We recognise the need of touring organisations to collect and analyse survey data from their audiences – both for funder reporting but also audience development and planning. To that end we have devised some guidance below which outlines the most effective ways to carry out collection when touring.
We encourage all organisations who wish to access survey response data from their audiences across different venues to initially request setup of an e-survey using the request form here with any premium questions they’re keen to include. Once this setup has been completed, a link to the blank survey questionnaire is provided which may be presented to audiences/visitors.
When planning a tour and in discussions with different venues, it’s then a case of discussing ways that this e-survey link may be presented to potential respondents – ideally as part of a post-show automated email which may be sent out (to which a couple of lines containing the link and explaining the survey may be added) but potentially through a manual dedicated mailout, if email addresses have been captured but no automated messaging is in place. In the event that no email addresses are captured at all, it would just be a question of collecting email addresses at the event, with the goal of emailing them later.
In the event that a touring organisation seeks to send out a survey but comes to a venue which has its own survey, our recommendation would be to carry out an A/B split of the audiences for each instance of the production, sending the touring survey to 50% and the venue survey to the other 50%. This splits the survey respondents fairly for each organisation and ensures that audiences are not sent a survey twice.
We advise splitting in this way as it avoids the discrepancies in responses which might arise from survey A being used exclusively on one night and survey B the next. If the venue carrying out a survey aims to deliver it face-to-face rather than via email, it’s just a question of collecting email addresses on the day from 50% of audiences with a view to contacting them later. This avoids survey fatigue and does not negatively impact the chances of the touring organisation to collect data from visitors who have already responded to an in-person survey.
Across any toured activity, we would always encourage having proactive, open discussions with any partner organisations about insight collection, to ensure effective, collaborative insight collection.