The Model of Theater Audience Consumption Experience: An Ethnographical Study

The goal of this research is to provide a model for theater audience consumption experience through a qualitative and practical approach with ethnographic methodology. The target community of this research includes all theater audiences in Tehran and sampling has been done with judgmental and snowball sampling methods. After carefully investigating literature and background of research 20 theater audiences were chosen who go to theater at least 5 times in a year. “The City Theater” and “Iranshahr Theater” complexes were selected as the research field because of their reputation and rich history. Participants watched nine performances during the time of research. Data has been gathered by Ethnographic data gathering methods including Narrative Inquiry, Participatory Observation and Deep Semi-structured Interviews. Consumption experience was analyzed in 3 stages: pre-consumption, core- consumption and post-consumption experiences and the whole experience as a conclusion. The analysis has been done with thematic analysis by NVivo.12 software. In coding phase, first 256 open codes were found. After code refinement 131 codes were left which were converted into three main abstract headings: affections, cognitions and behaviors. At a higher level of abstraction, these codes constituted the behavior of theater consumer regarding motivations for going to theater, factors affecting theater selection and pre, core and post experiences. The results show that “perceiving meaning” is the most influential motivation for going to theater, followed by theater’s closeness to daily life and a sense of belonging to theater audience’s community. The most important factor for selecting a performance is it’s the theater hall followed by friend’s recommendation. The model shows that going to theater is like a ritual which audiences respect in their theater consumotion journey. In each step, pre, core and post consumption experience, audience sees him/herself in a ceremonial event which has its own rules like wearing artistic clothes, selecting friends, going to café, etc. before the theater. At the core consumption stage, the ritual demands that audiances respect the performance by maintaining silence, interacting with other audiences and artists and in post-consumption stage the ritual continues by talking to others, and collecting brochures and photos to remember the event later on. Meantime, motivations and selection factors affect the theater consumption experience entirely. This model provides deep understanding of theater consumer behavior and helps theater organizations and marketing experts in optimizing theater consumption experiences.