Survey of Washington, D.C. Theatregoers Reveals Most Are Unwilling to Return to Theatres Until December

To assist Washington, DC area theaters in planning for their re-openings, Limelight Insights by Shugoll conducted a survey of theatergoers on when they would likely consider attending theater again given their current assessment of the pandemic.

This is the third wave of a study initially conducted in early April 2020. The second wave was completed in early July 2020.

Limelight Insights by Shugoll developed a 10-minute online survey that was sent to its proprietary database. All who took the survey were over 21 years old, attend at least two professional theater productions in a typical year, and attend at least 1 professional theater production at local nonprofit theaters.

The majority of theatregoers (52%) said that they would not be willing to return to a theatre until December 2021. The percentage very likely to attend in September is 38%, 43% in October and 48% in November.

Only 18% are willing to attend the theater before a COVID-19 vaccine is widely available to the public and just 19% would attend before personally receiving the vaccine.

Additionally, fewer theatergoers this fall (29%) would be comfortable returning to the smallest theaters (under 125 seats) versus larger theaters (34%-38%).

Read the full report here.