Theatregoers likely to prioritise interior maintenance

Users and non-users of theatres are likely to express different preferences for maintenance works at theatres, according to the findings of a new report.

The Cultural and Heritage Capital: Value of Maintaining Theatre Buildings – Discrete Choice report, conducted by researchers from IPSOS UK and the University of Glasgow, set out to determine if it is possible to estimate the heritage value of maintaining historic theatre buildings over and above the value of maintaining non-heritage theatre buildings.

The research used two case sites, the Old Vic Theatre, a historic theatre building and Young Vic Theatre, a modern theatre building, located on neighbouring streets in Southwark, South London, which were chosen due to their proximity and diversity of infrastructure.

A total of 1,110 adults, consisting of both theatre users and non-users, were asked a series of questions on the maintenance of each building.

Differing preferences

A question regarding what extent respondents value the maintenance of individual aspects of each theatre’s interior and exterior found theatre users had greater preferences towards the condition of the interior of the theatre. The opposite was true of the non-users, who exhibited greater preferences towards exterior parts of the theatre.

According to the report, the result suggests theatre users would experience the greatest welfare loss if the interior auditorium – such as seats, carpets and flooring – were to fall in a severe state of disrepair.

“This perhaps reflects the fact that these are the areas of the theatre where people spend the most time and impacts the comfort of their experience,” the report suggests.

In comparison, the roof was the attribute non-users would experience the greatest welfare loss if it fell into a state of disrepair. This was followed by the theatre exterior, which the report says shows “non-users are more motivated by maintaining the public facing aspects of the theatre which provide ‘spillover’ benefits into the public realm”. 

Other valuation questions

The research also evaluated to what extent theatre users and non-users value the maintenance of historical theatres over modern theatres.

It found no consistent differences for maintenance of the historic theatre and non-historic theatre across the research groups. 

However, the research paper says this should not be taken to mean that historic theatres are no more valuable than non-historic theatres across the country and may be a result of lower sample size or due to the specific character of the two theatres selected in the study.

A third valuation question explored the relationship between preference for theatre maintenance and respondent characteristics including gender, income, age, ethnicity and whether they walk past the theatre regularly. The researchers found no clear evidence to suggest differential impacts by sociodemographic characteristics exist in terms of maintenance of different theatre attributes.

In the report’s executive summary, the authors stress the research was experimental in nature and recommend the findings are not used within business cases.

Evidence base

The research paper forms part of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s Culture and Heritage Capital (CHC) programme, which aims to create an evidence base for decision making on the value of culture and heritage assets to society.

A CHC framework, which set out the need for a change to assessing value for money, incorporating economic, social and cultural value into appraisals and evaluation, launched in 2021.

Last July, a report from the Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre found two-fifths of the UK’s theatres are in danger of becoming too unsafe to use within the next five years without sustainable and systemic investment.