New York stage producer Ken Davenport has had shows on and off-Broadway, and he writes an interesting blog about the commercial theater industry. One of his recent blogs disclosed the findings of a demographic study of who attends touring Broadway shows around the country.
The survey of ticket purchasers was conducted by email during the 2009-10 season. More than 18,000 persons participated. Here are some of the findings:
Nearly 16 million tickets were sold during the surveyed season.
Females constituted 72 percent of the audience.
The average age of theatergoers for touring Broadway shows was 53.8 years.
College graduates made up 74 percent of the audience, and 31 percent held advanced degrees.
Nearly half of the ticket purchasers reported an annual household income of more than $100,000. Only 20 percent of the general population falls into that income bracket.
Customers who don't subscribe to a series report the personal recommendation of others is the strongest influence on their decision to see a show.
Slightly more than a third of the theatergoers bought their tickets on the internet. Two years earlier, the figure was slightly more than a quarter.
We know that women are bigger consumers of the arts than men, but as a male, I find the 72 percent of the touring Broadway audience being female rather embarrassing. Geez, guys.
Damien has been around so long, he was at Summerfest the night George Carlin was arrested for speaking the seven dirty words you can't say on TV. He was also at the Uptown Theatre the night Bruce Springsteen's first Milwaukee concert was interrupted for three hours by a bomb scare. Damien was reviewing the concert for the Milwaukee Journal. He wrote for the Journal and Journal Sentinel for 37 years, the last 29 as theater critic.
During those years, Damien served two terms on the board of the American Theatre Critics Association, a term on the board of the association's foundation, and he studied the Latinization of American culture in a University of Southern California fellowship program. Damien also hosted his own arts radio program, "Milwaukee Presents with Damien Jaques," on WHAD for eight years.
Travel, books and, not surprisingly, theater top the list of Damien's interests. A news junkie, he is particularly plugged into politics and international affairs, but he also closely follows the Brewers, Packers and Marquette baskeball. Damien lives downtown, within easy walking distance of most of the theaters he attends.
