Developing a Theatre Audience Development Strategy for the National Theatre, Lagos

Nigeria's National Theatre faces declining mainstream attendance despite its iconic status, and developing a professional audience development strategy provides a roadmap for rebuilding and diversifying its audience base. This study developed an audience development strategy for the National Theatre, Lagos, South West Nigeria. A professional strategy development methodology was applied, drawing on audience surveys distributed to 400 National Theatre visitors and 300 non-visitor Lagos adults, structured consultations with 15 National Theatre management and programming staff, 10 audience development specialists, and 8 marketing professionals, and benchmarking against audience development strategies of the National Theatre (UK), Théâtre de Liège, and Market Theatre Johannesburg. Surveys revealed that young adults aged 18 to 30 constituted fewer than 20 percent of current National Theatre audiences. Non-visitors cited irrelevant programming (47 percent), distance (38 percent), and social perception of theatre as elitist (43 percent) as barriers. The strategy developed encompasses five priority actions: programming diversification incorporating popular culture genres, digital audience engagement through social media and streaming, community partnership outreach, school engagement programmes, and price restructuring with accessible ticket tiers. Each action includes targets, timelines, and evaluation metrics. Expert review by twelve audience development and arts marketing specialists confirmed the strategy's practical viability. Recommendations include establishing a dedicated audience development unit at the National Theatre and allocating a minimum 15 percent of annual budget to audience development activities.

Keywords: audience development, National Theatre Lagos, theatre marketing, arts accessibility, programme strategy