How Does the Current Social, Economic and Cultural Situation Affect the Attitude and Attendance of the Theatre Audiences of Today?

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ABSTRACT

The objective of this paper is to question the attendance, public support vis-à-vis particular forms of live entertainment: the cultural and Theatre events. From exploratory research conducted in both areas, we want to show, firstly, the emergence of new logic shows that consumption will be analyzed by integrating the post-modern sociological perspective. From this reflection, we will examine, in a second step, the paradigm underlying research on consumer behaviour of live theatre shows. We will be analyzing how the theatres and production companies have reacted to influences such as: The Recession, the increasing unemployment numbers of the UK and the Olympics.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACTii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION1

Significance of the Study1

Aims and Objectives1

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW3

Theatre Audiences and Perceptions of 'Live-ness' in Performance3

Live-ness4

Language and Experience5

The 'Customer Effect,' Expenditure by Audiences and Its Economic Impact6

Unemployment affecting Attendance of the Audiences in Theatre7

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY8

Research Design8

Literature Search9

Keywords9

Ethical Considerations9

CHAPTER 4: ANTICIPATED RESULTS10

REFERENCES11

APPENDIX14

Gantt chart14

Time Scale14

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The latest statistics on the UK cultural practices, tell us that today, more than in 1989, practiced as part of their leisure activities that cause them to leave their homes (69% in 1997 against 62% in 1989). This increase in preference for outdoor activities, if it affects just about all categories of the population, appeared to affect primarily those who like go out together, whether their spouse, their family or friends (Adorno, 1976: 16). By basing our thinking in the field of performing arts and student, more precisely, attending cultural and sporting events, we seek in the first part, to highlight the emergence of "new" logic of consumption shows we will endeavour to analyze the sociological perspective by integrating post-modern. Then we will examine, in a second part on the paradigm underlying research on consumer behaviour of live shows (Barker, 2003: 21).

Significance of the Study

The reason I have chosen this as my area of study is that I believe it will be a useful document for theatres and production companies to discover the public's thoughts and views on theatre, and how they can tackle potential deciding factors that could affect their business.

Aims and Objectives

Following are the aims and objectives of the proposed study:

I want to discover how audience numbers have increased or decreased along with social, influences.

I also want to discover how theatres and production companies have dealt with key social factors in order to keep financial stability, whether they have had to lower ticket prices, or whether they have had to increase their marketing budget to attract larger audience numbers.

I also want to see how cultural factors have affected audience's attitudes towards theatre.

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

In this section we will be reviewing and presenting the Literature review that will be needed while studying the proposed study.

Theatre Audiences and Perceptions of 'Live-ness' in Performance

That theatre is performed live is often presented as central to its definition, particularly when making contrasts with non-live performances on film or ...