Determinants of the Demand for Live Entertainments: Some Survey-based Evidence (original) (raw)
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In economics, the concept of preferences is fundamental to the theory of choice. In many demand analyses, preferences are taken as given, although interesting questions can be asked about how they originate. In this paper, we consider the formation of preferences in demand for live theatre. We propose a model where preferences are derived from certain identifiable types of experience gained from past attendances at live theatre productions, as well as from some characteristics of consumers including their theatre-related human capital and their habitual behaviour patterns in attending a performance. We hypothesise that the preferences formed through these processes determine conditional demand for future live theatre consumption. The model is estimated as a two-stage system using data from a recent survey of theatregoers. The paper is interdisciplinary in its approach, drawing its modelling and methodologies from economics, and its interpretation of results from the academic discipl...
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SSRN Electronic Journal, 2000
While audience and participation surveys, as well as econometric demand studies, generally confirm that performing arts audiences are relatively elite, there are surprises. Education (despite conflicting causal interpretations) is a stronger determinant than income, but that evidence is more reliable from survey results than from econometric estimation, and arts training is often distinguished from formal education. The arts as luxury goods can only be confirmed by those rare studies controlling for the value of time, and price elasticities are often higher than expected, especially when more disaggregated data are examined. Price inelastic demand is more likely the result of low pricing strategies of non-profit arts managements rather than any inherent result of an acquired taste for the arts, while cross-price elasticity evidence is relatively weak, even within the performing arts. Arts demand cannot adequately be estimated without also considering "life-style" variables, or non-standard socioeconomic factors such as sexual orientation, gender and socialization processes, and even the role of age has been notably complex. Quality of arts performance or organization seems important, but the econometric results are mixed. Habit formation must be distinguished from learning-byconsuming and rational addiction in examining dynamic determinants. Sociologists, psychologists, and marketing specialists, as well as economists, have contributed to this literature, which remains unusually enigmatic despite about forty years of increasingly sophisticated analysis. 6 The importance of the early U.S. data is confirmed by the fact that even Throsby and Withers (1979), making a serious effort to incorporate Australian and other country data, extensively incorporate the Ford Foundation and Baumol and Bowen data into their illustrations and analysis. Econometric analysis from 1966 to 2005 has been only a bit more balanced, with one-half of such studies using U.S. databases (22 of 44 studies). While one-half of such studies are not based on American data, the next highest single country representation is the U.K. at about 10 The most cited early data regarding Canadian audiences was provided by Book and Globerman (1975), whose findings also generally confirm the results in Table 1. West (1985) provided arts audience survey data for Ontario (for 1984-85), along with general public telephone survey results that allow the calculation of relative frequencies for educational levels (his Table 19, p. 82): 0.18 for under 4 years of high school; 0.74 for high school; 0.44 for community college (surprisingly lower than high school); 1.78 for university and 4.5 for graduate school.
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We critically examine and empirically test the hypothesis that the strong socioeconomic gradients characterising attendance at arts events result from similar gradients in preferences for the arts, in line with existing theories of demand for the arts derived from orthodox consumer theory. To control for preferences, we use individual measures of stated interest in the arts and reports of viewing and listening habits, as distinct from attendance at live events. These variables are strongly associated with attendance, yet despite their inclusion as covariates within a hierarchical logistic regression analysis, strong and significant socioeconomic gradients remain within the estimated models. While it remains possible that our controls do not capture sufficient variation in preferences for the arts, it appears more likely that the socioeconomic composition of live arts audiences is influenced by other factors in addition to individual preferences for the arts.
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Most economic studies on the performing arts demand indicate weak price elasticity. However, some results suggest a much greater elasticity for the lower income groups. As their audience is socially stratified to the benefit of executives, highbrow professionals and academic qualified people, performing arts organisations are encouraged to produce or diffuse more free outside performances. Since the nineties, urban festivals and cultural events are a way to diversify attendance. The paper intends to analyse attendants' motivations and attitudes from surveys. The assumption is that the perception of shows remains the deciding factor for free and paying attendants. Fireworks or dance concerts may attract working-class people whereas most open-air performances catch regular audience's attention.
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Arts attendance in England has, in recent decades, been the subject of several surveys focusing on how individual factors such as socio-economic status, education, ethnicity and age influence attendance. These surveys have been used to create small area estimates of arts attendance. But other studies of the use of public facilities suggest that access to a venue would be highly predictive of attendance. This paper compares administrative data on opera attendance in London with small area estimates of opera audiences, and finds a systematic geographic bias in the errors of the predictions, related to a lack of information about the location of venues. It demonstrates that a model using 2001 Census data and a simple accessibility index better predicts attendance, and more accurately locates audiences. It concludes that, by focusing on individual-level explanations in order to understand cultural engagement, funders have failed to examine the effect of their own investment.
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Ticket prices of pop/rock concerts have risen considerably over the last decade. Reasons for this growth are debatable: the monopolistic position of one concert promoter, the development of mass culture and fanaticism, or changes in artists' business model due to illegal downloading. This empirical paper identifies artist-related variables that play a significant role in the pricing of music concerts. Referring to economic principles (e.g., transaction costs, economies of scale) and psychological theories (e.g., preferences, signaling), six hypotheses were tested using a unique database covering a period of seven years and containing information on 2687 concerts organized in Belgium as well as on performing artists. Results show that artists' career, nationality, and their popularity are the major determinants of ticket prices.
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This study focuses on consumer enjoyment of special event entertainment (SEE) in shopping centres. SEE consists of free entertainment events such as school holiday entertainment, fashion shows, celebrity appearances, live concerts, and community events. A unique characteristic of SEE is social crowding as SEE is typically consumed by a mass of people in one location at one point in time, and for the purpose of pleasure or fun (Ng, Russell-Bennett & Dagger 2007, Pons, Laroche & Mourali 2006). Hence, the main purpose of this study is to examine the possible positive effect of social crowding on consumer enjoyment of SEE. The results of this study reveal that not only can social crowding have a positive effect on consumer enjoyment of SEE but it can also have a positive effect on their shopping behaviour. Contributions to marketing theory and practice are discussed.