Data on ticket buyers from JCA study “Trends in Audience Behavior: Elections, Shadow Audiences & Hidden Treasures.”
NEW YORK CITY: JCA Performing Arts has released a new study on Trends in Audience Behavior: Elections, Shadow Audiences & Hidden Treasures. The results show a performing arts sector that has still not returned to pre-pandemic revenue levels, but with some intriguing and promising bright spots.
JCA Performing Arts, a division of JCA (Jacobson Consulting Applications, Inc.) charged with helping arts and cultural organizations leverage data-driven insights to grow audiences and revenue, analyzed ticket sales and audience trends for performing arts organizations around the United States to see how the fall 2024 season performed relative to previous fall seasons. Data for the study was gathered from 17 major organizations in different U.S. regions, including five theatre companies, five music organizations, two opera companies, three performing arts centers (PACs), and two dance companies. The analysis compares ticket sales and audience trends for fall 2024 to past seasons of fall 2019 through 2023, with the exception of 2020.
The study examines how much the U.S. election affected ticket sales. Partnering with True Tickets, the study also takes a deeper look at the impact of individuals who attend shows with ticket buyers, known as shadow audiences.
Key findings include:
- The election season did not have a big effect on ticket sales. Ticket sales in fall 2024 were consistent with those of the previous fall. Although election week in 2024 saw lower capacity sold compared to the same week in 2023, this is likely because the organizations being analyzed offered more performances in 2024.
- More people are buying less. While the number of bookers has grown since 2019, ticket sales have yet to return to pre-pandemic levels. While seeing a larger audience is encouraging, especially with new attendees, it is still worth noting that patrons are purchasing fewer tickets, creating a gap that still needs to be addressed.
- New ticket buyers represent a high—and growing—proportion of audiences. New buyers consistently comprise more than 60 percent of audiences, even as the overall number of audience members continues to grow.
- Income is still lower than pre-pandemic levels, largely because of inflation and fewer performances at higher capacities. Average yield per ticket is lagging behind inflation, and fuller houses typically mean that more lower-priced tickets are being sold.
- Revealed shadow audiences show great potential. In 2024, 6.4 percent of the revealed shadow audience—i.e., people with whom a digital ticket was shared, thus revealing their identity—returned to purchase tickets, generating an average of $120,728 in revenue per organization from this group.
“This data presents a hidden treasure: our new audiences,” said Jamie Alexander, vice president of Growth & Development for JCA and co-author of the study, in a statement. “With the growth of new audience members, performing arts organizations have the opportunity to leverage these audiences and their data to craft re-engagement and acquisition campaigns that could fill in the gap we’ve seen in ticket sales and revenue since the pandemic.”
The full study can be found here.
