income of $200,000 plus are those who can afford the astronomical prices. Broadway is pricing itself out of the reach of middle class people and those on a fixed income .The average New Yorker can no longer go with any regularity without the use of highly discounted tickets.They are too busy trying to make ends meet.For them, Broadway Is only a luxury now for a special occasion.

Take away tourists and those with higher incomes and Broadway is in deep doo doo.

Updated On: 10/12/15 at 10:45 AM

In addition, the income of $200,000 plus are those who can afford the astronomical prices. Broadway is pricing itself out of the reach of middle class people and those on a fixed income.

This is a good topic for discussion. How do the producers lower costs when many shows don't recoup at the expensive prices? Would they blame the high union wages they must pay?

Leaving the union issues out, one thought is that, since Broadway is such a powerful driver of tourism, should the state and local governments indirectly subsidize the theater through tax breaks, or in some other area where they are collecting a lot of money from Broadway productions.

What about the current schedule of most Broadway productions: eight shows a week with matinees on Saturday, Sunday and Wednesday. I've visited King and I ticket site pretty frequently. The demand for the weekend matinees is higher than that of the Friday and Saturday night shows. The Wednesday matinee is a bigger draw than the mid-week night shows. Given the power of tourism, would it help to switch a mid-week to a matinee? How about just doing this in the winter, when the dark and cold nights keep a lot of people home instead of at the theater?

If a show is doing worse than 90 percent (or lower?), how about dropping the Wednesday night show? Would not cutting out one night save all the expenses of putting on one show, while the audience for Wednesday night could easily switch to Tuesday and Thursday night shows.

##### 2008-2009 #####

So I actually found the full 2008-2009 report online (60-page PDF) while rooting around the internet, and it's quite fascinating (and includes some prior season data as opposed to just one season like I thought, so I intend to buy the next report). Anyone interested should be able to find it via Google. Here are some interesting trends/bits with the given data in that report, the earliest comparison season being 1980-81:

The percent of women theatergoers has been slowly rising. In the 1980-81 season, 58% were women, rising to 61.8% in 1990-91, and inching up with a few season dips (the average hovered around 63% for several years) to the latest known 2013-14 68% women attendees.

The age group breakdown is fascinating and best understood when viewing the chart, but the 2013-2014 report obviously gives more season data, lower right sample PDF: http://www.broadwayleague.com/index.php?url_identifier=the-demographics-of-the-broadway-audience

Household income data are VERY interesting. The average income in 2008-09 was $195,700, which isn't that far off from $201.500 in 2013-14. The 2008-09 report includes a lovely, colorful breakdown chart from the 1990-91 season skipping to 1997-98 through 2009. Unfortunately, seasonal averages weren't given (someone else could figure it out given more math), but the ratio of the highest [$150k] bracket had increased from 18.9% in 1990-91 to 37.4% in 2008-09. The LOWEST income bracket of [<$25k] had actually stayed relatively stable in the same time period from 8.4% to 8.7% (largest fluctuation between 9.1% and 6.9% in two consecutive seasons); I was surprised to see that, but maybe that means there are plenty of low-income programs for the locals. With the [$100-149k] income bracket rising slightly from 13.9% to 19.6% and [$75-99k] hovering around 14%, that means the income brackets that have fallen through the years were [$50-74k] (21% in 1990 to 12.2% in 2008-09) and [$25-49k] (23.9% to 9.2%). Now, I don't know what was considered middle class in 2008, but this was also when the economy crashed.

There's a method of ticket purchase section. For the 2008-09 season, in total, telephone orders comprised 7.4% of purchases; box office was 17.9%; internet 38.9%; TKTS or Broadway Concierge/Ticket Center were 13.5% together (footnote: survey respondents may have gotten them confused). Group purchases were 8.3% while 8.2% were part of package deals. 1.5% from broker/scalpers and 1.3% from a ticket outlet, 3% from the hotel concierge. Same-day ticket purchases were around 23%. I'll definitely want to see where things are for the 2014-2015 season. So the 54% in 2013-2014 might not seem like a lot in total, but it probably vastly outstrips all the other individual methods.

Motivating factors in show selection for 2008-2009 (these were apparently multiple-responses questions):

47.3% of musical attendees went on personal recommendation. 32.8% because they like the music (so cast recordings were/are the FIRST major marketing expense). Only 17.9% were influenced by critic reviews. 14.2% of attendees chose a show because of a Tony award or nomination (really wish this could be broken down more). Tied were "read articles about the show" and "saw show before" at 11.8% each; I didn't expect the latter. After that, everything from internet ads to liking the author/composer/performer or seeing a Tony Awards performance or liking "the movie" (I assume that means an adaptation) took less notable percentages of influence over musical choice.

Play attendee data were quite different, and the same probably holds true now. Critic reviews influenced 32.6% attendees, then personal recommendation at 31.7%. To see a particular performer took 29%. Liking the author tied with reading articles about a show, at 21%. Discount coupons influenced 9.7%, and Tony awards or nominations (6.4%) were less influential than print ads (8.5%). Newspapers in general were more important sources of critic reviews, but a breakout graph for playgoers showed that the 2005-2006 season had 27.8% newspaper critic review influence, an amazing 45.5% in 2006-07, and decreasing to 36.6% 2007-2008 and 27.5% in 2008-2009. I wonder what happened in the 2006-2007 play season, and what the data will look like in 2014-15.

The New York Times wasn't/isn't very influential overall; in 2008-09, only 6% of play attendees and 2% of musical attendees cited NYT print ads. I'd love to see the current data, but I rather doubt it's risen significantly. Seems like a waste; are producers spending on those ads out of tradition, I wonder?

There's a lot more, of course, but here's the methodology; I was most curious about this.

From June 2008 through June 2009, the League’s Research Department administered surveys at 24 different productions at 72 individual performance times. Shows were selected on a quarterly basis to represent what Broadway was offering that season (i.e., a proportionate number of musicals versus straight plays; revivals versus original works; and new productions versus long-running shows).
Questionnaires were distributed at multiple performances per show to account for variances in the weekday, weekend, evening, and matinee audiences. Completed questionnaires were tabulated and weighted based upon the actual paid attendance for each show. In total, 12,143 questionnaires were distributed and 6,365 were returned, representing a 52% rate of return. Totals in some charts may not add up exactly to 100%, due to rounding.

That's not a bad rate of return and a pretty decent sample number; I assume the BL show sampling was a good cross section. Political polls typically number in the 1000-2000 sample size range. I have correlation data between average ticket price and income I'm going to post as well.

Order the report here:
https://www.broadwayleague.com/index.php?url_identifier=the-demographics-of-the-broadway-audience

So for the last 2 years, 80% of audiences have been white, which is obviously a sad but not surprising figure. However, I'm curious if the stats from this current season will see a rise in audiences of color, given the very racially diverse season we have here.

Thanks for making and bumping this thread, Pootie! I hope we continue to use it to discuss the stats, as I am not usually aware of them. I probably won't remember to look out for this season's stats down the road.

The paid price for NY vs tourists is interesting but makes sense.

Tourists are more likely to book their shows long in advance and not wait around for discounts or TKTS. They are only here for a limited amount of them, they want to lock the show(s)s they want to see in. International tourists are probably more likely to buy at the box office because they might find it harder to research shows, or just come here wanting "to see a Broadway show", and then only decide what to see when they are here (asking for Lion King and Wicked at the TKTS booth)

New Yorkers would be the most versed on discounts, rushes ect. and can also afford to wait for a good discount to come around because they are here anyway.

Fun stuff!

Also interesting how most of the stats didn't change at all from 13/14 to 14/15, and probably going back much further.

I would love to see a statistic of how the percentages of tourists/locals vary from show to show!

Having been an international tourist several times before I moved here, yes, they know about TKTS. Every travel guide mentions it, so if you read one, you would know. I had also been told by friends before my first trip, and it was indeed how I bought my tickets on this first trip.

The evening show for tourists make complete sense! You want to spend the daytime sightseeing, and see a show when it'a dark out anyway. And that's also where TKTS gets inconvenient for tourists, that they only sell evening tix starting at 2pm...