Drama Theater audiences in Europe

 infografie Revista Cultura

Why do people go to the theater?

Why do people go to the theater? How wide is the participation? What do audiences like and attract to theaters? How big are the ticket sales and how dependent are the theaters on allocations from the state or local government budget? How sustainable are drama companies? And generally, how viable are the performing arts?

The answers to such questions appear quite rarely because very few segments of the creative industries are commercially competitive and can afford/are interested in carrying out the market studies necessary for effective management.

The Institute for Cultural and Media Management at the Freie Universität Berlin has conducted an extensive study on European theater audiences. Two theaters from Romania were also included in the sample. The research included data on infrastructure, resources, organisation, audience, audience, advertising and promotion, as well as viewer responses to closed-ended questionnaires. The research report and results are available online under the European Theater Convention logo. It should be noted that the study predates the pandemic and that some of the data presented may no longer be consistent in the current cultural landscape. The ones most likely to have changed are those related to digitization and communication to the public.

The audience of dramatic theaters

European drama theaters are dependent on public funding. For member institutions of the European Theater Convention (ETC), the average funding is 80%. Only two theaters in the sample, located in Slovakia and in Serbia, managed to self-finance more than 50% of their activity from ticket sales. The highest thresholds of public funding were 97-98%, this being the case of theaters in Nicosia, Timisoara (TNTM) and Kosovo. In many cases, budget allocations and ticket sales are supplemented by other sources of income, such as sponsorships or non-artistic commercial activities.

The number of seats varies greatly from one theater to another. From a few dozen places (De Toneelmakerij, Amsterdam) to over 4,000 (Dortmund Theater), European theaters constitute a landscape of great diversity. The same diversity can be found in the artistic programs, but also in the social and community role that the theaters assume. According to Freie's classification, two categories of institutions were included in the sample: some that bet on the development of new audiences and new aesthetics, especially concerned with the young public, and some catch-all or with a role in public policies in the cultural sector – municipal, state or national theatres.