Speaking of Surveys (Theater in Colorado)

The Denver Post has surveyed patronage of all of Colorado's performing arts venues for 2004. In "They're playing your song: When it comes to theater, audiences turn to musicals over comedies and dramas," they've determined that "Colorado theater audiences turned out for musicals in nearly five times the numbers they did for comedies or dramas, according to a Denver Post survey of the 99 Colorado theater companies that staged at least one production in 2004.

Seventy percent of the 1.7 million theatergoers attended a musical, compared with 15 percent each for comedies and dramas. That's attributable mostly to the nearly 500,000 who attended the Denver Center Attractions' Broadway touring musicals, including "The Producers" and "Hairspray." Even when considering only material produced here in Colorado, audiences are more than twice as likely to choose a musical than a drama or comedy. " (...)

Despite the overwhelming disparity in audience preferences, Colorado theaters produced far more dramas (130) than comedies (106) and musicals (97) in 2004. Freeland hopes these survey results do not dissuade artistic directors from producing more dramas in the future.

"If the goal is a completely capitalistic market economy, you would be laughed out of any other industry to go against your market," admitted Freeland, whose experimental company's mission lies far outside attendance figures. "But we all have to step back and ask ourselves, 'What is the purpose of this art form? Are we losing what this is all about?"' Wilson said any healthy theater community must offer a balance of programming. "It's essential to the continued evolution of the sophisticated theatergoer that we continue to produce dramas, and lots of them," he said."

The headline of the companion article, "Large stage plays well with patrons: The Denver Center for the Performing Arts attracts half the theatergoers in the state. Many small companies struggle" sums up Colorado's theater market, and probably is the same story in most cities. A few theaters dominate, others struggle.

From the article: "In March 2004, Denver's tiny LIDA Project Theatre developed its own original examination of the Columbine massacre. It was an emotional production of intense local interest and import, and it drew media attention from around the world. It just couldn't draw flies to the theater. In 17 performances, it attracted 27 people per night. Nine months later, the mediocre "Radio City Christmas Spectacular" touring amusement drew 159,041, at times turning around audiences of nearly 3,000 three times in a single day.

Radio City Christmas Spectacular, Denver. Denver Post photo.

When it comes to the health of theater in Colorado, it all depends on whether you see the mask as half-comedy or half-tragedy. On the smiley side, Colorado theaters drew 1.7 million patrons and generated $54 million in ticket revenue in 2004, according to a first-of-its-kind survey by The Denver Post. In a state of 4.6 million people, "those numbers are astonishing, even to me," said Steve Wilson, president of the Colorado Theatre Guild. "What that tells me is that theater as a central art form is very much alive and well in Colorado." But then there's the tragic frown: Nearly half of those who attended the theater anywhere in Colorado went to a show at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. That's great news for the largest performing-arts center between Chicago and Los Angeles. It is not such good news for the nearly 100 other theater companies in Colorado fighting over the other half. "

Photo courtesy of Keith Stanley.

A few years ago I applied for a marketing job with the Warner Theater. During the preparation process I realized that while the National and The Warner probably look at each other as competition, that isn't really true. In reality, they are two pieces of the downtown destination segment of arts-culture-entertainment in Washington. While it's true that on any one night, theater-goers can only go to one place, it's likely thatthe patrons of each are comfortable coming downtown generally (many people are not, rightly or wrongly) and these theaters (along with theaters along the burgeoning 7th Street NW "theater district") ought to market their offerings more cooperatively.

Anyway, a similar survey in the Washington area would be pretty interesting--and is related to the point that I often make that the city needs to create a more comprehensive cultural development, management, and marketing plan as part of the Comprehensive Plan and more generally.



For the complete results of the 2004 Denver Post Colorado Theater Survey click here.