Guests who attend immersive experiences are more diverse than those who visit traditional arts and culture attractions, a new report has found.
According to the Immersive Audience Report 2024, published on 25 June, audiences of immersive experiences are more representative of the UK population.
The report is the first comprehensive mapping of guests of live, location-based immersive experiences in the UK, the University of Birmingham said in a press release.
The research was led by Dr Joanna Bucknall, lecturer in modern and contemporary drama and theatre at the University of Birmingham and co-founder of the Immersive Experience Network.
The team surveyed 2,000 UK adults who have visited an immersive experience in the last year “to find out who is going to these experiences, what they enjoy and how they find out about new performances”, Bucknall said.
The report found that a typical visitor to an immersive attraction is educated, aged between 25 and 44 with no children, and based in London, the Southeast, Northwest or West Midlands.
However, it also found that immersive experiences were visited by a more ethnically diverse audience than traditional cultural spaces.
“Our research has found that the audience for immersive performances is ethnically reflective of the UK population as a whole and attracts more diverse audience members compared to the traditional arts sector, and the audience is more spread out across the country,” Bucknall said.
“Support from funding bodies and government is essential if the immersive experience sector is to make the most of this potential.”
Accessing funding in the immersive sector
Accessing funding is a challenge for professionals in the immersive business, the report says. This is because immersive experiences are sometimes not considered to be cultural by arts funding bodies.
Bucknall said the UK’s immersive sector needs to be “recognised as a credible and valuable part of the wider creative and cultural industries ecosystem”.
She added, “The immersive experience sector is in the enviable position of attracting younger and more diverse audiences, something that traditional arts and culture struggles to do.
“It would be a real missed opportunity not to invest in these audiences for the benefit of the entire UK arts and culture sector and beyond.”
Lead image credit: Dominic Martin
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