How connected audience journeys grow additional revenue

Audiences are growing, but rising costs and reduced public support mean attendance alone does not guarantee financial resilience. A connected customer journey can help venues turn demand into additional revenue.

Additional revenue streams are increasingly important

Theatre attendance is increasing. More than 37 million people attended UK theatres in 2025, while the West End welcomed a record 17.64 million theatregoers, but growing audiences have not removed the financial pressure on venues. The Society of London Theatre and UK Theatre report that production budgets have risen as labour, materials, energy and building costs have increased, while venues have largely held ticket prices steady to protect access. In 2026, 36% of theatres forecast an operating deficit, rising to 51% among subsidised organisations. [1]

Public support has also reduced over the longer term. Funding from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport fell by 32% per person in real terms between 2010 and 2025, while local authority support declined by as much as 48%. Separate Campaign for the Arts analysis found that English councils' real-terms spending on culture, heritage and libraries more than halved per person between 2009-10 and 2023-24. [2][3]

This makes those additional revenue streams essential to grow revenue. Food and drink, programmes, hospitality, memberships, donations and other purchases can strengthen the economics of each visit without relying on increasing ticket volume alone. There is clear spending appetite around theatre attendance: for every £1 spent on a ticket, a further £1.40 is spent in surrounding restaurants, pubs and shops, generating an estimated £1.94 billion a year for local businesses. [2]

A venue cannot expect to capture all that local expenditure, nor should every audience interaction become a sales prompt. It can, however, make more of the demand already present by offering useful, well-timed ways to enhance the visit. Additional revenue works best when it follows customer need: a drink ordered without queuing, a dining reservation made before arrival, a membership benefit available in the same wallet as the ticket or a donation request sent after a meaningful performance.

That is where the connected customer journey matters. Rather than treating the ticket confirmation, e-ticket, arrival, interval and post-show communication as separate transactions, a venue can design them as one continuous experience. Each touchpoint can respond to what the customer has booked, what they need next and what the venue can realistically deliver.

The latest VisitOne platform data shows the scale of this opportunity. Between 25 August 2025 and 25 August 2026, client venues sent 2.19 million ticket and visit links. More than 99.7% were delivered and 914,467 were clicked. During the same period, the platform processed 28,225 food and drink orders with an average order value of £14.79.

The journey begins after booking

Everything we have learned points to the same conclusion: revenue is won or lost across a sequence of moments, not at a single point of sale. Most venues pour enormous effort into selling the ticket and then go quiet. The confirmation email lands and nothing really meaningful happens again until the audience walks through the door, by which point the only remaining opportunity to re-engage is a crowded interval bar with a queue that lasts for fifteen to twenty-minutes. This approach has it backwards.

The moment of booking is a moment of high emotional commitment. The hours before the show are a period of genuine anticipation. The minutes after curtain-down are when the audience feels most connected to the organisation. Each of these is a commercial moment and most venues use none of them.

We call this sequence The Connected Audience Journey a framework for thinking about every commercial touchpoint as part of one connected whole, rather than a set of disconnected initiatives owned by different departments.

It has six stages across three phases:

Before attendance

1. Book: the moment of commitment, when the audience is most emotionally invested

2. E-ticket: the highest-engagement message a venue sends with a pre-show message creating a potential commercial peak

Attendance

4. Arrival: where friction is removed and early arrivals are encouraged to settle and spend

5. Interval: the largest in-venue opportunity, won or lost on queue and timing

After attendance

6. Post-show: the peak moment for donations and membership conversion

7. Loyalty: membership, repeat visits and lifetime value, which feed back into the next booking

The power of the framework is in the word connected. Each stage informs the next: what someone buys at booking shapes the pre-show message; how they behave in the venue shapes the post-show ask; their loyalty shapes the next booking. Venues that treat these as one journey consistently outperform those that treat them as separate campaigns.

The customer has committed to the event, but their experience of the venue has only just begun. They will need their tickets to download or share, access guidance, dining options or interval arrangements. A useful message at the right moment can answer those needs while presenting a relevant opportunity to spend.

The e-ticket message is particularly valuable because customers have a practical reason to open it. It shows unusually strong engagement for an owned venue channel: more than two in five delivered links were clicked across a large and varied group of organisations. That attention should be used carefully, with useful information first and commercial options that fit the visit.

Timing should follow the audience and event, rather than a universal rule. Theatre Royal Sydney sends its link around three hours before a performance. Cadogan Hall delivers tickets by SMS six hours before the event, helping customers arrive ready to scan instead of searching old emails at the door. Freeman Arts Pavilion sends tickets two days before some events because performances can be booked many months ahead. The common principle is relevance: contact customers when the information becomes useful and there is still time to act.

Convenience turns intent into spend

Customers do not need more pressure at the busiest point of their visit. They need a simpler route to the things they already value. Pre-ordering can move a purchase away from an interval queue and into a calmer moment. Mobile tickets can reduce delays at entry. Ticket sharing can allow a group to arrive separately. Clear collection information can prevent uncertainty for both customers and staff.

The revenue effect is measurable. Theatre Royal Sydney reported an 8.7% increase in average transaction value compared with fixed points of sale and a 9.4% increase in spend per head across the venue. Direct revenue covered the cost of the system. The venue also found that almost everyone who pre-ordered before the show returned to order again at the interval, showing how one convenient purchase can support another.

At Sheffield Theatres, VisitOne orders have an average transaction value of £13.84 and are approximately £2 higher than purchases made directly at the bar. The venue reported a 16% uplift compared with fixed points of sale, with 10% to 12% of a typical Lyceum audience using the platform for interval drinks. That shifts demand away from a single compressed queue and leaves the physical bars with more capacity for customers who prefer to order in person.

These operational details matter. Capital Theatres caps pre-orders by bar so each collection point remains manageable, a good example of technology supporting an operating model, rather than asking venue teams to absorb unlimited digital demand.

Connected data creates the next opportunity

A connected journey should also improve what the venue knows about the people who attend. The original purchaser is often only one member of a group. When tickets are forwarded securely, companions can receive their own ticket and choose whether to share their details. This creates a better arrival experience and, with the right permissions, a new audience relationship.

Across VisitOne clients, 39,931 shadow bookers were identified in the 12 months to August 2026. Of these, 4,945 later appeared as the booker for another visit at the same organisation, a conversion rate of 12.4%. This does not prove that ticket sharing caused every future booking, but it shows that previously unknown attendees can become identifiable, active customers.

The case studies bring that potential to life. Capital Theatres added more than 5,000 contactable audience members through ticket forwarding and permission gathering. Freeman Arts Pavilion identified 3,841 shadow bookers from 46,000 tickets issued through VisitOne. Sheffield Theatres identified more than 1,300. At Newcastle Theatre Royal, 18 shadow-booker records were captured from one performance during the early rollout.

This richer view can inform future communications, but it should also improve the current visit. The Octagon Theatre Bolton uses performance-level templates to distinguish press nights, relaxed performances, external events and different auditoria. Customers receive information that reflects the event they are actually attending. That relevance can improve engagement, reduce avoidable questions and support greater uptake of table bookings and bar pre-orders.

Membership and loyalty belong in the same journey

Additional revenue is not limited to hospitality. A membership card, donation prompt or future event recommendation can form part of the same connected experience, provided the timing and message are appropriate. The platform should recognise the customer, their benefits and their recent interaction, rather than asking them to start again in a separate system.

Storyhouse initially wanted a digital membership card that integrated with its ticketing and bar systems. Once launched, 99.97% of card members adopted the VisitOne wallet. Storyhouse then extended its use to tickets, scanning, pre-ordering and table bookings. Customer spend increased by 17% within eight weeks of launch, while automated pre-visit communications and real-time reporting reduced manual work for venue teams.

Capital Theatres moved 90% of its Friends membership cards to digital delivery. Members can access benefits alongside tickets and pre-orders, while the organisation saves the time and cost associated with posting physical cards. This is the value of connection: a membership is not an isolated product, but part of how the customer experiences and spends with the venue.

What venues should prioritise

A connected journey does not require every feature to launch at once. It does require shared ownership across ticketing, marketing, hospitality, customer experience and development. The strongest implementations start with a clear audience or operational problem, connect the relevant systems and expand only when teams can deliver the experience reliably.

Map the journey from booking to the next visit and identify where customers face friction or miss useful information.
Use ticket and performance data to make communications timely and specific to the event, venue and customer.
Connect ticketing, CRM and EPOS data so purchases and audience behaviour can inform later messages and decisions.
Design digital ordering around bar capacity, collection points, staffing and stock, then test and refine it with front-of-house teams.
Measure click rate, conversion, average order value, spend per head, shadow-booker capture, membership adoption and repeat behaviour.

Cadogan Hall provides a useful reminder that value is not always captured first in a revenue figure. Its timed SMS tickets helped queues move faster, reduced the need for staff to help customers search for old emails and gave audiences more time to use the venue before a performance. The hall is now planning pre-orders. Improving the experience can create the conditions for future revenue before a new product is introduced.

The commercial value of connection

Venues rarely lack things to sell. More often, the opportunity is hidden behind disconnected systems, poorly timed messages or operational friction. A connected customer journey brings the ticket, useful information and relevant offers into one route that the audience can understand and trust.

VisitOne helps venues build that route around their existing ticketing, CRM and EPOS systems. The platform supports secure digital tickets, ticket sharing, personalised communications, pre-orders, memberships and post-visit engagement, while giving teams a clearer view of what audiences do across the journey.

The result is a practical commercial model: make the visit easier, give customers relevant opportunities to act and learn from each interaction. When those elements work together, additional revenue grows as part of a better audience experience, rather than as a separate sales exercise.

17.09.2026

Evidence sources

VisitOne figures cover 25 August 2025 to 25 August 2026. Venue examples are drawn from VisitOne case studies for Capital Theatres, Storyhouse, Octagon Theatre Bolton, Cadogan Hall, Freeman Arts Pavilion, Theatre Royal Sydney and Sheffield Theatres