What Broadway Ticket Buyers Want Online

Thu, September 04, 2008

We recently conducted a survey of approximately 4,600 visitors to Broadway show websites and their preferences in accessing information online. I took the data and split it by age group to see if we could see significant differences in preferences between the 18-35 audience (2,074 respondents) and the 35+ audience (2,594 respondents). I’m a data hound, so I love looking at this kind of information. Here are a few tidbits that you may find useful.

- When asked which incentives they would appreciate when purchasing Broadway tickets, 43% of those ages 35 and under answered “backstage tour”. That was their top answer with ‘free merchandise’ as the second most popular answer at 17.1%. Restaurant/parking discounts and post-show talk backs were all under 10%. For those over the age of 35, 21% said “backstage tour”. Surprisingly, their #1 answer was ‘none of the above – I just want to purchase tickets” which was selected 26% of the time. Restaurant/parking discounts were slightly higher compared to younger audiences coming in at about 11%.

- Not surprising, 84% under the age of 35 said they use text messaging. What might surprise some - 53% over the age of 35 said they use text messaging.

- For those over 35, when asked which features were most important to them when visiting a show’s website their answers in order of popularity were ‘interactive seating chart’ (62.9%), ‘seeing video footage of the show’ (59.5%) and ‘listening to music from the show’ (59.1%). For those under 35, their top answers were ‘listening to music from the show’ (75.8%), seeing video footage of the show (71.6%) and the ability to ‘read about cast members’ (66.3%). ‘Interactive seating chart’ was select 56% of the time.

There are clearly differences by age group but the main conclusion I draw from these data points is that people of all ages want ‘value’ for their dollar. To some, “where’s my seat?” is most important while to others “who’s in it?” is what counts. Consumers will continue to both expect and demand access to all of this information before purchasing particularly as we continue to raise ticket prices.