The Tastes and Preferences Survey examines patrons’ tastes and preferences across artistic disciplines and deeply within your organization’s specific discipline(s). The results will help you gain a bigger picture of your patrons’ programming interests, understand their appetite for new work, and assess interest in digital or immersive programming. Artistic team members are key stakeholders in this survey.

This survey will cover these and other topics:

• Cultural interests (i.e., countries or regions of the world)

• Interest in attending specific types of live programs

• Interest in specific genres and subgenres within a discipline

• Influence of faith/religion on cultural choices

• Satisfaction with selection of program offerings

• Indicators of risk-taking and adventurousness

• Preferences for different presentation formats

• Interest in thematic programs (if applicable)

• Interest in immersive experiences

In the media and around boardroom tables, many assumptions are being made about the kinds of artistic work that audiences want, post-pandemic. In offering this survey we hope to replace unfounded assumptions with actual data. While we would never assert that arts organizations should acquiesce to audiences’ tastes, we do think that clarifying preferences for formats and types of artistic programs can be a valuable input (i.e., one of many inputs) to organizational thinking about programming.

Level of customization: This is a highly discipline-specific protocol, only available for performing arts organizations. Initially this survey will be available to theatres (Feb. 13 deployment) and music organizations (orchestras, choruses, chamber music presenters; March 12 deployment). A version for multi-discipline presenters will be available later in 2024. While the same lines of questioning apply across disciplines, your ticket buyers will answer questions in reference to the artistic discipline you present. Otherwise, no customization is involved, although several questions are optional.

To maximize cohort learning, participants in all cohorts must agree to share their results with other participating organizations through the WolfBrown dashboard. After the cohort concludes, aggregated results will be shared with the larger field through the Audience Outlook Monitor Community.

For more information about this survey, contact Erin Gold, Consultant at WolfBrown at erin@wolfbrown.com