The Audience Experience: A Critical Analysis of Audiences in the Performing Arts Edited by Jennifer Radbourne, Hilary Glow, and Katya Johanson (review)

There is a monumental shift occurring in the current artistic marketplace in regards to what audiences are expecting from the live arts performances they attend. Many arts practitioners are desperate just to keep the core audiences they have already built; others look nervously toward revolutionary new ways to generate effective, innovate strategies to measure and market the “fun,” “socially relevant,” and “educational” elements that make theatre so compelling. Whether or not they are ready and able to commit to change, these organizations have no doubt already been discussing the hows and whys in hushed voices during board meetings or at intermissions of half-filled matinees.

The Audience Experience makes a valiant attempt to address these questions through the new discipline of “audience experience research,” a school of thought that combines new and traditional modes of surveying audiences of arts events. Through eleven essays by leading researchers in this emergent field, this book runs the gamut of exploring recent phenomena of digital streaming, cocuration, and convergence marketing, as well as redefining the traditional audience by interviewing samples of children, adults, amateurs, and professionals alike—all in hopes of finding something tangible behind ever-mercurial audience behavior. Having only gained traction during the past twenty years, audience experience research is still effectively in its embryonic stage as far as research fields go. Yet, this collection offers a good overview of the myriad research methodologies, analytical tools, and industry technology used in quantifying that elusive “audience experience.”

One cannot help but feel the sense of urgency in the arts world today that is informed by the belt-tightening demanded in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. A repeated referent is arts administrator Ben Cameron, who, since 2009, has sent shockwaves through the established arts community by repeatedly questioning the need for a “professional artist” in creative endeavors. At times, some of the essays rely upon buzzwords that are almost too slick—jargony concepts like audience reach and cultural intermediation come to mind—but the contributors featured in The Audience Experience avoid veering too far into the Chicken Little “sky is falling” territory.

The book’s three editors—Jennifer Radbourne, Hilary Glow, and Katya Johanson—contribute the first, outstanding chapter, “Knowing and Measuring the Audience Experience.” Here, a basic terminology is laid out clearly and concisely for readers, conceived as an index measuring audience engagement through attributes of knowledge, risk, authenticity, and collective engagement. In the case study that makes up the rest of the chapter, the authors test their index on two different Australian arts organizations: a small, independent nonprofit house, and the other a mid-sized, regional for-profit theatre. When the results come they may seem logical, but the market-research component gives the chapter’s conclusions a certain concreteness. This basic formula sets the stage for many of the other essays: research questions are posed, specific ethnographic audiences are chosen, methodologies are implemented, charts and graphs are made, and (usually) the concluding information is extrapolated into broader ideas about what we (ourselves, an audience) can make of it. Yet, the most exciting chapters manage to transcend this formulaic feel and inject humor, passion, and applicable real-world ideas into their findings.

A fascinating example of this practical application is Matthew Reason’s “The Longer Experience: Theatre for Young Audiences and Enhancing Engagement” (chapter 7). In it, he attempts to reconcile the research around a group of Scottish grade-schoolers’ negative engagement with Echoa, a popular dance performance marketed for young people. Despite that Echoa has played 500 performances across the globe and garnered rave reviews from critics, parents, and other young audiences, these Scottish kids hated it. Instead of treating his respondents like baffling test subjects, Reason flips the script and engages with his audience through the scientific process; the heart, humor, and personalities of the students and Reason himself converge and make for some sublime reading...