Working alongside Patternmakers and Wolfbrown, the Australia Council has released the 2022 Audience Outlook Monitor, a tracking study that examines audience behaviours and sentiment and their changes to support arts organisations and their future planning. With its inaugural study released in 2020, the release of this study follows their October 2021 #TakeYourSeats campaign, which aimed to encourage Australians to get vaccinations to support the arts upon the reopening of concert venues and cultural centres.

Audience Outlook Monitor 2022 Image. Photo courtesy of Cecilia Martin/Patternmakers.

The 2022 study collects data from over 5,000 past attendees and demonstrates that 71% of patrons are now ready to attend public performances and shows, a 6% increase from August and the highest since the pandemic all-but-demolished Australia’s arts landscape. Though only 2% of audiences won’t currently attend events, numbers are still yet to recover from their pre-pandemic days with 44% of audiences attending events less than they did previously. 

Financial reasons have now overtaken the risk of transmission as the main limiting factor of attendance as 40% of audience members implicate it as a barrier, up...