Research for entertainment, culture, and sports is a main area of focus for us and one we even pursue through volunteerism in our spare time. In fact, Mark Shugoll, senior consultant at Limelight Insights, is one of the most well-recognized and awarded names within the national cultural arts, entertainment, and sports research space. You won’t find a more experienced or credentialed market researcher to help you set your ticket prices, understand your attendees, increase subscription/season ticket renewals, develop effective advertising, and increase customer satisfaction.
Entertainment, Culture & Sports
Limelight Insights by Shugoll has extensive experience conducting market research for virtually every sector in the sports and entertainment industries including:
- Professional Sports Associations and Teams
- Collegiate & Minor League Sports Associations and Teams
- Sports Arenas/Venues
- Cultural and Performing Arts Centers/Organizations
- Individual Performing Arts Groups
- Museums/Visual Arts Organizations
- Theatres & Orchestras
- Opera companies, Orchestras, Choral companies, Dance companies
- Arts Service Organizations/Associations
- Cable and Broadcast Television Companies
Limelight Insights offers full service design, analysis and consulting to sports and entertainment industry clients across a multitude of research objectives including:
- Attendance
- Customer Satisfaction
- The Ticket Buying Process
- Website Usability
- Price Sensitivity
- Increasing Donations
- Brand Positioning
- Sponsorship
Limelight Insights Knows
Entertainment & Sports Market Research
With our expert consulting for qualitative and quantitative market research studies and our proven proprietary products, we provide the data, tools, analysis, and strategies to help your arts, culture, or entertainment organization reach its goals.
Case Study: Investigating Football Stadium Expansion Including Adding Premium Seating and Suites
A state’s flagship university in a Power Five conference wanted to assess interest in football stadium expansion including suites and premium seating areas. With athletic director involvement, Limelight Insights conducted online surveys of current season ticket holders and the business community measuring interest in premium seating products.
The study projected demand for premium seating as well as the specific interests for product benefits. It also assessed what current season ticket holders might do who were not interested in premium seating and could be relocated because of the premium seating locations (e.g., renew in a different location, cancel season tickets, etc.).
Results of the study gave direction to the university on the introduction of premium seating. It also suggested various pricing and branding strategies.
A large part of our business is answering critical questions
and providing actionable insights that can inform a business’ or organization’s direction.
Here are some of the questions Limelight Insights has helped entertainment, culture, and sports clients answer:
Given the obstacles facing arts organizations today, including fewer full-season subscribers, individual purchasers buying tickets later, and reductions in corporate, government, and private donations, can we afford to conduct market research?
Most market research projects pay their investment back many times over. In fact, they often have an observable impact on your bottom line. For example, one nonprofit theater used research to develop communication to encourage lower-level donors to donate to their annual campaign. By using research to identify the right solicitation pitch, they generated a half-million dollars more than in the previous year. Another arts organization was looking at ways to increase earned income. With the help of Limelight Insights, they determined ways to adjust their prices to meet consumer expectations. By using research to rescale the house, it generated nearly $1 million dollars of added income. Both studies cost less than $25,000, and each provided a far higher return. Investment in research is one of the best investments an arts organization can make.
How can market research help my organization?
Whether you’re a sports, arts, or cultural organization, Limelight Insights can help you achieve your goals by conducting quality market research.
Examples that are used repeatedly by entertainment institutions include using research to:
- Develop a marketing strategy that reaches the maximum number of ticket buyers with the right message in the right media.
- Convert infrequent attendees / individual purchasers to package plan buyers.
- Increase renewal rates.
- Recapture lapsed subscribers / season ticket holders by understanding why they did not renew and what new products might get them back.
- Establish optimal ticket prices, and position annual and capital campaigns to maximize giving.
- Acquire new audiences.
- Evaluate support for a new building and willingness of your audience to follow you to a new location.
- Since an important segment of customers includes those who purchase premium seating, can research identify how their needs differ from other customers’ needs?
Since many entertainment organizations, in sports, arts, and culture, purchase syndicated research, do they really need to conduct their own research?
Syndicated research is highly valuable, but it should be used alongside custom marketing research. Custom research, unlike most syndicated studies, collects information from your current customers, lapsed customers, and prospects. It also allows you to tailor questions that meet your institution’s specific needs, rather than relying on a generic series of questions. As a result, you make sound decisions that are specific to your own market, not generalized from other markets.
Since there are several industry consulting firms that say they conduct research in this space, why should we choose Limelight Insights?
Limelight Insights is a market research firm with a specialty in entertainment, culture, and sports. We ensure that questionnaires are designed to ask the right questions and solicit objective and unbiased answers, that data collection is managed using the highest quality control standards available in order to maximize data validity, and that conclusions and recommendations are clear and actionable given our industry-specific expertise.