Data Collection

During the five-day period from 18 to 21 April, 2024, 52 participants gave us feedback, and 50 of whom were valid samples of people living in the UK. The vast majority of participants were between the ages of 18 and 24, 66% were women and 92% monthly disposable income less than 3,000 pounds.

Combined with the next set of questions, 7 out of 15 participants who were interested in theater but had no prior experience of it thought that high ticket prices were one of the reasons they were discouraged from entering the theater.

According to The Stage (2023), the average ticket price for The West End of London is 141.37 pounds, while the average ticket price for a top theatre outside London is 49.19 pounds. This is obviously much higher than the film and other entertainment ticket prices. This reflects the economic problems as the biggest reason for the popularity of the British theatre industry, but also its biggest obstacles in the process.

The phenomenon of price screening and consolidation of which class that can consume traditional drama has be changed during the process of popularization, while the high cost of theatre production makes it difficult to reduce ticket prices substantially, which in turn leads to the result of higher play ticket prices making it can be easily replaced in the consumer's entertainment choices.

In previous studies, we have looked at the impact of new media and new forms of publicity on the British theatre industry. To further confirm and understand, we also designed a set of questions in this questionnaire to track the effect of theater publicity. Among all participants, 84 % responded that they had paid attention to promotional materials for the theater industry, and 85.71% of them had seen them online. But that does not mean that the campaign in paper forms has completely disappeared from the public eye: 71.43% participants have paid attention to the print materials, such as posters; and 73.81% participants have drawn attention by the offline ads, like the LED posters in the subway station.

The combination of various forms of publicity medias to make the audience pay more attention to the theatre industry, which achieved the goal of popularization to some extent. Moreover, the use of new media does not eliminate the existence of paper-based promotional materials, which also retain the characteristics of the theatre industry. In keeping with the changing times, theatrical performances trapped in theaters are seen on a wider platform. While we can not say for sure that the increased attention has translated into economic benefits already, there is no denying that the essence of its impact is to subtly sow a seed of interest in the audiences' heart.

Considering the evolution of theater functions, we set up some questions asking participants whether they had ever watched a show more than theatre in the theatre. 70 percent participants said “yes”, and more than half had seen movies, concerts, and talk shows in theaters. This suggests that the theatre, as a functional social place, is no longer confined to the pure drama itself, but is increasingly expanding as a place for diverse offline performance.

This undoubtedly represents a new possibility based on the convergence of the new theatre industry: its acceptance of the popular arts has provided new vitality for the development of the theatre economy and has attracted more audiences to enter. But from another point of view, there is also a negative impact: the survival space for traditional theatre is compressed, considering the public is widely accepted a kind of “new arts” that is wrapped up in the exterior instead of the pure theatre industry.