During a busy year as a theatremaker, it’s always a smart idea to take an intermission, assess how your season is going, adjust accordingly, and prepare for the back half of the year. A mid-year check-in can help your theater in its success in a variety of ways, including:
Checking in halfway through the year gives your creative team, front-of-house staff, tech crew, and volunteers a chance to reflect on what’s working, voice concerns, and offer up new ideas. It also shows that you, as the leader of your theatre, value their input, which helps boost morale, encourages collaboration, and helps keep everyone’s eyes laser-focused on the overall mission.
And that’s what we all strive for, right? By reviewing audience feedback via surveys or social media polls, as well as discussing front-of-house operations, communication strategies, and audience engagement, your team can identify ways to improve the experience. Happier patrons are, of course, more likely to return, boosting your sales and increasing the likelihood of referrals.
A mid-year check-in is a chance to assess how efficiently your theatre is working, from technical logistics to volunteer organization and everything in between. Through the check-in, you’ll be able to find and assess pain points, streamline your process, and find an avenue to create a smoother production system moving forward.
Perhaps the most important aspect of a mid-year check-in is finding ways to, well, make more money than you did in the first six months. By reflecting on what marketing strategies and productions have performed well, and not so well, in the first half of the year, your team can recalibrate for the back half. This adjustment could look like a lot of things, from reworking programming options to launching new marketing campaigns or improving your outreach. Either way, the end goal remains the same: increase ticket sales and donations.
If you find yourself at an impasse and aren’t sure how to run a mid-season check-in or what areas to focus on, On The Stage offers up several ways to boost engagement this fall.
Reassessing your ticket sales goals mid-year is a smart, strategic move for any theatre, regardless of size or scale. If you’re looking for ways to fine-tune your ticketing strategies, look at the following facets:
The first thing you need to do is compare the actual sales in your first two quarters with the projected sales. Which shows exceeded sales projections, which hit projections on the head, and which underperformed? Additionally, what sorts of sales trends are you noticing? Are sales dipping, or gaining momentum as the year progresses? Are there any noticeable patterns in sales performance, whether that’s spikes on certain days of the week, weeks of the year, or after additional programming?
In short, you need to figure out who’s buying tickets to your shows and who isn’t. You can analyze patron data for everything from the most common zip codes to gender, age groups, group sales, etc. From that research, determine which target audiences you’re missing. Are there any groups you hoped to reach but just can’t seem to engage?
Next, decide if your tickets are still priced appropriately for your market, and if the current price of a ticket is enough to support your theatre in this fluctuating economy. If you have tiered ticketing, review whether or not premium and discount tiers are working as intended. If your pricing strategies aren’t working out as well as you’d hoped, now is the time to discuss the potential for flexible pricing structures, group rates, or even pay-what-you-can ticketing to boost accessibility, engagement, and individual sales.
Take a look at what percentage of your audience members are first-timers or returning customers. If you’re having to market your offerings to new folks every single show, it may be time to focus a little harder on patron retention strategies. Additionally, study the effectiveness of your upselling techniques. Are you encouraging the purchase of bundles, multi-show packages, season subscriptions, and the like?
A broad area of assessment, your marketing strategies are a powerful focus area that can best be analyzed and improved upon by breaking them down into specific and actionable subcategories, including:
Firstly, you need to determine if you’re meeting your marketing goals. Revisit the objectives set earlier in the year, whether those were linked to increasing awareness of your theatre, boosting sales, or building your email list, and determine whether or not you’re on track. Additionally, you need to review your key metrics, like open rates, click-through rates, and ad engagement, to see whether or not goals were met.
Learn more about your patron base and who is most likely to interact with your marketing efforts. Look over your social media platforms and their follower growth, your general social media demographics, and the levels of engagement over different platforms. Which platforms are excelling, and which need more love? Additionally, find out what strategies are resonating and with whom. What type of content is getting the most traction?
Marketing strategies shouldn’t all be digital. Consider your community reputation and visibility. Are you making your theatre known at community events, markets, or schools? You can also consider whether or not more community or business partnerships will aid in your marketing efforts and general visibility.
At the core of your theatre is a consistent voice and mission. Take stock of your marketing efforts in the last six months. Is the messaging consistent, on-brand, and compelling? Is your tone stale? Additionally, how often are you posting? Ensure you have a steady rhythm and are posting at the best times of day and days of the week.
Checking in mid-year about your programming can help lead to more strategic, audience-aligned offerings that help end the year on a good (and lucrative) note. A few sub-categories to discuss include:
Take a look at the shows from the first half of your season. Have certain genres or show types sold better than others? Additionally, study the back half of your season. Did you have that exact genre there? As well, is there a smart mixture of crowd-pleasers and experimental/riskier programming to keep things interesting and fresh?
Now is the time to be brutally honest: Are you choosing shows that align with the level of talent at your theatre? Perhaps you’re being too ambitious, or too safe. Are you playing to your teams’ strengths? If not, it may be time to refocus programming choices that best showcase your actors and tech crew. Additionally, look at your programming options and consider if you’re creating space for new talent and voices to shine, and not just the same cast members in every show.
Consider whether or not you have the budget, equipment, and crew to pull off the rest of your planned shows. If the answer is no, you’ll need to implement new fundraising programming into the schedule ASAP to help you through the second half of the year.
If you feel your theatre has been running a little clunkily in the first half of the year, use your check-in to explore ways to run things more smoothly, reduce stress on your staff, and improve the overall experience for patrons. A few tidbits to dissect include:
Is your ticketing platform intuitive, not just for your patrons, but for your staffers? Review any recurring complaints about your platform and see how you can troubleshoot the issue. As well, review all the features your ticketing platform offers you. Are you utilizing those features to the best of your ability, whether that’s mobile ticketing, seating charts or show program generators.
Your show site is one of the best pieces of tech you have in your arsenal. So, is it easy to navigate? Is it mobile-friendly? Is it consistently updated with new information, photos, and videos? Additionally, analyze your SEO performance. Are you showing up on internet searches for local theatre and events? If not, consider what keywords need to be utilized on your show site to get you better placement.
Money makes the world go ‘round, after all. Review your budget tracking options and ensure you have clear, updated financial reports to guide you in future decision-making. Additionally, are your box office, fundraising, and accounting systems integrated or manually managed? If it’s the second option, it’s time for an upgrade!
Without a doubt, a mid-year check-in with your team is crucial in improving your theatre’s overall performance for 2025. But with so many things to review and so little time, you may be looking for some help. That’s where On The Stage comes in. OTS offers an all-in-one platform that streamlines ticketing, marketing, fundraising, and so much more, making us the perfect partner for theatre looking to calibrate and strengthen their season mid-year. If you’re ready to level up your theatre and its offerings for the fall, book a personalized demo today.