In the box or up in the gods? Market segmentation within arts audiences using Geometric Data Analysis.

Arts marketing benefits from fine-grained audience segmentations. In this paper we want to show that Geometric Data Analysis (GDA) is a powerful technique to segment, visualize, and analyze the audiences within arts organizations. GDA has three big advantages: it is data-driven and able to detect ‘hidden’ structures in the data, it provides thick and detailed description of various audience segments, and it is an appropriate way to visualize the heterogeneity and dispersal of the individuals within the segments. Using two very different arts consuming audiences—viz. theater and opera audiences from Flanders (Belgium)—we apply GDA to segment these audiences using aesthetic dispositions and motives for attendance as central variables. The various segments are further characterized by their socio-demographic profile as well as by variables depicting media and music preferences. Some implications for marketing the arts are discussed