Abstract
What are characteristics of visitors and especially non-visitors of arts and culture organisations? This question was the focus of our research project. With the help of a quantitative and qualitative-experimental study, we were able to provide differentiated answers to this query in the last two chapters. The most important results regarding the decision-making behaviour of visitors to arts and culture organisations will now be discussed. The central questions here are: What are the predictors that make visits to arts and culture organisations likely? And how can knowledge of these predictors be used by arts and culture organisations?
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Notes
- 1.
Yocco et al. (2009).
- 2.
Arts Council England (2003).
- 3.
Krohn-Grimberghe (2021).
- 4.
Peterson and Kern (1996).
- 5.
- 6.
See Höge (2016).
- 7.
- 8.
On gender-specific evaluations of arts and culture organisations, see Yocco et al. (2009).
- 9.
- 10.
- 11.
See also Tröndle and Tschacher (2016).
- 12.
The data also indicate that cooperation between arts and culture organisations and educational institutions (kindergartens, schools and universities) and target group–specific programmes for parents accompanying children and young people can have a lasting effect on later visiting behaviour, provided that the visitor experience is positive.
- 13.
The lifestyle-typical milieu in which one moves also shapes the decision for or against visiting arts and culture organisations. This is also consistent with the findings of the research on lifestyle segmentation conducted by Todd and Lawson (2001) in New Zealand, as well as the lifestyle research by Schulze (1997). Arts Council England (2003) also considers the role of ‘peers’—scene-specific opinion leaders—to be central.
- 14.
See also Renz (2016).
- 15.
Recent research on empirical aesthetics in particular also points to one’s individual disposition the resulting musical taste; see Greenberg et al. (2016).
- 16.
- 17.
In the German-speaking countries, ‘culture’ and ‘art’ (Kultur and Kunst) are often used synonymously, although in its ethnological meaning, culture (‘a whole way of life’) is something different than art. In many other languages, the two terms signify two different things. To put it in a nutshell: from a systems theory perspective, ‘culture’ is the communication about values, which are inherent to every society, and ‘art’ is the communication about aesthetic perception.
- 18.
Renz (2016) also emphasises the creation of proximity through mediation (p. 234ff.).
- 19.
Tröndle (2021).
- 20.
Such as the Classic Scouts at the Heidelberger Frühling, but here only young people are approached for specific programs; see ‘Junger Frühling,’ Heidelberger Frühling, accessed 6 June 2018, www.heidelberger-fruehling.de/heidelberger-fruehling/programm/junger-fruehling.
- 21.
A scenographic treatment of the space that creates opportunities for visitors to interact with each other is required for this. The focus is then not so much on the functionality of the public space as on its potentiality for communication. See, for example, the work of scenographers Gitti Scherer (gitti-scherer.de) and Christoph Schäfer (christophschaefer.net).
- 22.
Arts Council England (2003) speaks of “peer pressure, expectations that activities will be dull, observations that arts venues are intimidating and that typical audiences are not like themselves” (p. 70).
- 23.
Almost every arts and culture organisation has one or more cultural mediation formats, which is why we refrain from listing them in detail.
- 24.
See Reuband (2018).
- 25.
Only All Events in City offers the opportunity for more social interaction, but it currently does not offer a high-quality suggestion and filtering system.
- 26.
Walmsley (2016).
- 27.
Walmsley (2016, p. 76).
- 28.
The concept of proximity and distance can also be understood in terms of Barker (1968), Gibson (1977) and Lewin (1936) as positive valence and negative valence. Valence can refer to spatial orders, object properties or location-specific milieus. Positive valence, then, has an attractive effect and creates proximity, whereas negative valence has a more repulsive effect. In strategic marketing management, terms such as ‘customer relationship’ and ‘customer proximity’ are used. However, these approaches are too short-sighted for our understanding. The dispositive of proximity is theoretically and empirically more well-founded and can be used in many ways in the work of arts and culture organisations, as is also shown in Tröndle (2014, 2021).
- 29.
See also Uhde (2021).
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Tröndle, M. (2022). Non-visitors, Approaching Unknown Personas. In: Tröndle, M. (eds) Non-Visitor Research. Edition WÜRTH Chair of Cultural Production. Palgrave Macmillan, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-35181-6_5
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