Who answered
Whose opinions are these, and who is missing from them?
Forms returned
412 of 3,860
11% — normal for a paper form at the door, and low enough that no count on the comments screen is a measurement
Most over-represented
Booked directly members
58% of the answers from 31% of the audience — everything on the other screen leans this way
Most under-represented
Group and school bookings
4% of the answers from 22% of the audience — a gap of 18 points
Which is also the group this theatre most wants to hear from.
What this screen is for
- 1Every count on the comments screen is a count of who answered, and this is who answered.
- 2Nothing is reweighted. A weighted count would look like a measurement, and four school forms cannot be scaled up into the view of eight hundred and fifty children.
- 3A theme raised mostly by members is marked as such on the comments screen, in words, rather than corrected in arithmetic.
- 4The gap is the point. The paper form at the door is good at hearing from people who come four times a year, and that is a property of the instrument rather than of the audience.
Two things have been tried to close the school gap: a form handed out on the coach, and a QR code on the ticket. Both returned fewer answers than the paper one. It is on the list and it is not solved.
Why nothing here is reweighted
The arithmetic is easy and the result is a lie with a decimal point on it. Scaling four school forms up to twenty-two percent of the audience would produce a confident statement about eight hundred and fifty children based on four sentences, and it would then be quoted in a funding application.
Printing the gap and leaving the counts raw is less satisfying and is the only honest option available.
What the gap changed
The ten-minute hold for latecomers. Twenty-nine people asked for it to go, all of them people who arrived on time and filled in a form. The forty-odd a night it would cost their seats are on one bus route and one car park, and almost none of them are members.
Read on the comments screen alone, that is a clear twenty-nine to nothing. Read next to this screen it is a proposal by the people least affected by it, and it is on the not-changing list.
How they booked · answered against came
Booked directly, member
58% answered · 31% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
+27 points · over-represented
Members are a third of the audience and nearly two thirds of the answers. Everything on the comments screen is weighted towards people who come four times a year.
Booked directly, not a member
29% answered · 34% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
-5 points · under-represented
Group and school bookings
4% answered · 22% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
-18 points · under-represented
A fifth of the audience and one form in twenty-five. We have almost no idea what a school group thinks of this building.
Comped and industry
6% answered · 5% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
+1 points · over-represented
Walk-up on the night
3% answered · 8% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
-5 points · under-represented
Age · answered against came
Under 30
7% answered · 19% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
-12 points · under-represented
The gap this theatre would most like to close, and the one the form is worst at hearing.
30 to 49
22% answered · 27% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
-5 points · under-represented
50 to 64
34% answered · 29% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
+5 points · over-represented
65 and over
37% answered · 25% came
Answered
tick is their share of the audience
Gap
+12 points · over-represented
Audience figures are box-office data and are counted the same way every run. The answered figures are the 412 returned forms and nothing else — there is no online survey, no email follow-up, and no panel, which keeps the instrument simple and keeps its bias one thing rather than three.