One Chart, Twenty Two Stories

These artforms were:

• Children/family
• Christmas shows
• Musical theatre
• Plays/drama.

We then went on to talk about each of those four artforms in more detail (it was a busy session!).

But let’s look at that chart again, seeing how many stories it can tell…

Here then, are twenty-two stories that this one chart tells us:

1. There is wide variation of change across segments and artforms (A range of 123%, with the highest +80% for Metroculturals to Musical theatre and the lowest -43% for Supported Communities to Christmas shows)
2. No artform shows all segments growing or decreasing (there is a range of at least 58% [for Christmas Shows] and as high as 110% [for Musical theatre] between the highest and lowest segments for each artform)
3. Only two segments have decreased across all for artforms: Home & Heritage and Supported Communities
4. The segment that decreased most for any artform was Supported Communities, for Christmas shows (down a huge 43%: showing the cost of living really biting for the least well off)
5. The segment that decreased most, most consistently was Home & Heritage (we’ve seen reductions for this segment a lot over recent years, so >20% decreases across all four artform isn’t a surprise)
6. For both of the artforms with biggest decreases, Christmas shows are the artform which decreased most (there seems to be a turn against this festive tradition, which seems to be losing out as families prioritise their spending)
7. Christmas shows are the only one of the artforms with a drop for Up Our Streets, but it’s big: -28% (even segments that are going more to other artforms are dropping for Christmas shows)
8. Few segments are growing a lot for Christmas shows, either (they have the lowest ‘highest growth’ of any of the artforms: 15% for Experience Seekers, with others being 35%, 80% and 41%)
9. The segments that decreased for Christmas shows tend to be older (there were big decreases for Supported Communities, Home & Heritage Dormitory Dependables; younger segments rose, if not by a lot)
10. Christmas shows was the only one of the artforms to show such a clear age difference (although the broad trend could be seen elsewhere, there’s something distinctively concentrated about the impact of age on Christmas show booking)
11. The biggest growth segment is different for each of the four artforms (Children/family — Trips & Treats, Christmas shows — Experience Seekers, Musical theatre — Metroculturals, Plays/drama — Frontline Families
12. The overall picture is difference for each artform (artforms matter when understanding audience behaviour: it’s not just about overall shifts by population group, regardless of what they are going to see)
13. The breadth of increases by artform is linked to the overall amount of them (Musical theatre has grown most, and for all but two segments; Children/family second most, by all but three; then Plays/drama, by all but four; then Christmas shows, by all but five [i.e. half of segments])
14. The single biggest proportionate growth is Metroculturals to Musical Theatre, up 80% (this most-highly-engaged group ‘taking up’ musical theatre in such numbers may suggest a break-through in cultural cache for this artform; this also gave this group the highest range of variation by artform, of 92%)
15. Musical theatre dominates the growth by segment (the first, second, third and fifth highest increases are all for this artform; all eight of the segments that increased for musical theatre did so more than for any other of the artforms)
16. Musical theatre was the only one of the segments which saw growth in sales to Commuterland Culturebuffs (although only by 2%)
17. Commuterland Culturebuffs show less variation by artform than any other segment (a range of 10%, from -8% for Children/family work to +2% for Musical theatre; the next lowest range was 14% for Home & Heritage).
18. Two segments stand out for growth by artform: Trips & Treats and Frontline Families (both grew for all four artforms, by similar proportions, and by at least a third for three out of four; Christmas shows being the exception)
19. Trips & Treats and Frontline Families particularly stand out for growth in Plays/drama (there is a 19% point gap to the third highest growing segment, Dormitory Dependables)
20. Four segments grew across all four artforms (Trips & Treats and Frontline Families, of course, but also Experience Seekers and Kaleidoscope Creativity: suggesting a shift towards younger and more urban segments, including those with young families in)
21. Three out of four artforms saw growth for three out of four ‘lower-engaged’ segments (despite the cost of living, the picture isn’t that lower-engaged, and typically less well-off, segments are reducing the number of tickets bought across the board)
22. Groups of higher/medium/lower engaged segments don’t move together (the only artform which saw growth, or reduction, across all segments within one of the engagement bands was musical theatre, for higher-engaged segments: in all other instances, at least one segment bucked the trend).

These stories come from one chart, showing one measure (change in number of tickets) across one time period (2019/20 compared to 2024/25) reported one way (as a percentage, rather than absolute values). This gives a hint at the richness available in the full Audience Answers dataset, which we will continue to explore and to share.

(PS: Are there other stories from this chart that we’ve missed? Let us know…)