Turning New Ticket Buyers Into Longtime Fans

As the Executive Director of Ballet Austin, I’ve seen firsthand how the arts industry grapples with reaching new audiences quickly enough to ensure sustainable growth. Like many of our peers, we’ve faced a significant amount of audience churn in recent years. This has sparked a crucial question: what can we do to not just attract, but retain and grow audiences? 

After diving into our ticketing database, we discovered that new attendees who visited three times within 18 months were more likely to become repeat customers with whom we could develop long relationships. So, we shifted our focus toward welcoming and retaining these newcomers. We started to ask: what if we treated every first-timer like a guest in our home? What if we made them feel valued and showed them they belonged?

Over the years, our journey in audience hospitality has been incredibly enlightening. Here’s what we’ve learned about turning first-time visitors into part of our ballet family, which I discussed with CI’s VP, Managing Director Christopher Williams on the podcast last year and more recently at Boot Camp 2024. 

UNDERSTAND YOUR AUDIENCE

In 2015, Ballet Austin embarked on a multi-year research project with The Wallace Foundation to figure out why our classical ballets routinely packed houses while our more abstract works struggled to attract crowds. We wanted to understand the factors that made potential audiences feel hesitant about or disinterested in purchasing tickets for new productions, then work to bridge this “uncertainty gap.”

Our key finding was that different people need different types of connection—intellectual, social, or kinesthetic—to feel more engaged and less intimidated by the unknown.

Inspired by this information, our team stopped marketing monolithically and started tailoring communications to different types of ballet-goers. What dramaturgical information would attract intellectual connectors? What makes the latest program a worthwhile night out for social connectors? We even went a step further and infused different types of connection into our on-site strategy.

ENGAGE PERSONALLY AND THOUGHTFULLY

We’ve implemented several initiatives to make visitors feel welcome, valued, and more likely to return. Some of these initiatives are high-touch, but others are surprisingly low-lift and replicable at any organization.

Identify your newbies. Our Tessitura ticket scanners play the sound of a doorbell whenever a newcomer’s ticket is scanned. It’s an easy way for team members to identify who needs an extra welcome.

Surprise and delight. A designated “social ambassador” offers newcomers a small welcome gift (usually a piece of chocolate) and helps curate their hour before curtain. They’re equipped with color coded maps that highlight selfie stations, costume displays, and more!

Create unique touchpoints. Inspired by our research with The Wallace Foundation, we offer a series of lobby experiences that allow patrons to connect with the art in whatever ways are most enriching for them. Past activities include pointe shoe and costume displays for the intellectual connectors; “Pose and Post” selfie stations for the social connectors; and ballet movement tutorials and an immersive music dome for the kinesthetic connectors.

Set the mood with music. A good playlist has the power to significantly enhance the pre-show and post-show atmosphere. We build excitement with a crescendo as the show approaches, and mellow the mood with a decrescendo as the audience leaves. The music even follows guests into the parking lot, where audience members frequently dance under the stars and savor time with loved ones before heading home.

ELIMINATE FRICTION

Even if you have the perfect pre-show atmosphere, there’s still a risk that your guests will arrive stressed due to transit issues or ticket hiccups. Luckily, your team can smooth the way so audiences feel relaxed and ready to cheer on your performers.

Give plenty of notice. Just like an airline texts passengers a few hours before they board a flight, we use real-time texting to notify audiences if there’s heavy traffic or if the parking lot is likely to fill. It’s a great way to build trust and eliminate a key point of frustration in the Austin area. (Traffic here is no joke!)

Pre-game with your team. Right before doors open, our front-of-house team circles up to talk through show updates, share information about first-time guests, and shout out any team members we’ve seen go above and beyond for audience members recently. 

Empower your staff. Even the newest member of Ballet Austin is encouraged to solve problems for guests—and that often means extra footwork! If a ticket didn’t print correctly, the Ballet rep goes down the stairs to get the ticket reprinted—not the guest.

Fill unoccupied wait times. We took a page out of Disney’s book by devising creative ways to keep attendees engaged while waiting for performances to begin. By offering interactive and enriching pre-show activities, we ensure that the audience is in a positive and engaged state when the curtain rises.

ITERATE, ITERATE, ITERATE

Audience engagement work is never set-it-and-forget-it, and our front-of-house staff is often just as tired as the performers at the end of a run. We continually refine our strategy using “the three Rs”: a simple evaluation process introduced to us by The Wallace Foundation. It helps us determine which front-of-house audience engagement activities support our goals, and which to scrap in favor of more impactful programs.

• Retain the elements that work.
• Redesign programs in need of tweaking, then re-evaluate.  
• Retire programs not meeting goals.

RESULTS THAT SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES

Since Ballet Austin renewed its focus on retention, we’ve achieved unprecedented milestones, like selling out all 15 performances of our 2022 and 2023 Nutcracker runs before opening night, as well as our season-closing May productions for both years. We’ve experienced our top-selling and—most importantly—top-attended seasons on record.

But even more heartwarming are the stories of families who return to the ballet year after year, generation after generation, because they feel like part of the fabric of our organization. That sense of belonging doesn’t happen by magic; it’s proof positive that we can grow our arts communities with a little extra thought, care, and data-fueled curiosity.