The Stage

Broadway survey reveals a changing audience

Published Tuesday 13 January 2004 at 11:45 by Judd Hollander

New York, USA

Broadway audiences still overwhelmingly consist of middle aged white peope who favour musicals over straight plays and prefer to buy their tickets direct from the box office, confirms a comprehensive new study released by the League of American Theatres and Producers.

However, the Who Goes to Broadway? survey also suggests that the profile of visitors to the Great White Way is gradually changing, with theatregoers becoming younger and more ethnically diverse. It further revealed a massive increase in the use of the internet for purchases.

The research profiled the 2002-2003 theatre season, involving 24 different Broadway productions at 72 individual performance times. Some 10,800 questionnaires were distributed during the 12 month period, with more than half returned.

A total of 69 shows running on Broadway during the 2002-2003 theatre season sold a grand total of 11.4 million tickets, up 4% from the year before. Tickets to musicals showed the biggest gain. Helped by such juggernauts as The Producers, Hairspray and The Lion King, they increased to account for almost 9.1 million tickets on the Great White Way, while plays sold 2.3 million tickets.

Most Broadway audience members are repeat visitors, with 68% attending more than one show during the 2002-2003 theatre season. Those who attended 15 or more shows last year comprised only 6% of the total, yet accounted for nearly one-third of all tickets sold. This group also favoured plays over musicals by a ratio of two to one.

Women remained the majority group on Broadway, comprising nearly two thirds of the total audience. The average age for the Broadway theatregoer during the 2002-2003 season was 43, with the largest single group aged 50-64. But those 18 years and under accounted for 1,267,917 tickets sold during 2002-2003, making this one of the highest totals on record for this age bracket and an increase from 9% to 11% from the previous year.

‘Caucasians’ - defined as non-Hispanic whites - still dominate audiences with 82.9% of theatregoers in this category. However, nearly one third of audiences under 18 were non-Caucasian. This was nearly three times the figure for the over 50 group, a sign that the next generation of Broadway audiences promises to be more diverse.

The box office is still dominant with 23.1% preferring to buy there, ahead of phone purchases at 18% and package or group deals at 10.6%. Most interesting, however, is the growth of sales on the Internet, the choice for 14.1% of the audience in 2002-2003 - up from 9.3% in 2001-2002 and more than 20 times the total for 1998-1999. Additionally, this is the only area in this category which has shown a consistent rate of growth over the years and reflects the fact that 94% of the Broadway theatre audience had internet access last year compared with only 59% of the overall adult US population.

Not surprisingly, 67.4% of those surveyed said lower ticket prices would encourage them to see shows on Broadway more often but this is down from the 76.1% response to this question in 1998-1999. In addition, 14.6% wanted more original musicals, 12.6% wanted more celebrity actors and 8.9% asked for more original dramas, down from 9.6%. International visitors were more interested in seeing an original musical than people in New York, while the idea of star-driven vehicles was also more important to younger audiences.

The tragedy of September 11, 2001 continues to have an effect. Foreign tourists consisted of 5.7% of the Broadway audience, up from the 4.8% total of 2001 to 2002 but way below the 9.3% for the 12 months to June 2001.

Advance sales, which also dropped September 11, 2001, are on the rise again, with 43% of the audience purchasing a ticket more than a month prior before seeing a show - up from 37% in 2002 and 40% in 2001. Twice as many US tourists as foreigners bought advance tickets, with musicals accounting for the greatest proportion.