Example: the use of standardized CAP surveys to understand the music markets

Understanding the changing Hungarian concert audience

Measuring the concert audience with the same survey methodology, same questionnaire design, same sampling allows the analysis of changes in 11 years and allow for comparisons accross Europe.

Simplified Hungarian concert demography

The Hungarian concert audience had been shrinking with little variation over the last 11 years. In Hungary, mainly the initial visits declined. The decline has several factors, but the most important one is the dramatic decline in the young population. The changing demography is only a part of the explanation. In the same time, cinamas, with a similar demographic profile, have significantly increased their audience in Hungary.

Understanding the demography of audiences

The linear simplification of the relationship between age and visiting frequency or visiting probability is typical for almost all European countries. We can desribe the size of the audience with two parameters:

• How many times does an average 20-year old visit concerts?
• How quick is the decline over age?

In the diadict example, a Nordic country has high intial visiting frequency and the decline is almost non-exisiting over age, like in Scandinavia or the Netherlands. With 10 million inhabitants this results in 20 million tickets sold.

The Southern country in the example has similar initial visiting frequency, not unlike Croatia, but the decline is quick with age. This results in 10 million tickets for 10 million adults.

The Western country has a somewhat lower initial visiting frequency and no decline, resulting in 15 million tickets sold. The Eastern country, similar to Hungary, has a low initial visit rate and relatively quick decline, resulting in 5 million tickets sold for 10 million inhabitants.

European lessons

The standardized CAP surveys allow cross-country comparisons, and allow modelling. What would happen, if music education would be at the level Denmark or Austria? How would that change the concert audience of Hungary? What would happen if Hungarians had a similar middle-aged profile like Danes or the Dutch?

For understanding the change in market forces, the ICET framework and the standardized CAP surveys (with the supplementary music professional surveys) are essential tools. It is extremely important to follow the same methodology, survey methods, sampling, etc. to allow comparison for historical data (starting from 2007) and international data.

• The CAP surveys ask demand (audience-driven) transactions consistently all over Europe with standardized question translations.
• The music professional surveys include the same supply (musician-driven) data in the region
• CEEMID integrates CMO data, demand and supply data and about 1000 relevant statistical indicators to understand the differences in spending, market size, etc.
• The CEEMID databases is currently the second largest supply database in the world and the largest demand database in the world.
• Careful standardization and data integration allows to find meaningful comparators, model scenarios, set targets and evaluate revenue potentials.

Further analysis with CAP

Of course, the true relationship is not linear, although the most important factors are indeed the age and the initial visiting probability. CEEMID uses a wide range of statistical and machine learning models to find relevant forecasting tools and explanations to changes.

Hungarian relationship with loess smoothing