Free Night of Theater - 2005 Overview
Audience Development Program
Free Night of Theater - The Plan
At the 2003 TCG National Conference held in Milwaukee, a conversation
began to discuss how the national theater community might better
work together - not one theater at a time, but as an entire theater
community - to reach new audiences. The goal was to put aside the
inevitable competitions and work together to overcome the perceived
barriers of price and time that discourage many potential patrons
from attending the theater.
A call for partners to participate in a pilot program was issued to local and regional service organizations across the country. TCG planned to target three cities that represented geographic diversity, offered a wide variety of theaters and clearly reflected a high standard of theatrical quality. It was also extremely important that the cities chosen have strong local service organizations, with a proven infrastructure and a dedication to local community building and cooperation. After reviewing more than 30 potential partner cities, TCG officially announced the participation of Austin Circle of Theaters, (Austin, TX), Theatre Alliance of Greater Philadelphia (Philadelphia, PA) and Theatre Bay Area (San Francisco, CA).
The concept of this new audience development pilot program was simple. On Thursday, October 20, 2005, theaters in our local markets would offer an extraordinary opportunity. Anyone could visit a participating theater they had never attended before FOR FREE. The program would provide non-theatergoers the opportunity to attend any of the participating theaters, while at the same time, enable theaters to embrace not only true “first timers,” but encourage existing audiences to broaden their theater experience. That was the genesis of the audience development campaign.
Free Night of Theater - I'm Free, Are You? - The 2005 Campaign
In the spring of 2005, TCG began work with the Austin-based advertising agency SWG&M Advertising, an award-winning multicultural agency, known recently for its “Art. Ask for More” campaign. Working closely with our partners in Austin, Philadelphia and San Francisco, the public awareness and advertising campaign was created and successfully launched in July 2005.
Free Night of Theater, October 20, 2005 - The Event
On Thursday, October 20, 2005, over 150 theater companies -- large and small -- in Austin, Philadelphia and San Francisco joined together to present Free Night of Theater “I'm Free, Are You?” Reports from all three cities revealed that nearly 8,000 theatergoers attended over 120 performances on October 20. Also, as an unexpected result of the early success of the program, an additional 30 theater companies added post-October 20 performances to the Free Night of Theater event creating additional buzz that ultimately increased the image of the event as a hot ticket.
Ticket Reservations
- In Austin, 25 theater companies offered over 1,000 tickets to performances that were scheduled on October 20 and continued beyond that day.
- In Philadelphia, theaters reported that close to 2,000 patrons attended 15 performances on Free Night of Theater, with an additional 18 theater companies planning to participate over the following weeks.
- San Francisco's 93 participating theater companies offered 112 performances and reported over 5,000 attendees of which 81% had never been to the theater where the show was performed.
Shugoll Research Highlights
- Of those trying a new theatre on Free Night 2005, 29% returned to that theatre and purchased tickets, including 3% who purchased a subscription, showing the benefit of the program to the participating theatres
- Eighty-five percent of those attending Free Night have gone to a theatre since the program, including 50% of those who only attend the theatre infrequently. Further, 35% say they go to the theater more now than before the program and 81% of them attribute additional attendance to the Free Night program
- The program attracted a significant number of people who fall into non-traditional theatre participant categories, specifically, 27% of those at Free Night attended the theatre two or fewer times in the last year, 26% are under age 35, 19% have less than a college degree, 44% are non-white, and 28% have incomes under $50,000.