single serve or package deal? a study of regular attendees to symphony orchestra concerts

International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector MarketingInt. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark. 12: 127–134 (2007)Published online 13 December 2006 in Wiley InterScience(www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/nvsm.279

Single serve or package deal? A studyof regular attendees to symphonyorchestra concertsStephen Boyle*School of Management, University of South Australia, South Australia

* This paper presents an analysis of data collected by a major symphony orchestra in

Australia of regular attendees to their 2002 season. The analysis looks to understand the

age atwhichaudiencemembers begin to attend symphony concerts ona regular basis and

the main motivational factor behind that decision for two subsets of the audience,

subscribers and single-ticket buyers. In addition, the analysis looks to determine if there is

any relationship between the age of regular attendanceand the agea subscriber chooses to

purchase their first subscription package.

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Introduction

Over recent years, organisations in the culturalsector have found themselves in an operatingenvironment of diminishing government con-tributions resulting in the need to developother avenues of revenue and funding supportfor survival (Hayes and Slater, 2003). Philan-thropy, sponsorship andboxoffice revenue areall-important components of the income mixfor performing arts organisations and requirean in-depth understanding of the many factorsthat influence each, if the organisation is to besuccessful in developing these sources. How-ever, this greater emphasis on income genera-tion can be a double-edged sword for artsorganisations. Balancing the integrity of theartform and the search for revenue is critical formanagers of arts organisations, if they are tomaintain the development of the artform at the

same time as ensuring a sustainable financialoutcome for their activities. Arts organisationsare unique in terms of their product whencompared to other nonprofit organisations dueto their ‘highly intangible, aesthetic services’(Arnold and Tapp, 2003) and the inextricablelink between artist and product (Colbert,2000). While many nonprofit organisationsmust become more entrepreneurial and awareof consumer needs, there is a real danger thatthis may overshadow the mission of culturalorganisations.

Colbert (2000) notes the importance for artsorganisations of understanding the nature ofthe arts product not as a variable in thetraditional marketing mix but as the raison

d’etre of the organisation. He suggests that therole of the artist in creating the product isparamount and thatmarketing should not drivethis component, but be used to manipulate theother factors of the marketing mix in such away as to best support the artistic product.Providing such support can ultimately lead togreater artistic freedom. It has been argued thatin one way this freedom can be substantially

—————*Correspondence to: Stephen Boyle, School of Manage-ment, University of South Australia, GPO Box 2471,Adelaide 5001, South Australia.E-mail: [email protected]

Copyright # 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Int. J. Nonprofit Volunt. Sect. Mark., May 2007

DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

achieved in performing arts organisationsthrough the development of a strong subscri-ber base (Kotler and Scheff, 1997). Thepurchasing of tickets upfront in a seasonpackage can provide a number of benefits forthe performing arts organisation, includingreducing the potentially negative influence ofcritics’ reviews of performances on individualsales and the aversion audience members mayhave to attending performances of unknownworks within the season. In addition, there aresignificant financial advantages in having astrong subscriber base, including increasedcash-flow benefits and lower renewal costs ofrepeat purchasers versus single-ticket buyers(Kotler and Scheff, 2000; Rentschler et al.,2002).Developing a strong and loyal following has

many advantages and should be seen as part ofthe overall strategic management for nonprofitorganisations. Understanding why peopleattend artistic performances, what motivatesthem to attend regularly and at what pointsome choose to commit upfront to a packageare important management concepts whichshould not be seen as just part of themarketingstrategy. Rentschler et al. note ‘attendancelevels, venue occupancy rates, subscriptionpurchases and the number of members or‘‘Friends’’ have become important perfor-mance measures for arts organisations’(Rentschler et al., 2002; p. 119). In fact ithas been stated that modern performing artsorganisations could not exist without thesupport of a loyal customer base of subscribers(Kotler and Scheff, 2000; p. 262).Audience purchase patterns for performing

arts events have been the topic ofmany surveysand studies. In particular, a number of studiesinto audiences of performing arts organisationshave focussed on identifying factors thatinfluence subscribers and single-ticket buyers(Garbarino and Johnson, 1999; Scheff, 1999;Garber et al., 2000; Kolb, 2001), while othershave looked at the pattern of audience growthand development (Rentschler et al., 2002) orhave focused on subscriber development(Ryans and Weinberg, 1978). All these studieshave explored existing audiences of various

artforms to determine their attendance andpurchasing behaviours. It has been noted thatin order for research into audiences for theperforming arts to be useful to arts managers, itshould not just look at general audiencecharacteristics but also look at importantsubsets within the audience profile (Garberet al., 2000; p. 56).

A recent study of the audience base of asymphony orchestra undertaken by Kolblooked at subsets within audiences of thePhilharmonia Orchestra of Londonwith a viewto understandingwhy people attend orchestralconcerts and, in particular, why some becomesubscribers (Kolb, 2001). The hypothesis was,‘Subscribers started attendingwhile young andthat early exposure resulted in continued andfrequent attendance throughout life’ (Kolb,2001; p. 52). To better understand this aspectof purchase behaviour, audienceswere dividedinto two subsets: subscribers and single-ticketbuyers.

The questions posed to a cross section ofsingle concert attendees and subscribersrelated to when they attended their firstclassical music concert and what was themotivation for attending. The findings rein-forced the hypothesis that regular concertgoers attended their first performances at anearly age (around 60% attended their firstconcert at age 17), but it found that the familywas more likely to be the initial motivatingfactor in encouraging attendance, rather thanschool (Kolb, 2001; p. 55,56). However, thestudy did not find any significant difference inattendance patterns between the subscribergroup and single-ticket purchasers.

The study reported in this paper is based on aseries of questions posed to both subscribersand single-ticket buyers of a major symphonyorchestra in Australia at the end of 2002.Drawing on the work of Kolb (2001), thisstudy focuses on what age audience membersof classical music concerts began attendingregularly—not on the age of first attendance asused by Kolb—and the motivating factorbehind their decision. While Kolb looked atmotivation for first attendance, this study seeksto understand why a person chooses to go a


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

128 Stephen Boyle

second time, then a third time and so on. Inother words: what makes the person comeback and attend on a regular basis? Thebreakdown of responses allowed comparisonsto be made between the subscriber base andsingle-ticket buyers to determine if there weredifferences in either age ormotivational factorsbetween these two audience segments. Thesecond purpose of this study was to explorewithin the subscriber segment itself whetherthere was a correlation between the age ofbeginning to attend regularly and the age theybecame a subscriber. The rationale behind thisexploration was to look at the attendancepattern of the subscriber base in particular tosee if there was a method of predicting at whatpoint after beginning to attend regularly some-onemight bewilling topurchase a subscriptionpackage.

Methodology

The symphony orchestra conducted a tele-phone survey of 399 audience members with amix of subscribers and single-ticket purcha-sers. Each telephone interview lasted approxi-mately 5minutes and respondents weresampled from the orchestra’s own recordsand consisted of 260 people whowere currentsubscribers and 139 individuals who hadpurchased single tickets during the 2002season. Part of the information gathered duringthese telephone interviews forms the basis forthis analysis. During the interview for allrespondents, questions about the followingaspects of attendance were asked:

* At what age did you start attending classicalmusic concerts on a regular basis?

* What was the motivation for attendance?

In addition, subscribers were also asked:

* How long have you been a subscriber?

Of the 269 subscribers interviewed, 7 res-ponses answered not sure to at least one ofquestions one and two, and were, therefore,deleted from the analysis. This left 262 usefulresponses for the subscribers group.Of the 130single-ticket purchasers, 28 were deleted due

to either not attending regularly or answeringnot sure about age. This left 102 usefulresponses for single-ticket buyers. Basic analy-sis of the percentages of age groups againstmotivation for attending was undertaken todetermine if there were differences betweenage of attending and the main influence on thedecision to attend between the two categories.Motivation for attending was recorded as asingle response under 11 categories, whichwas reduced to 6 for the purposes of thisanalysis: 1. Family; 2. Friends; 3. School; 4. Themusic; 5. Curiosity; 6. Other.

The next step was to undertake statisticalanalysis of motivation against the Age of

regular attendance using a univariate analysisof variance (ANOVA) and Chi-square test.These were undertaken to test for significancein the relationships between motivationalfactors and age for both subscriber and single-ticket categories. For this purpose, the motiva-tional factors were grouped into the followingfour categories: 1. Family and friends; 2. Themusic; 3. School;

4. Other (including Curiosity).The third aspect of the study looked to

determine if there was any relationshipbetween Age of regular attendance and theAge of subscribing for those that were currentsubscribers. Of the 269 responses receivedfrom subscribers, 99 had reliable informationconcerning the age of the respondents allow-ing the determination of the age at which theystarted subscribing. Using this information, aregression analysis was undertaken where thepredictor was the Age of regular attendance

and the dependent variable being Age of

subscribing.

Analysis and discussion

Analysis of age of regular attendance and

motivational factors for subscribers and

single-ticket buyers

It can be seen by comparing the percentage ofresponses in each age group in Table 1 thatthere is a similar pattern of age distributionacross both market segment categories. Both


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

Single serve or package deal? 129

subscribers and single-ticket buyers showapproximately 50% of respondents starting toattend regularly before age 35 (54 and 56%,respectively). The 35–54 age segmentaccounted for approximately 35% of eachsample (36 and 34%, respectively for subscri-bers and single-ticket buyers) of respondentswho indicated they began attending on aregular basis in this age bracket. However,there is a slight difference within this agebracket between segments, with an even spiltbetween ages 35 and 44 and 45 and 54 withinthe subscriber group (18% each). The single-ticket buyers, however, had a greater propor-tion of respondents beginning to attendregularly between ages 35 and 44 (25%) than45 and 54 (9%).In nearly all age categories The music was

cited as the main motivational factor forattending. Response rates citing The music

ranged from one-third (33% for 55–69 sub-scribers) to almost three quarters of responses(72% for 25–34 subscribers). This does notinclude the 70þ groups where there wereonly a small number of responses recorded. In

fact, The music was cited as the main motivat-ing factor overall for 55% of all responses.These results highlight the importance ofmusic programming choices in the decisionmaking process of all audience types surveyed.

Again in nearly all cases of both audiencesegments, Family and friendswere cited as theother major motivating factors. It is interestingto note that Under-17 Single-tickets buyers

cited Family as a significant motivating factor,equal to The music. These results demonstratethe importance of reference groups, such asfamily and friends, in influencing the decisionto attend concerts regularly. It is interesting tonote that School was not a significant motiva-tional factor in any segmentation, given theoften significant investment made by perform-ing arts organisations in schools’ concertprograms. Also of interest is the 25–34 Single-

ticket buyers category, where a significantpercentage cited Curiosity as a motivatingfactor (14%). This perhaps shows some influ-ence in being motivated to attend a perfor-mance out of curiosity and then becoming aregular attendee, although not a subscriber.

Table 1. Age of regular attendance and motivation for attending

Motivational Factor Response Rate (%)

Age at which % of Family Friends School The music Curiosity Other Totalstart attending Segmentregularly

Subscribers�17 15 28 2 8 49 5 8 10018–24 20 23 15 — 58 — 4 10025–34 19 8 6 — 72 — 14 10035–44 18 20 15 — 50 — 15 10045–54 18 10 6 — 52 2 29 10055–69 9 17 13 4 33 — 33 10070þ 1 — 50 — 50 — — 100Total 100Single-ticket buyers�17 18 44 — 6 44 — 6 10018–24 16 19 25 — 50 6 — 10025–34 22 13 4 4 61 14 4 10035–44 25 12 15 — 54 8 12 10045–54 9 — — — 56 — 44 10055–69 9 11 — — 67 — 22 10070þ 1 — — — 100 — — 100Total 100


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

130 Stephen Boyle

Finally, a comment should be made aboutthe high proportion of respondents citingOther as the motivating factor. It can be seenfrom Table 1 that a number of respondentsplaced theirmotivationunderOther, especiallythose aged 45 and over. While many respon-dents did not elaborate on this selection, thosethat did cite the following rationales forattending regularly:

* ‘Could now afford to’.* ‘Now have more time’.* ‘Personal discipline’.

While the first two comments are supportive ofa generic profile of attendees in older agegroups, the final comment does raise someinteresting notions for managers. Respondentswho stated ‘self-discipline’ were all currentsubscribers and perhaps acknowledge the factthat the deliberate commitment to a subscrip-tion package affords them a level of self-discipline to attend the concerts, havingalready paid for them.Table 2 shows the results of an ANOVA test

for significance in the relationships betweenmotivational factors and age for both subscri-

ber and single-ticket categories. For thispurpose, the motivational factors weregrouped into the following four groups: 1.Family and friends; 2. Themusic; 3. School; 4.Other (including Curiosity).It can be seen from Table 2 that the age of

regular attendance varies significantly amongmotive groups, for both Subscribers andSingle-ticket buyers ( p¼ 0.007 and 0.009,respectively). In addition, a Chi-square test

was performed and the results found that thedistribution among motive groups is verysimilar for both Single-ticket and Subscriber

groups (Pearson Chi-square¼ 0.097, 3 df,p¼ 0.99).

These findings suggest that the motivationalfactors for both audience segments are asignificant contributor to determining the ageat which they start attending regularly. Thereis, however, no evidence to suggest that thereare significant differences between the twosegments of Subscribers and Single-ticket

buyers in relation to age and motivation forattending.

Analysis of age of regular attendance

and age of subscribing for subscribers

The results reported in Table 3 show that thereis a statistically significant relationship betweenAge of attending regularly and Age of subscrib-ing within the group of current subscriberssurveyed. The fitted model SubscribeAge¼12.11þ 0.80*AttendAge, was highly significant[�^¼ 0.798 (std error¼ 0.075, t¼ 10.66, p¼0.000)] and the value of R2¼ 0.54, indicates agood fit of the data to the model. This seemslogical as it suggests that on average, theyounger a future subscriber starts to attendregularly, the younger they will purchase asubscription package. In the sample underexamination, the regression coefficient 0.80suggests a return of 80% on advancement ofyears progressed as the gap between age ofattending regularly and beginning to subscribereduces. Effectively on average, the timeline

Table 2. ANOVA: Analysis of variance between age of attending and motivational factors

Source of Degree of Sum of Mean F p

variation freedom squares square

Subscribers Motive 3 2702 900.6 4.15 0.007Error 258 55 954 216.9Total 261

Single-ticket buyers Motive 3 2793 931.0 4.1 0.009Error 98 22 258 227.1Total 101

Dependent variable¼ age of attending regularly; fixed factor¼motive for attending.


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm


between starting to attend regularly and becom-ing a subscriber reducedby 20%orby2 years forevery 10 years older an individual starts attend-ing regularly, in the sample of subscribers usedin this survey.

Conclusion

This study drew on work undertaken by Kolb(2001) of existing audience members ofclassical music concerts. While the Kolb studylooked at first attendance to a classical musicconcert, the study reported here focussed onregular attendance. The findings reported hereindicate the age at which audience membersstarted attending classical music concertsregularly was generally young, with over 50%of all respondents attending before age 35.Another 35% of respondents began to attendregularly between the ages of 35 and 54. Therewas little difference in agebreakdownbetweenthe Subscriber and Single-ticket buyer seg-ments with a relatively even spread of respon-dents in all age brackets up to age 44 for single-ticket buyers and age 54 for subscribers. Thisseems to fit generally with the findings of Kolb(2001).Programming is an important factor in the

decision making process of audience memberswhich supports the findings of Scheff (1999).Over 50% of all respondents in this studyindicated that the choice ofmusicwas themainmotivating factor for attending concerts on aregular basis. This is a strong message for suchorganisations looking to change the productofferings to attract new audiences. It is

important to remember that any impact oncurrent repertoire decisions must take intoaccount existing audiences to reduce any riskof alienation of this large segment of active andapparently loyal attendees.

Family and friends were also significantmotivational factors in the decision-makingprocess more than school which supports thefindings ofKolb (2001). Audiencedevelopmentis an important strategic objective for perform-ing arts organisations and managers may wantto look at these reference groups whendesigning programs to help build audiencesfor the future. Many resources are placed intoprograms that are designed to build newaudiences and these must be directed to wherethe greatest returns can be leveraged. Schoolsconcerts and education programs are animportant aspect of this development processbut there is potentially an area of the currentaudience profile, that is being overlooked inthis strategy. The findings presented here showthat reference groups such as family and friendsare important factors in motivating people toattend concerts on a regular basis and perhapsorchestras could target regular attendees andsubscribers to encourage them to bring a familymember or friend to a performance. Forexample, a campaign where a special concertis held for subscribers to bring one new personto a performance for free may encourage themto introduce other familymembers or friends tothe world of orchestral concerts. Alternatively,a greater emphasis on family concerts may alsohave a positive affect on creating new audiencemembers for the future.

Table 3. Analysis of age of regular attendance and age of subscribing

Unstandardised Standardised t p 95% Confidence Goodness of fitcoefficients coefficients interval for B

B Std error Beta Lower Upper R Adj. Rbound bound square square

12.111 2.622 4.618 0.000 6.906 17.315 0.539 0.5350.798 0.075 0.734 10.659 0.000 0.649 0.946

Constant: age of attending regularly (AttendAge); dependent variable: age of subscribing (SubscribeAge).


DOI: 10.1002/nvsm

132 Stephen Boyle

A significant number of respondents whobegan attending regularly after age 45 citedother motivational factors relating to lifestyle,such as being able to afford regular tickets orhaving the time to attend regularly. Thissuggests that the organisation should look totarget occasional attendees in this age bracket(age 45 and over) to encourage them to beginattending regularly, based on their changingpersonal circumstances (such as time avail-ability and general affordability).The relationship between motivational fac-

tors and age was found to be significant inregard to regular attendance in both subsets ofsubscribers and single-ticket buyers. Thissuggests the decision to buy subscriptions oversingle tickets must be based on other factors.These findings support those of Kolb (2001)who also found no significant differencesbetween the two categories. One possibleavenue for exploration is the response by anumber of subscribers who cited the desire tohave some level of personal discipline toencourage them to attend regularly, as a reasonfor purchasing a subscription package. Thisimplies that some individualsmake a consciousdecision to purchase a series of tickets up front,to ensure they commit to attending concertsthroughout the season. Perhaps there is anopportunity here for orchestras to targetregular single-ticket buyers in this age bracket,highlighting that purchasing a subscriptionpackage can help to avoid the potential risk ofmissing a favourite concert later in the season.In relation to the subscriber segment itself,

the study found a direct correlation betweenthe ages a subscriber starts attending regularlyand when they start buying subscriptionpackages. This relationship indicates that thegap between attending regularly and choosingto subscribe for the sample surveyed, reduceson average at a rate of 20%, for every year laterthey started attending. Noting that there is adirect relationship between the ages of startingto attend and starting to subscribe, artsorganisations should be aware of the potentialto target individual ticket purchasers at a timewhen theymay bemost open to changing theirpurchase behaviour from single purchases to a

package. The older a person starts to attendregularly, the sooner they may be open topurchasing a subscription package. This sug-gests organisations should look to both thelength of time a person has been attendingregularly, and the age at which they com-menced regular attendance, when decidingwhether to target them with a subscriptionoffer. In this way, one may well be able topredict at what point after beginning to attendregularly someone would be more likely topurchase a subscription package, allowing theorganisation to more effectively target thesepotentially new subscribers.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to acknowledge Associ-ate Professor Bruce Brown for his helpfulcomments during the preparation of this article.

Biographical note

Stephen Boyle is currently Director of the Artsand Cultural Management Program at theUniversity of South Australia. He has been alecturer in Arts Management at both theUniversity of South Australia and Edith CowanUniversity since 1998 andprior to this, hewas aprofessional musician for 15 years.

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134 Stephen Boyle

single serve or package deal? a study of regular attendees to symphony orchestra concerts

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