Audience Diversification Strategies Benchmarking Report

Audience diversification remains a crucial strategic goal for arts organizations grappling with questions of attendance, relevance, and long-term sustainability. Learn about the current status of orchestras’ audience diversification priorities and efforts and the types of change being implemented in the field, along with results achieved so far, in this report created in partnership with the Advisory Board for the Arts (ABA). Highlights include:

In addition, check out these highlights by orchestra budget group:

• Orchestras from all budget groups are eager to improve audience diversity.
• About half of all executive directors responding to the survey say that their orchestras do not systematically assess their audiences’ demographic diversity.

Groups 1-2

• While increasing young audiences is currently the highest priority for orchestras overall, Group 1-2 orchestras are most focused on BIPOC audiences.
• Group 1-2 orchestras have seen the largest increase in BIPOC audiences compared to other budget groups since pre-pandemic years.
• Two years from now, Group 1-2 orchestras would most like to see an increase in subscribers/members, while other budget groups most want to see an increase in younger audiences.
• Group 1-2 orchestras partner more with universities/higher education and media partners than overall.

Groups 3-6

• Increasing young audiences is currently the highest priority for Group 3-6 orchestras. 
• Two years from now, Group 3-6 orchestras would most like to see an increase in younger audiences. Group 3-6 organizations have more interest than orchestras from other budget groups in increasing single ticket buyers.
• Group 3-6 orchestras rely more strongly on their own CRM systems and member/subscriber data and trends to learn about audience diversity than orchestras from other budget groups.

Groups 7-8

• While increasing young audiences is currently the highest priority for orchestras overall, Group 7-8 organizations are most focused on diverse socioeconomic groups.
• Group 7-8 orchestras have had a greater loss of audience diversification than others since pre-pandemic years.
• Two years from now, Group 7-8 orchestras would most like to see an increase in younger audiences. Group 7-8 organizations have much less interest than orchestras from other budget groups in increasing single ticket buyers.
• Group 7-8 orchestras tend to partner less with non-profit organizations specializing in EDI work than orchestras from other budget groups

Youth and College

• While increasing young audiences is currently the highest priority for overall orchestras, youth and college orchestras are most focused on families with children.
• Two years from now, youth and college orchestras would most like to see an increase in younger audiences. Youth and college orchestras have much greater interest in BIPOC audiences than orchestras from other budget groups.
• The majority of youth and college orchestras are tracking and measuring their off-site activity for community engagement, a much higher percentage than the overall data.

Reports by orchestra budget group are available to participating orchestras.