Seventh Audience Survey for the Badisches Staatstheater Karlsruhe

From May to Oktober 2023 the IKMW realised the now seventh audience survey for the Badische Staatstheater Karlsruhe. The study is the latest part in a longitudinal research that is unique in German-speaking countries in its depth and continuity.

For the representative audience survey visitors could either fill in a print questionnaire distributed at the entrance to the theatre or answer the identical online version. In addition three target groups with specific relevance for the sustainable development of future audiences were analysed in depth with nine focus group discussions: „inactive“ visitors, whose last visit was more the one year ago, foreigners and persons with a migrant background as well as teacher from different types of school and representative of child and youth centres.

Results will be published by the Badisches Staatstheater in Spring 2024 and will document, whether the challenges to theatres identified in the recent study of IKMW for the Niedersächsische Staatstheater Hannover – the enduring abstinence of many visitors after the cut caused by the COVID pandemic; the increasingly volatile and multi-optional decision-making about cultural and leisure activities and the communication and decision patterns of generations Y and Z that are more and more confined to the „closed“ worlds of messenger apps  – affected this other large German citiy and state theatre also.

In times of growing audience expectations regarding a welcoming, „feel-good“ atmosphere an additional focus will be on the impact of the construction activities within the large-scale restoration and restoration of the state theatre on visitor’s experience and satisfaction – as well as on measures that can be deduced for the time until the end of constructions in 2034.