Vol. XVIII, No. 6, July 2018
Who's the best target market for community leisure venues?
Out-of-home CLVs (community leisure venues) of all types, including family entertainment centers, are not only competing for consumers' discretionary entertainment dollars, but often even more so for their limited leisure time.
The amount of time that consumers spend at entertainment and arts venues has been on the decline. Digital screen, at-home and mobile options have been taking a slice of consumers' leisure time. Since 2006, the amount of time that consumers spend on at-home and mobile screens for entertainment has increased while the time spent at out-of-home arts and entertainment venues has decreased. It definitely appears that digital screen time is displacing some of the time previously spent at arts and entertainment venues.
Of course, there are also other leisure options that are probably displacing some of the time consumers used to spend at arts and entertainment venues, including such things as the explosion of food, beer, wine, music and other type festivals.
Bachelor's degree and higher educated consumers spend the most time visiting out-of-home entertainment and art venues. They also spend the most money. In fact, they account for 70% of all spending on entertainment at community-based entertainment venues.
We did one more calculation to shed more light on who the best target market might be for CVLs. - when consumers do go out, who spends at the highest rate per hour? Again, bachelor's and higher degree consumers prove to be the best customers. Their hourly entertainment spending rate at arts and entertainment venues is 1.6 times the average rate of spending for all consumers.
What all this means is very simple. Higher educated consumers are the market to target. And the bar to attract them is very high today. It requires a high quality, what we call a High Fidelity experience. And today that not only requires the entertainment, but also top-quality food and beverage options in a great social atmosphere.
