The out of town audience is the most challenging for Broadway. We depend quite heavily on them but we don’t know much about them. We tend to lump them together calling them tourists but many of the out of town customers visit NYC regularly and there are some who see more Broadway theatre than locals. Research earlier this year showed that 40% of multi-buyers for new shows in the 2014-15 season were from out of town (Click Here).
For most shows sales to out of town customers represent the largest segment of the audience, often upwards of 50%. As important as they are, they seemed worthy of their own survey with questions all about their behavior, so we did a survey of all out of town Telecharge buyers from 2015.
First we asked do they stay overnight or not; after all some are day trippers. They live outside the metropolitan area and come in for the day. We have asked about overnight stays before (Click Here) but it was worth asking again.
For most shows sales to out of town customers represent the largest segment of the audience, often upwards of 50%. As important as they are, they seemed worthy of their own survey with questions all about their behavior, so we did a survey of all out of town Telecharge buyers from 2015.
First we asked do they stay overnight or not; after all some are day trippers. They live outside the metropolitan area and come in for the day. We have asked about overnight stays before (Click Here) but it was worth asking again.
There were no real surprises in the data. I had expected some percentage of customers would have stayed farther away from midtown to save money but it turned out to be small. Midtown East for those who stayed in a hotel and those who did not was interesting as a secondary location; will we see street teams on the East side? On the other hand either Broadway or this survey may not be reaching the tourists buying milk and cereal in small grocery stores in residential neighborhoods such as the Upper West Side.
We should also note this is a survey of Telecharge customers who buy mostly in advance and at higher prices than those who buy at TKTS or at the box office, where a larger percentage of tickets sold are the less expensive seats. Quite often the Telecharge customers are upper income. We don’t know if these results are the same for box office or TKTS buyers. There are buyers we are probably not reaching.
We should also note this is a survey of Telecharge customers who buy mostly in advance and at higher prices than those who buy at TKTS or at the box office, where a larger percentage of tickets sold are the less expensive seats. Quite often the Telecharge customers are upper income. We don’t know if these results are the same for box office or TKTS buyers. There are buyers we are probably not reaching.
There are a lot of tourists who it is reported stay in Airbnb properties - who has not seen families of tourists with suitcases on the subway departing in residential neighborhoods – and there are hotels outside Midtown and outside of Manhattan.
More to come.
More to come.
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