Patron Participation in Performing Arts Centers: A Study of Digital Fan Engagement in Professional Sports

This paper explores how digital audience engagement strategies employed by sports teams and their venues could be applied in performing arts centers (PACs). Both live arts and sports attendance is down across the United States. To address this issue, arenas and stadiums are embracing technology in groundbreaking ways and using it to their advantage, while PACs (and the arts in general) primarily turn to technology to sell tickets. In venue management, performing arts centers, stadiums, and arenas are lumped together because they are public assembly facilities. All of them are dealing with similar issues, a main one being that technological innovation is enticing patrons to seek entertainment at home instead of at a live event.