What’s In and Out for Arts Marketing in 2025?

It’s 2025!!?!

Christmas Carols and Nutcrackers have come down from marquees, and January performances are well under way. As we kick off the new year, we wanted to share some thoughts about what we’re hoping to see in the months ahead. So, what’s in and what’s out for performing arts in 2025?

In:

• Data Divas
• Harnessing the power of our blockbusters
• Little treats
• New friends

Out:

• Boiling the ocean
• “Subscriptions are dead”
• Paying way too much for eggs (and everything else)
• Talking to all of your customers the same way

In:

Data Divas: You probably already know that we love data. In fact, data inspired this article! We revisited our most recent Trends in Audience Behavior study to see what our recent audience data says suggests in terms of finding success in the new year. And we’re calling it now: 2025 will be the year of the Data Diva. Data Divas are the wranglers of reports, the people who love pivot tables, the angels of Analytics; we’re talking about anyone who understands your organization’s data inside and out and can help you identify meaningful trends in sales and donations. In 2025, identify the data divas in your organization and treat them like gold. (They are!) Their insights will help you understand your audience and determine the right strategies for your organization to be most successful.

Harnessing the power of our blockbusters: Over the past several years, we’ve seen a trend that hit performances are performing better than ever. For example, you can read our success story on Ballet Arizona’s production of The Nutcracker, which had a 37% revenue increase from 2021 to 2022! And their 2024 production of The Nutcracker just broke records yet again. When we have hits on our stages – and many of you likely had huge hits in 2024! – we need to think about the ways that we can harness their success to advance our organizations’ missions. In part, that means data analysis to identify hits earlier in the sales cycle and employ smart revenue management. It also means making sure these audiences who attend don’t become one-hit wonders. Have your data divas help you understand who is in your venue so you can invite them to return at the right moment and thus forge new relationships within your community.

Little treats: Everyone loves a little treat. Sometimes, that’s an afternoon latte. In 2025, maybe that can be a pair of opera tickets. The fact is, we’re seeing constituents buying less than they did before. We found that the average number of tickets purchased per constituent dropped in 2024. How can we incentivize our audiences to treat themselves and attend another performance or bring another friend with them?

New friends: Knowing that tickets per constituent were down in 2024, we have two ways to fill our venues in 2025, either by encouraging current buyers to purchase more tickets or by bringing in new audiences . And there are upsides to both strategies! Focusing on acquisition and welcoming new audiences into your theater is an inclusive way to make sure that your houses are full and your revenue goals are met. Our recent study found that organizations saw large numbers of new audience members in 2024, at a level that’s comparable to before the pandemic. Examine the behaviors and demographics of new audience members from 2024 to see if you can use that information to help you target your acquisition campaigns in 2025. Or perhaps you could set a goal for your organization of bringing in an increased percentage of new audience members this year, with a follow-up goal of getting a percentage of them to come back a second time, based on your current retention rates.

Out:

Boiling the ocean: We hate corporate jargon in general, and we hate this phrase in particular because no one should be trying to complete an impossible task! For example, in a play to increase your overall revenue, you might double your ticket sales goals to try to motivate your staff. You know – and they know – that you might as well have asked them to boil the ocean. Even if you accomplished this Herculean task, your strategies might not be sustainable. Instead, we hope to see people focusing on smaller, incremental goals that are supported by data. For example, instead of a broad, overly ambitious increase of all of your sales targets, could you focus increasing the retention rate of your new-to-file buyers by just 10%? Sustainable growth will come through incremental, efficient change.

“Subscriptions are dead”: We’ve been saying this in the industry for the whole of the 21st century. Can we stop? While the trend for the past several years had been that subscriptions were on the decline, we actually saw subscriptions stabilize in 2024. But beyond seeing subscription tickets stabilizing, we think it’s time to move beyond lamenting the death of subscriptions and start focusing on new ways to rethink loyalty. You have ferociously loyal patrons that may only visit your organization once a year. You may have long-time subscribers that you’ve never actually encountered, because their friends purchase their tickets. Let’s think outside the subscription in 2025 and consider how we can measure and reward loyalty within our audience.

Paying way too much for eggs (and everything else): We’re going to let you in on a secret: performing arts ticket prices have not kept up with inflation. While the average amount that people paid for a ticket did increase more than inflation in 2024, there is still a gap that high inflation caused in 2021.

As a result, the post-pandemic rebound that we’ve seen is not quite as strong as it might have been if ticket prices had kept up with inflation. In the new year, we encourage organizations to take a careful look at their prices to see if they are, in fact, keeping pace with inflation or if they are undervalued in the marketplace.

Talking to all of your customers the same way: As we think about the different challenges that we see, different members of your audience can help in different ways. Not everyone is going to be a major donor, not everyone is going to be a full season subscriber. And you shouldn’t talk to everyone as if they’re on the path to become your next “super subscriber.” For example, if you know that you have a high number of international patrons in your database, how can you speak to them about doing more on their next visit to your organization? Thinking about segmentation and setting incremental goals for the various segments of your audience will help you meet your goals in 2025.

What are your Ins and Outs for 2025? We want to know! If any of our Ins and Outs resonated with you, we’d love to start a conversation about how we can help you meet your 2025 goals.