2. Becky Loftus
Head of Audience Insight
Royal Shakespeare Company
Dr Pippa Bailey
Innovation Director
MMR Research Worldwide
3. Best known theatre brand in the UK
74% of UK population
1.7 million tickets sold in 2013/14
Perform all year round in Stratford-upon-
Avon which is a visitor destination as well
as a theatre
Regularly tour work to London (Barbican),
Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Theatre Royal),
regional theatres all over the UK and
overseas
Live broadcasts to cinemas around the
world and free to UK schools
Part-funded by the Arts Council of England but
majority funded by income from ticket sales
and charitable donations
Don’t just do Shakespeare! Every year
produce a family Christmas production.
4. The desire to capture the moment
Ticket bookers give
us contact details
Data is vital:
Assessing all our work
Informing strategic decisions
Making sure our work is accessible to all
Reporting to funding bodies
• Data is dry and doesn’t speak to the
creative teams
• Qual research is costly and budgets are
severely restricted
• Logistics mean qual difficult to do before,
during or after a show
• Data doesn’t capture the excitement and
exhilaration of the moment
Online surveys sent out up
to 2 months after attending
5. Audiences differ from that for
Shakespeare work:
• More Midlands-based
families for whom it is their
one trip to the theatre as a
family each year
• For some many it is their
first experience of the RSC
Opportunity to get feedback from
the children themselves
Trialling MMR’s Mobile App
Decided to trial the app for our
Christmas family show, Wendy & Peter Pan
7. Members of the audience were invited to participate
- All communication with audience conducted by RSC
- All adults who had purchased a family ticket and given
permission to be contacted by the RSC sent email
invitation to take part in the App survey
- Email invitation has link which sent them to short online
survey (to capture basic socio-demographics and consent)
Detailed instructions were provided on how to download
the App onto their phone (same instructions also sent via
email)
- Incentive was entry into prize draw
- Timed reminders sent to participants 2 weeks before, 2
days before and 2 weeks post performance to remind them
to complete the survey
Pre-theatre
(2 weeks before
attendance)
So what we did…
At- theatre
Post theatre
(2 weeks post
attendance)
10. Flying
Don’t know
what it’s going
to be like
Know the story
of Peter Pan
Have visited
the RSC before
Friends
said it
was good
Excitement driven by…
12. Having seen the production, children’s reasons for their
excitement and enjoyment become more focused than
we saw pre-theatre
Pirates and
Hook
Wendy and Peter
Staging and
Costumes
Flying
13. For the adults, there was also a lot of excitement – with
the atmosphere being quite magical, but also quite
emotional and moving
Whilst ‘exciting’ was an overwhelming
response, unsurprisingly adults were
more likely to pick up on the thought
provoking content of the play itself,
commenting on that as well as the
general experience
15. However, when talking about the production, it is clear that the
more nuanced meanings were also noted by lots of the children
“she has spoken about how much she enjoyed the portrayal of
Tinkerbell. explaining how she had expected the fairy to be 'all
floaty and girly' but in reality she was 'really funny, rude and she
was a complete opposite to what I expected which was good!'”
“thought Tink was very
funny! Clever that the house
came up from the floor. Wants
to go again and watch
something else”
“one son was fascinated by the
mechanisms of the stage and
has drawn diagrams to explain it. my
other son thought it was exciting-
especially the flying and my daughter
lived every second! She found the
pirates scary.”
“the idea of the
brother dying
touched him”
“we talked about
the girl power
element of the
story”
“really enjoyed the play and
liked the fact the girls
came out on top!”
“This production gave my child food
for thought on how a story can
be altered to give another
view, like adding a child that died”
“Liked the meaning
of Tom's death
portrayed in the play
... how it strayed
a bit from the
classical story.”
“enjoyed the staging, particularly
ship and flying scenes”
“He enjoyed the story, the set particularly and
all of the flying etc. The crocodile made a
particular impression and he liked the way
that's everything linked to something else at home”
“magical staging they loved the
lost boys den and the ship”
16. However, when talking about the production, it is clear that the
more nuanced meanings were also noted by lots of the children
17. 0
50
Theatre Associations Profile
Strong association with theatre
Moderate association with
theatre
Exciting Fun Magical Clever Cool Grown-up Scary
Old
fashioned
Tiring Boring
The theatre elicits very powerful emotional
associations: ‘exciting’ and ‘fun’, as well as
‘magical’, ‘clever’ and ‘cool’
Pre-theatre At-theatre Post-theatre
18. 9.0
9.3
8.3
9.1
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
% 8-10
67%
76%
46%
73%
Pre theatre
Adult
interest
Post theatre
Adult interest
Pre theatre
perceived child
interest
Post theatre
perceived child
interest
Amongst adults and children there was a marked rise
in interest in the theatre pre and post the production,
and for perceived interest from the children this is
significantly higher
19. Response rates far lower
Response rate for our
usual online survey was
15%
Response
rates for the
App were
much lower
with many dropping out when it
came to actually downloading the
App to their phone
Click through rate =
Total response rates:
1.8% pre-show
1.1% at show
0.9% Two weeks post-show
* 50%
Open rate of email
sent to family
ticket bookers =
10%
(email specified need for Smartphone)
20. Some frustrations from respondents
“Having faithfully taken part in all
your surveys I feel excluded
because I don't use a smart phone
- not a balanced criteria, surely!”
“I would take part in
the survey, but have no
idea what an app is or
how to download.
Perhaps the survey is
available to us less
'techy' humans in
another format?”
“Hello, I downloaded the
app to my Android tablet
but when I attempted to
install I got 'unable to parse
package'. Could you get
someone to take a look
please?”
“If you want the views of
people who do not use
smartphones you will need
to get them another way.
Presumably this survey is
looking for views only from
a particular section of your
audience?”
21. But, also some unexpected benefits
“I am interested to know how this survey works out as
it really did capture Josef's imagination. He liked
being asked for his views. I can see how Apps could
add to the value of a theatre trip and give
meaningful feedback to the creative/marketing team.
I think that doing the survey
helped to embed the experience
for him so he was able to better
review his own reactions - so
thumbs up in the end - it was
overall good to be involved.”
26. Those rating as ‘Excellent’
Season
Overall
Wolf Hall
Bring Up The
Bodies
Richard II
RST
Wendy &
Peter Pan
Quality of acting 76% 84% 88% 81% 62%
Quality of directing 64% 70% 77% 67% 52%
Costumes 63% 72% 77% 56% 55%
Storyline 63% 75% 77% 60% 50%
Set/stage design 62% 53% 56% 57% 72%
Lighting 57% 57% 58% 60% 53%
Props 54% 49% 51% 45% 64%
Music (not sound effects) 52% 53% 56% 64% 41%
Sound effects (not music) 45% 46% 49% 37% 47%
RS08B:And how would you rate each of the following aspects of [INSERT PRODUCTION]?
Base: All respondents attending season (n=1,622)
Red= Significantly higher vs. season overall
Blue = Significantly lower vs. season overall
Online survey data is crucial too
27. Taking the App forward
Disadvantages
Technical barriers to
taking part and
frustrations from
some lead to lower
response rates
Restricted access
for certain
demographics
Not suitable
for collecting
large volume
of quant data
28. Taking the App forward
Advantages
Captures the moment and
theatre is a world which
lives in the moment
Brings it to
life for the
internal
audience
Better captures the
emotional response
Key data can be collected
at different time points
from the same group of
(engaged) respondents
Better
representation of
RSC members and
also new bookers
