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Looks at research undertaken in the grant‐aided sector of UK theatres with emphasis on a group of theatres active in Wales. Aims to assist theatres in the development and implementation of marketing plans. Concentrates on the role of objectives in the planning process and how they need to be refined before they are made operational. Provides guidelines for marketing planning. Demonstrates the value of using an external agency to structure an initial statement of objectives, participate in a current business audit and counsel top management in a restatement of objectives.

The purpose of this paper is to consider whether successful subsidised arts organisations are more likely to apply a relationship rather than transactional marketing approach to overcome the tendency of not‐for‐profit organisations generally, and subsidised arts organisations particularly, to use marketing for short‐term, tactical purposes.

Research was undertaken to identify whether “successful” subsidised performing arts organisations were indeed more strategic in their focus, whether they had applied a relationship marketing approach and whether such an approach had been influential in the development of their “success”. Preliminary research led to the production of a conceptual framework that identifies major partnerships and specific stakeholder types that need to be considered by a subsidised performing arts organisation if an effective relationship marketing approach is to be developed. This was used as the basis for subsequent research involving a multiple case study approach studying two “successful” theatres and one “unsuccessful” theatre in depth. The strengths of relationship between the various key stakeholder roles and artistic directors within the three theatres were analysed.

Although this research is limited to a case study analysis of three theatres, it does seem to provide evidence to suggest that building strong relationships with stakeholders other than end users can be advantageous to subsidised performing arts organisations.

It is likely that this approach could be successful for the subsidised arts generally and indeed for all those organisations in the not‐for‐profit sector where those who pay do not necessarily receive the service.

This article provides a discussion on successful subsidised arts organisations.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the influence that newspaper, blog and social media sources of information about a play have on respondents’ willingness to purchase a ticket to a theatrical production.

Respondents saw two advertisements and one review for theatrical productions. The authors randomly varied the version of each advertisement and review so that information regarding the production appeared to originate from a newspaper, blog or social media site. The authors asked respondents to rate the professionalism of the review and advertisements and how likely they were to purchase a ticket. The authors also collected demographic information.

The authors found that newspapers, blogs and social media had similar influence on respondents’ willingness to purchase a ticket. Respondents also viewed the blog-based play review as being as professional as the review from a newspaper. However, respondents were more likely to say they would purchase a ticket to a well-known play than a new play. Female respondents were more willing to purchase a play ticket.

Implications for marketers include the usefulness of non-traditional media (e.g. blogs, social media) in promoting a play – especially for new plays. Theater critics will find that their opinions are equally influential, regardless of whether the medium of publication is traditional (e.g. a newspaper) or digital (e.g. a blog). Principal limitations are the artificiality of a true experiment and an overly simplistic pricing method in the study.

Professionals selling tickets to theatrical productions should use favorable quotes and responses from social media and blogs when marketing tickets because audience members trust that these sources of information as much as newspapers. Internet-based theater critics should appreciate that they are perceived as being as reputable as newspaper-based critics.

Research on theater advertising is extremely limited (especially outside of Broadway), as are studies on the influence of theater critics. The study adds to this meager body of research and provides needed practical guidance to theater marketers.

Word of mouth (WOM) plays an important role for the decision process of customers. This is especially interesting for service-dominant organizations like theaters where quality is more difficult to evaluate. In times of social media, third party recommendations can be given much more quickly, effectively and in greater detail. However, up to now not much has been researched on electronic word of mouth (eWOM) in a performing arts marketing context. The purpose of this paper is to provide some first exploratory insights into this research area.

To do so, a literature review is conducted to clarify the concept of eWOM and the relevance of recommendations in the performing arts. Then, parts of the results of an online survey on Facebook with 16 German theaters and their fans will be presented. Finally, the implications of the study results for theater marketing are considered and ideas for future research are discussed.

The study results confirm that recommendations have a high relevance for theatergoers and are very relevant in a social media context. They also show that the trustworthiness of eWOM on social media depends on the familiarity between the message sender and receiver. However, the results are limited with regard to the research design. Therefore, this paper concludes with ideas for further research.

All in all, though the study’s focus is narrow, this paper fills a research gap in the performing arts. In doing so, the understanding of the phenomenon and its importance for arts marketing will be enhanced.

The purpose of this paper is to analyse the emergent role of market in cultural enterprises.

The authors consider market as network and identify the role of the interaction process with a special focus on theatre organizations.

The interactions are examined on the basis of relationship models, distinguishing for each of them the progressive changes in their structural components (actors, activities and resources) and the outcomes (economic, artistic, social) produced.

The value of the study is to identify market representation by theatre organizations and to analyse their interactions with the market as a cumulative and continuous process.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the characteristics and usefulness of opinion leaders and market mavens in relation to theatre guides as a way for theatres to develop new audiences.

Surveys and a small number of in‐depth interviews are conducted within a sample of 1,200 theatre patrons. A univariate analysis of variance analysis determines degrees of correspondence between levels of opinion leadership or mavenism and reported influential behaviour.

Opinion leaders are much more useful in the process of audience development than mavens given their propensity to engage in positive reinforcement behaviours particularly in their roles as theatre guides.

While the level of mavenism is related to provision of general market information, it is not related to diffusion of performance‐specific information. Also, the portrayal of opinion leaders as living in a “closed world” unlikely to be an effective cultural influence on non‐attendees, is not supported. A further limitation is that it could not gauge the effectiveness of the self‐reported influential behaviour of non‐attendees. Further research should measure the effectiveness of opinion leaders based on how many of the non‐attendees they influenced came to the theatre.

Theatres should identify opinion leaders and encourage their natural “guide” behaviour with targeted incentives and information as a method of building new audiences and developing new relationships.

This paper will help theatres to use their resources more effectively to increase audience attendance. Further, the identification and establishment of theatre guides based on the characteristics of opinion leaders is within the capability of all arts organizations.

Proposes that successful implementation of a relationship marketing program requires a complement of strategies that satisfies and motivates customers through different phases of relationship development. To accomplish this, firms simultaneously implement transactional marketing strategies and relational marketing strategies. Offers a case study of a non‐profit professional theater to demonstrate how a firm can implement multiple marketing strategies to achieve different relational objectives, and extends these findings to offer recommendations and managerial implications.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the implications of a greater marketing orientation among arts organisations and its impact on funding through sponsorship.

Utilising a qualitative methodology, the study employs case studies for the purpose of formulating tentative and emergent knowledge.

The case study observations reveal the adoption of a marketing orientation across the sample and most significantly for the purposes of securing and consolidating sponsorship relationships. But contrary to popular academic theory this is managed without significant threat to artistic integrity or adaptation of theatrical productions.

Data were derived from a purposive but limited sample. The advantages of a qualitative method in producing rich data is well established, however a longitudinal study would facilitate the understanding of the temporal shifts in arts sponsorships and counter the limits of the cross‐sectional nature of the study.

The study reveals a managerial capacity for arts organisations to attract sponsorship through customer orientation without the need to compromise its artistic and social goals.

A central concern to the increasing significance of business and private funding for the survival of arts organisations is the impact this has on the producers ability to remain faithful to the artistic integrity of their productions. This longstanding academic debate now has predominance in arts marketing management and the issues addressed in this paper serve to address this shift in emphasis.

A theater/drama perspective is used to gain insights into the participatory nature of service creation and to assess the relative importance of service elements across service scenarios.

Drama production principles are applied to situations where customers co‐create the service offering. Using a theater arts model, elements in service settings can be delineated into director, lead actor, set designer, scriptwriter, supporting cast member, and/or traditional audience roles. To understand the relative importance of the service provider, the customer, and other service encounter elements, three variations of a service setting (educational services) in which the consumer's participatory role moves from passive to proactive are compared.

As the service context became more participatory‐based, service provider roles significantly decreased in importance rankings while customer roles significantly increased, supporting the paper's hypotheses. The ranking of other service setting elements followed a similar pattern with greater importance being placed on elements as they became more central to the participatory experience.

The model is tested in only one service setting and the procedure for assigning theater roles to a service setting needs further refinement.

By merging theories from theater and services literature, a means of assessing the relative importance of service components across service scenarios is illustrated. Principles in theater arts provide the tactical detail needed to fit service creation elements into analogous roles in a drama setting. The model provides insights on the importance of service creation elements when transitioning from a spectator‐based to a participatory‐based service environment.