There is a long-term trend in the U.S. that started many years before the Great Recession of an increasing share of out-of-home entertainment venue spending shifting to higher socioeconomic households. Between 2000 and 2010, the top 20% of households by income ($92,000+) grew from 42% to 49% of all community-based inflation-adjusted entertainment spending and from 44% to 52% of all entertainment spending on trips.
The bottom line is that to succeed in the U.S. venue-based entertainment industry, you have to target and attract the upper socioeconomic households since the out-of-home entertainment spending pie is now smaller and that group owns the largest piece. These are consumers with lots of out-of-home entertainment and leisure choices and with discriminating tastes and expectations. They have high expectations for customer service, food, cleanliness, just about everything. The bar is higher than it has ever been and will likely continue to go up.
Also check out our 2010 in-depth article on The increasing social stratification of out-of-home entertainment and leisure.
About Randy White
Randy White is CEO and co-founder of the White Hutchinson Leisure & Learning Group. The 31-year-old company, with offices in Kansas City, Missouri, has worked for over 600 clients in 37 countries throughout the world. Projects the company has designed and produced have won seventeen 1st place awards. Randy is considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on feasibility, brand development, design and production of leisure experience destinations including entertainment, eatertainment, edutainment, agritainment/agritourism, play and leisure facilities.
Randy was featured on the Food Network's Unwrapped television show as an eatertainment expert, quoted as an entertainment/edutainment center expert in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, New York Times and Time magazine and received recognition for family-friendly designs by Pizza Today magazine. One of the company's projects was featured as an example of an edutainment project in the book The Experience Economy. Numerous national newspapers have interviewed him as an expert on shopping center and mall entertainment and retail-tainment.
Randy is a graduate of New York University. Prior to repositioning the company in 1989 to work exclusively in the leisure and learning industry, White Hutchinson was active in the retail/commercial real estate industry as a real estate consultancy specializing in workouts/turnarounds of commercial projects. In the late 1960s to early 1980s, Randy managed a diversified real estate development company that developed, owned and managed over 2.0 million square feet of shopping centers and mixed-use projects and 2,000 acres of residential subdivisions. Randy has held the designations of CSM (Certified Shopping Center Manager) and Certified Retail Property Executive (CRX) from the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC).
He has authored over 150 articles that have been published in over 40 leading entertainment/leisure and early childhood education industry magazines and journals and has been a featured speaker and keynoter at over 40 different conventions and trade groups.
Randy is the editor of his company's Leisure eNewsletter, has a blog and posts on Twitter and Linkedin.
