Season 77September 2023 - April 2024 |
|
What makes for an Enjoyable Concert
This section of the questionnaire proved to be more problematic for some. A wide variety of interpretations were received so a standard approach was necessary to record the results. We particularly wanted to see which of the 4 items listed that you considered to be the most important factors that make for an enjoyable concert. The factors were to be ranked in priority sequence from 1 to 4 with 1 representing the most important.
Some sections were left blank, others had ticks in some, or all of the boxes - it was decided that a tick represented '1'. Other forms had their own ranking scheme so the boxes might be all the same number, three or two options with the same number or variations thereof. It was with some relief that where numbers were used only the numbers 1 to 4 were utilised.
To record the results all the numbers were entered onto a spreadsheet and simply added together to get a final total for each category. However, this does create an 'upside-down graph' i.e. the most important factor is the shortest bar and least important consideration is the longest bar. Additional text has been added to the chart to emphasise this fact.
The Chart
In terms of what makes for an enjoyable evening of entertainment there is one clear winner - The Programme. Second place, of the Artists Comments, is not even a close second.
Of least importance is the running time. This item was included as we had a few overrun's recently and we wanted to know if this was a concern.
Alternate Approach
To ensure the results shown in the graph were not distorted by some of the more spurious entries described earlier some further analysis of the entries was performed. This involved counting the number of 1's and 4's and showing them as percentages.
This shows that the 4's entered (for lowest importance) were 44% for Running Time and just 8% for the Programme. Whereas the 1's entered show 71% for the Programme and just 9% for Running Time.
Conclusion
I am not sure that the results could be much clearer. For an enjoyable evening the programme is paramount. There had been some thought that the final piece played (which may be an encore) may really set the tone for the evening, but this is clearly not the case with its third place shown here.
This result is extremely clear and, combined with the same result for the Reasons to Attend question, provides confirmation on the main area of focus for future planning. To that end, the committee is already paying particularly close attention to the programmes planned for the next season.
Programme details are always included in the season brochure (sent to members every May/June) where space allows. The website also contains programme information for all upcoming concerts with generally more information than it is possible to include in the season brochure. It is hoped that by providing as much information as we can then you can make an informed decision regarding individual programmes and the entire season of concerts.