The Score | Wallace Foundation: Understanding and Building Audiences

What do millennial audiences want? A new study from the Wallace Foundation examines millennial attitudes toward the performing arts—and offers clues to engaging this emerging audience. Building Millennial Audiences: Barriers and Opportunities, written by Cindy Asen of Marketing Research Professionals, Inc., synthesizes market research conducted by the 25 arts organizations in Wallace’s Building Audiences for Sustainability initiative, which includes several orchestras. Even though audiences for major arts forms are aging, it may be possible to change this scenario, the report suggests. Building Millennial Audiences can be downloaded for free from the Knowledge Center at www.wallacefoundation.org. For more on orchestras and millennials, check out the article in the Spring issue of Symphony magazine issuu.com/americanorchestras/docs/symphony_wi17_issuu/26 that looks at how some orchestras are attracting and keeping millennial audiences. More audience-building research from the Wallace Foundation was highlighted at this year’s League Conference in Detroit during the Bold and Informed: Researching Audiences on a Budget session, which provided practical, low-cost strategies and tactics for understanding audiences, based on proven methods from arts groups across the country.