Performing Arts Attendance: What Leads Audiences to Travel Further?

A small but intriguing literature explores the significance of geographical distance for attendance at arts and cultural institutions. This research turns attention from a longstanding emphasis on the impact of individuals’ attributes, to also address issues of accessibility. This article furthers the research in two major ways: First, prior literature mostly focuses on European arts organizations, and here we examine the American context. Second, we examine variations in audiences’ willingness to travel. Employing mixed models, we analyze data on 15 performing arts organizations (with over 250,000 attendees) from around the United States at two points in time. We find that distance is associated with venue attendance, that this holds for multiple arts disciplines, and in areas with varied socioeconomic characteristics. We further find that organizational size and artistic programming are associated with variations in audiences’ geographical distance, with larger organizations and more popular productions attracting people from further away. Distance’s impact has ramifications for strategies to expand audiences, and for organizational engagement with local communities.