Subscriber Focus Group Results: What other cultural organizations do you attend?
Lookingglass subscribers are our most important advocates. Your feedback is vital to our ability to improve your experience at our theatre, and to ensure that you return to Lookingglass year after year. With this in mind, Lookingglass partnered with the Arts, Entertainment and Media Management Graduate Program at Columbia College Chicago to conduct focus groups and surveys of new, renewed and 'lapsed' subscribers in January of 2009. Now that we've analyzed the data, we'd like to share it with you. If you have anything to add or discuss, we encourage you to post a comment!
Question: What other cultural organizations do you attend in Chicago?
Focus Group: Participants from all three focus groups indicated that they were involved with a number of different cultural organizations in the city spanning many different areas. The most frequently mentioned institutions were:
Goodman Theatre
Steppenwolf Theatre
Chicago Shakespeare Theater
The Art Institute of Chicago
Redmoon Theatre
Victory Gardens Theatre
Lyric Opera
Chicago Symphony Orchestra
Museum of Contemporary Art
Field Museum
Several other institutions, such as Timeline Theater, The House Theater, Gene Siskel Film Center, Hubbard Street Dance Company, River North Dance Company, Chicago Opera Theater, and Lincoln Park Zoo were also mentioned.
Subscriber Survey: 56 respondents listed many of the same organizations as the focus group participants. In descending order of frequency, the top ten organizations are:
The Art Institute of Chicago (39%)
Steppenwolf Theatre (34%)
Goodman Theatre (27%)
Chicago Shakespeare Theater (23%)
Chicago Symphony Orchestra (23%)
Lyric Opera (18%)
Court Theatre (16%)
Timeline Theater (13%)
Field Museum (11%)
Remy Bumppo (11%)
Participants in the focus groups and survey respondents indicated that they have subscriptions or memberships to some or all of the cultural organizations they attend.
Their reasons for subscribing or purchasing memberships are varied, but often include enjoyment of an organization’s work, a love of and desire to support the arts, and to take advantage of added benefits. Other participants see subscription or membership to a cultural organization as a social event and something in which they participate with busy friends. Subscribing to theaters in particular, regardless of which theater, is seen as an opportunity to have a certain number of 'nights out' in a given season. It is important to note that a majority of participants and respondents have subscriptions to at least one other theater.
An overwhelming majority of participants and respondents said that they plan to renew some, if not all, of their current subscriptions and memberships. Others stated that renewals are contingent upon the schedule of productions, exhibitions or events for the next season as they are cutting expenses due to the economy, or expressed a desire to change art forms.
Audience Survey Data: Lookingglass conducts audience surveys for all of our productions. Analysis of the same question from The Brothers Karamazov survey indicated the following (results include both subscribers and single ticket buyers):
73.5% of respondents attend the Art Institute of Chicago
47.1% attend the Goodman Theatre
43.4% attend the Museum of Contemporary Art
41.2% attend the Steppenwolf Theatre
40.4% attend Ravinia Festival
39.7% attend Broadway in Chicago (Wicked, Jersey Boys, etc.)
39% attend Chicago Shakespeare Theater
How will Lookingglass use this information?
Collaboration is one of our core values. We rely on close relationships with other cultural institutions to develop partnerships like our production of Nelson Algren: For Keeps and A Single Day at the Museum of Contemporary Art. On a national level we work with several other prominent regional theatres, including Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Kansas City Repertory Theatre, The Getty in Los Angeles, The Arden Theatre in Philadelphia, The McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ to name a few.
We also partner with organizations with whom we share an audience base on promotional and marketing intiatives, such as flier trades or making special offers to patrons of another cultural institution.
