To App or not to App? Is that the right question?

Venues must create a seamless, low-friction experience that audiences actually want to use, and that generates meaningful revenue.

A native app may look like a powerful engagement tool, but if audiences only visit a venue a few times a year, download friction and app fatigue quickly become commercial risks. Our research shows that many apps lose the majority of active users within days of download, as audiences increasingly reserve phone space for the services they use every day.

This is no longer simply about delivering a ticket. Venues must create a seamless, low-friction experience that audiences actually want to use, and that generates meaningful revenue.

Live event and performing arts venues typically face two broad options when choosing audience engagement and customer experience technology:

• Browser-based web experiences (no download required)
• Fully native iOS and Android apps (downloaded via app stores)

The wrong choice can lead to low adoption, high maintenance costs and fragmented customer experiences. The right one can reduce friction, increase engagement and unlock secondary revenue streams that make a material difference to the bottom line.

The goal is rarely ‘to have an app’. It is to improve the audience experience while increasing revenue and operational efficiency.

Start with the challenge, not the technology

Before evaluating any technology, always step back and ask what are we truly trying to achieve? Most audience experience initiatives should be aiming to improve:

• Ticket delivery and frictionless venue access
• Pre-show communication and wayfinding
• Food and beverage pre-ordering
• Table reservations
• Membership engagement and recognition
• Donations, upsells and ancillary revenue
• First-party audience data capture
• Reduced queuing
• Loyalty and repeat attendance
• Post-show engagement and relationship building

Too many technology projects begin with a platform decision and work backwards. However, you should: define the audience outcomes you want to deliver, then ask which technology gets you there most effectively.

The reality of app fatigue: One of the most significant challenges facing native apps today is not technical — it’s behavioural. Audiences are tired of downloading apps. Research consistently shows that users are increasingly selective about what they install and, crucially, what they keep.  Regularly cited analysis of mobile app retention data by growth specialist Andrew Chen, drawing on research from Quettra, which was integrated into SimilarWeb, found that the average mobile app loses 77% of its daily active users within three days of installation, and more than 90% within the first month.

Separate consumer research by Clutch revealed:

• 80%  of users had downloaded an app because they felt compelled to, not because they wanted to
• 72%  felt frustrated or annoyed by the experience
• 54%  deleted the app as soon as they had finished using it

The apps that survive and thrive are the ones audiences use habitually: messaging, maps, banking and social platforms. These are daily-use tools woven into everyday routines.

Performing arts and live entertainment sit at the other end of the spectrum and is fundamentally episodic. This creates a very different dynamic for app retention and a significant set of risks.

Forcing a download at the point of attendance introduces friction at precisely the wrong moment. And friction kills engagement.

Not all audiences are the same

Audience behaviour varies significantly across venue types, and that has implications for technology strategy. A West End theatre in London and a regional producing house serve audiences with very different patterns of attendance, loyalty and digital expectations.

The London West End audience

West End audiences are ore often infrequent, international and show-driven rather than venue-driven. The Society of London Theatre reports that over 17.1 million people attended West End performances in 2024, with nearly one in four being international visitors to London.

For many in this audience, the relationship is primarily with the show, the performer or the broader London experience — not with the venue itself. A visitor who has travelled from abroad to see a production may have little motivation to download and retain a dedicated venue app they may never open again.

The friction involved in finding, downloading, registering and learning a new app can easily outweigh any short-term benefit it delivers. What this audience typically wants is straightforward:

• Quick, reliable ticket access
• Smooth and stress-free venue entry
• Simple interval ordering
• Clear information about the venue and the night

The Regional and producing theatre audience

Many regional theatres build deep, long-term relationships with their audiences over years or even decades. These audiences may attend multiple productions annually, hold memberships, subscribe to seasons, donate, participate in education programmes and visit for a wide range of events beyond theatre alone.  The venue becomes part of the audience’s cultural identity. That creates much stronger conditions for ongoing digital engagement — but even here, usage frequency is relevant.

Research from Indigo’s Understanding Drama Attendance study found that even engaged theatre audiences typically attend in relatively low frequencies:

• 2–3 visits per year  for the majority of regular attenders
• 4–5 visits per year  for more frequent visitors
• 6+ visits per year  for only the most committed audiences

Audience retention data from Spektrix showed that only around one-third of arts audiences return to the same organisation year-on-year, with first-time visitor reattendance sitting below 20% across many organisations. Even among loyal regional audiences, this creates a very different behavioural pattern from the apps people use weekly or daily. The risk remains that a native app becomes an afterthought: rarely opened, quietly forgotten and ultimately deleted.

The case for browser-based experiences

Modern browser-based mobile experiences are now highly capable. They can deliver rich, fast, responsive interactions without requiring any download — and they offer significant practical advantages over native apps. Audiences tap a link and they are in. No app store. No download. No registration hurdle. No storage concerns. The barrier to entry is as low as it can be, which dramatically increases the likelihood of engagement at the moment it matters most.

A well-built browser-based experience works across iPhone, Android, tablets and desktop browsers alike. A single platform can serve effectively every user, with no fragmentation across operating systems or device generations.

Lower operational overhead

Native apps require continuous maintenance: app store submissions, OS compatibility updates, separate iOS and Android development, review cycles and extensive device testing. Browser-based systems avoid much of this complexity, which for organisations with constrained technical budgets can be genuinely transformational. Native apps continue to have genuine advantages in specific contexts. If an experience depends heavily on real-time graphics, augmented reality, complex animations, advanced hardware integration or intensive background processing, native apps remain technically superior. For a small subset of venues — those delivering highly immersive or technology-led experiences — this will be a relevant.

For the majority of performing arts and live entertainment venues, however, these capabilities are not the primary need. The core requirements — ticket delivery, ordering, information, communication — are all well within the reach of modern browser-based technology.

The adoption challenge

Most venue apps encounter one or more of the following problems:

• Low download rates at launch
• Rapid drop-off in active users
• Poor review scores that deter new downloads
• Outdated content between production cycles
• Duplicate functionality with the main website
• Limited ongoing value between visits

This creates a damaging cycle: low engagement leads to reduced investment, which leads to a deteriorating experience, which leads to further disengagement. A poor app experience is often worse than no app at all — it signals to audiences that digital engagement is not a priority.

Audiences do not care whether your platform is native, browser-based, hybrid or cloud-hosted. They care whether it works.

Audiences are unforgiving about:

• Can I find my ticket quickly?
• Can I get into the venue without hassle?
• Can I pre-order drinks without joining a queue?
• Can I access information the moment I need it?
• Does this feel effortless, or does it feel like work?

The VisitOne perspective

Perhaps the most compelling evidence for browser-based technology in a ticketing context comes from BookMyShow, India’s largest ticketing platform, with over 50 million monthly visitors. Faced with the challenge of improving mobile conversion, the company moved to a progressive web app — a browser-based experience — rather than doubling down on its native apps.

The results were significant: an 80%+ increase in conversion rates, a load time of under three seconds, and a checkout flow completable within 30 seconds. The web app is 54 times smaller than their Android app and 180 times smaller than their iOS app — a meaningful advantage when asking audiences to engage quickly on a mobile device.

The story is not unique to ticketing. Starbucks’ progressive web app — which allows customers to browse menus, customise orders and check out, even offline — is 99.84% smaller than the native iOS app (233KB compared with 148MB). After launch, daily active users nearly doubled.At VisitOne, we believe audience technology should reduce friction and generate revenue. The best audience experiences are the ones that feel almost invisible — everything is simply there when it is needed, without effort.

A guest taps a link. Their tickets appear instantly. Interval drinks are already ordered. Membership details are recognised. The whole night feels connected and considered. No searching through inboxes. No passwords. No app-store detours. No unnecessary steps.

That is the standard we design to and with 91% of venue customers delighted with the VisitOne experience, we believe it works for our venue partners and their audiences. 

Because ultimately, the question is not “Should we build an app?” The real question is: “How do we create the lowest-friction, highest-engagement audience journey possible?”

Sources and further reading

For more detail from our source research:

Society of London Theatre – Data & Research:  solt.co.uk/data-and-research

Andrew Chen – Mobile App Retention Research: andrewchen.com

Clutch – App Fatigue Consumer Research:  clutch.co/press-releases/app-fatigue-survey

Spektrix – First-Time Arts Audience Retention: spektrix.com/en-gb/first-time-arts-audience-data

Indigo / Theatre Nation Partnerships – Drama Audiences Insight Report: Theatre Nation Partnerships Drama Audiences Insight Report

UK Theatre: uktheatre.org

Official London Theatre: officiallondontheatre.com

Microsoft – Modern Web App Guidance: learn.microsoft.com

Google / BookMyShow – PWA Case Study :  developers.google.com/web/showcase/2017/bookmyshow 

Magenest – PWA Statistics & Development Cost Research: magenest.com/en/pwa-statistics 

MobiLoud – Progressive Web App Examples (Starbucks, Flipkart, AliExpress):  mobiloud.com/blog/progressive-web-app-examples