SPARSE is an EU project that aims to give people from rural communities access to arts by taking performances by professionals into rural areas to rural audiences in local community venues.

The results of the 1st tour audience survey seem very positive and encouraging. The methodology consisted of paper survey of the audience members. The same questions were asked in each country.

Number of shows: 24
Number of completed surveys collected after 24 shows in Estonia, Lithuania, Italy, Romania: 539

• age: the majority of the audiences are aged between 55-64, the second biggest group is under 16
• gender: 80% of the audiences is female
• percentage of the audiences that had to travel under 5 km to access the shows: more than 50% in Estonia; more than 30% in Italy; more than 70% in Lithuania; more than 80% in Romania
• the audiences found the shows enjoyable, memorable with the value of the money paid. Less than 40% said it was definitely relevant to them and only 40% considered the show definitely long enough
• more than 250 people said the show they watched made them feel impressed and amused. More than 200 said it made them feel inspired and happy. Less than 50 mentioned negative feelings like sad, uncomfortable, intimidated, bored or annoyed
• the majority of the audience would pay a maximum amount of €10 for a theatre show at a given venue
• more than half of the people saw another show in another venue in the last twelve months before watching the given show
• most of the people from the audiences went to the given venue to see another performance/concert but the number of the ones that didn’t watch any is the second highest
• word of mouth and social media had the biggest impact on finding out about the shows

Read the whole document HERE.