USA Data: Working on our welcome, and reaching price-sensitive audiences
Access to arts and cultural venues remains a challenge for many, especially those on low incomes. While cultural organizations often aim to be inclusive, ticket prices may deter price-sensitive segments of the population – but is that the biggest issue?
This new research suggests that potential visitors and audiences on low income simply don’t feel welcome.
In 2024, for the inaugural Ticketing Professionals Conference NYC, we shared data from a survey of 800 adults on low income across the USA:
- 400 people of working age in receipt of public assistance excluding social security
- 400 people, mainly seniors, in receipt of social security
Both groups were likely to have a monthly disposable income of $500 or less. The research found:
Restaurants/cafes, zoos/aquariums, libraries, museums and outdoor festivals/fairs are seen as the most welcoming cultural spaces. However, in many settings their future visit intent is low or very low.
Fewer than half of respondents of working age felt that most cultural destinations such as theaters, galleries and concert halls were welcoming.
Seniors on social security are more receptive / positive about all settings, perhaps reflective of lives in which these settings played a more prominent part in the available learning, entertainment and media landscape.
Watch the data summary:
If we don’t believe we’re welcome somewhere, we’re not going to give it consideration – so that willingness to spend is not there.
Additional findings from the research were:
- For working age respondents $5 is a key psychological threshold over which an experience – irrespective of the value proposition – may be perceived as ‘too expensive’. For seniors, that drops to $0 – $5, reinforcing the value of free-to-access experiences for this group.
- Around a third of respondents were worried about additional costs charged on-site on top of ticket prices (38%), as well as the cost of getting to the venue (34%)
Consumer confidence is a combination of the ability to spend, and the willingness to spend – high prices may contribute to a sense that a venue is unwelcoming, but low prices alone do not make a cultural venue accessible, and our ability to attract audiences exists within the context of general perception. Each question we asked in this research was not about any named venue or place, but theaters in general, concert halls in general etc.
With working age people on low incomes apparently cooler on cultural destinations (and many other civic settings) than seniors, the question is posed as to whether our sector needs to more consciously work on its welcome – more creatively overcoming threshold anxiety and other barriers (including prejudice and active rejection) by leveraging all parts of the offer available to us – be that food & beverage, or warm spaces, or civic purposes, alongside arts, culture, and participation.