The example Festival took place on 23 January 2021, attracting over 6,000 attendees. The organisation used Culture Counts to survey people attending the event, 108 members of the public were surveyed to find out what they thought of the event.
The Festival engaged Culture Counts to conduct an evaluation of the Festival, with surveys delivered through intercept interviews at the event. This survey was designed and developed to evaluate the strategic goals and outcomes of the organisation.
Each survey contained a range of ‘dimension’ questions, asking stakeholders about their experience of the event. These dimensions have been developed and tested in collaboration with industry, practitioners and academics to measure the impact and value of arts and cultural events and activity.
Appropriate dimensions were chosen based on their alignment with the Festival's strategic objectives.
| Domain | Dimension | Dimension statement |
|---|---|---|
| Cultural | Content | It reflected a broad and inclusive range of voices |
| Heritage | It made me feel connected to a shared history/culture | |
| Social | Connection | It helped me to feel connected to people in the community |
| Safe | It made me feel safe and welcome | |
| Economic | Diversity | It engaged people from different backgrounds |
| Place | Place | It made me feel proud of my local area |
| Quality | Local Impact | It's important that it's happening here |
| Vibrancy | I enjoy the vibrancy and activity here |
Dimensions are assessed using a Likert scale, in which respondents move a slider to indicate whether they agree or disagree with the dimension statement. An example of this question format as used in the Culture Counts survey tool is displayed below.
Survey respondents were asked to provide their age, gender, identity and postcode. This data identifies the demographic sample of people who responded to the survey and took part in the event. It enables data to be matched to the wider population and responses to be filtered to understand differences in demographics.
The following charts show the proportion of survey responses captured for each of the age, gender and identity demographic questions, as well as their identified place of origin and top postcode results.
The largest age group of respondents were in the 30-39 age bracket (27%). This was followed by those aged 20-29 (21%), 40-49 (19%) and 50-59 (18%). Those aged Under 20 made up 10% of the total sample and people aged Over 60 made up 6%. The large majority of respondents were female (73%), with 24% identifying as male and 3% identifying their gender in another way.
Almost half (45%) of respondents identified themselves as being Aboriginal / Torres Strait Islander and 23% of respondents were born overseas. 4% of respondents indicated that they mainly speak a language other than English and 4% identified themselves as being LGBTIQ+. 3% of the sample identified as a person with disability and 2% indicated they were a carer for a person with disability.
Three-quarters (75%) of respondents identified as living in the Perth Metro Area, a further 14% lived in the City of Perth. 10% of respondents were from elsewhere in WA, less than 1% identified that they lived interstate and 0% were from overseas.
Attendees travelled from all over Perth to attend the event. Churchlands (5.9%), Banjup (5.9%) and Bibra Lake (5.9%) were the most commonly cited postcodes. These were followed by West Swan (4.9%) and Armadale (3.9%).
Respondents were asked to indicate whether they had attended a the event in previous years. This helps organisers to understand the proportion of new and return audiences reached.
Just over two-thirds (68%) of respondents indicated that they had not attended the event before. This indicates that the concert attracted primarily a new audience, showcasing it's success in reaching a new market.
Survey respondents moved a slider to indicate whether they agreed or disagreed with the included dimension statements in relation to the event. The following charts contain the response data for 'public' responses, showing the average result for each dimension.
The Culture Counts platform provides various methods to capture survey responses at minimal marginal cost. Achieving larger samples enables organisations to be more confident that the average result and opinions of the survey group are representative of the total audience. The accompanying margin of error chart shows the expected differences for the associated dimension results calculated at a 95% confidence level.
All dimensions received an average agreement rate of 77/100 or above, a very positive result for the Festival.
'Local Impact' scored the highest result at 89/100, followed by 'Safe' (88/100), 'Vibrancy' (87/100) and 'Heritage' (86/100). These results indicate that respondents were most likely to agree that it was important that the Festival is happening here, that it made them feel safe and welcome, that they enjoyed the vibrancy and activity there and that it made them feel connected to a shared history/culture. 'Connection' (85/100) and 'Place' (84/100) also scored very highly, indicating that respondents were highly likely to agree that the event made them feel connected to people in the community and that it made them feel proud of their local area.
While still positive, 'Content' was on average the lowest performing dimension with a score of 77/100. This indicates that respondents were least likely to agree that the event reflected a broad and inclusive range of voices.
At a 95% confidence level, the margin of error for dimensions ranged from 3.0% to 4.2%. This means that we can be 95% confident that if we surveyed the entire visitor population, the average outcome for 'Local Impact' would fall within 3.0% of the average generated by the sample.
Culture Counts uses a slider input to measure responses for dimensions as part of the evaluation methodology. This method provides a greater capacity to understand responses using the typical 'agree or disagree' Likert scale.
The following charts contain the response data for 'public' responses. The first chart shows the percentage of people that agreed or disagreed with each of the statements and the strength of their agreement.
The second chart shows the interquartile range of dimension responses. This chart represents the areas on the slider where most responses typically fell and the median result for each dimension (i.e. the most common response). Smaller ranges indicate greater agreement between respondents, whereas larger ranges indicate less agreement.
At least 80% of people surveyed agreed with all of the statements measured. Of all dimensions measured, 'Heritage' (94%), 'Diversity' (94%), 'Vibrancy' (93%) and 'Local Impact' (93%) received the highest levels of overall agreement. This indicates that almost all respondents agreed that the event made them feel connected to a shared history/culture, that it engaged people from different backgrounds, that they enjoyed the vibrancy and activity and that it's important it's happening here.
The responses to 'Content' and 'Diversity' are represented by the largest interquartile range. This indicates that while still having very positive results, perceptions of these two statements varied most widely amongst respondents.
Dimension statements can be categorised into their representative outcome domain. Outcome domains represent categorisations of dimensions based on their general area of focus. For example:
Cultural Outcomes represent dimensions that reflect shared cultural values; things we care about and the ways we share them.
Social Outcomes represent dimensions that support a society that creates and promotes participation in community life and fosters the realisation of self within an individual.
Environmental Outcomes represent dimensions that recognise the links between people, where they live and how these connections contribute to overall wellbeing.
Artistic & Quality Outcomes represent dimensions that connect the quality of what is produced to the realisation of intentions and the strength of their impact.
Place Quality Outcomes represent dimensions that promote place-based amenity and experiences that are seen to increase the value of a location or area.
More information about outcome domains is available at https://culturaldevelopment.net.au/outcomes/
The outcome measured as part of the Place Quality domain ranked highest, followed by the average of those in the Arts Quality domain, demonstrating that the Festival excelled in these areas. The Social, Environmental and Cultural domains also ranked highly.
Respondents were asked about their overall experience of attending the event, with a choice of five options - Excellent, Good, Neutral, Poor and Terrible.
This chart shows the percentage of respondents that rated the event within these five options.
Almost the entire sample (97%) of respondents reported having a positive experience, an extremely high result. Of these respondents, 57% reported having an 'excellent' experience and 40% reported their experience being 'good'. 3% of respondents felt 'neutral' about the event and no respondents indicated that their experience was 'poor' or 'terrible'.
Respondents were asked whether they would recommend the Festival to a friend or colleague. Respondents could choose a number from 0 to 10 from a pulldown menu, with 0 meaning not likely at all, and 10 meaning extremely likely.
These scores can be used to calculate a Net Promoter Score (NPS). NPS is a standardised metric that seeks to measure loyalty between an organisation and its audience. Respondents with a score of 9 or 10 are considered 'Promoters'. 'Detractors' are those who respond with a score of 0 to 6. Scores of 7 and 8 are 'Passives'.
NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of respondents who are Detractors from the percentage of customers who are Promoters. This means that an overall Net Promoter Score can range between -100 to +100.
This chart shows the proportion of respondents that would or would not recommend the Festival, followed by the calculated NPS below.
52% of respondents scored either 9 or 10 indicating they would be classified as Promoters, 33% of respondents scored passive results (7 or 8) and 15% would be considered detractors (scoring between 0-6).
A NPS that is positive (i.e. higher than zero) is felt to be good, and an NPS of 50+ is excellent. The Festival's NPS of 37 shows a very positive level of visitor loyalty and a reasonable-high likelihood of recommendations to friends and colleagues.
Every respondent was asked to provide their age and gender at the end of the survey. This enables scores to be filtered to understand differences in demographics.
The following charts show the average scores for each of the dimensions based on the gender that each respondent identified with and the average scores for each dimension by age cohort.
Overall, the dimension averages by age show a slight incline in scores as the age of respondents increases. This is particularly relevant for 'Safe', 'Heritage' and 'Place'. This indicates that the older the respondents on average, the more likely they were to agree that it was important that the event made them feel safe and welcome, that they enjoyed the vibrancy and activities, that it made them feel connected to a shared history or culture and that it made them feel proud of their local area.
Respondents aged 20-29 scored the lowest dimension averages for 'Safe', 'Vibrancy', 'Heritage', 'Connection' and 'Place'. This indicates consistently lower dimension scores on average and a lower likelihood to agree with the dimension statements than the other age groups.
Overall, males and females had very similar average dimensions scores, with the largest variance in agreement being a difference of only +3 for 'Diversity' and 'Local Impact'. As those who identified as ‘In another way’ only made up 3% of respondents, the sample size was not large enough to draw insights from.
Respondents were asked to leave any additional feedback about their experience at the Festival. This feedback has been classified into positive, neutral or negative categories, with the percentage of feedback sentiment types presented in the following chart.
Feedback helps organisations understand where the value of visitor experiences lies and how they can be improved and strengthened in the future. A selection of comments has been highlighted underneath.
The headline event was amazing to watch!
I really like the atmosphere of the event
Thanks so much to the organisers for putting this event on, it was amazing!
Would be good to see more healthy food options.
It was fun but it would be great if there was more shade.
The sound was poor, needs a better sound system!
Food and drinks were too expensive.
This report has been prepared by Culture Counts. The authors would like to thank all stakeholders and staff for their participation in this research.
Approved by: Culture Counts.
Date of Approval: 5 February 2021