About the Survey on Affiliation and Membership in the Performing Arts
The purpose of this pan-Canadian survey is to explore arts goers’ current forms and levels of affiliation with performing arts organizations, as well as their attitudes towards various membership offerings.
The survey follows a multi-level design:
- The first-level survey is a survey for performing arts organizations. It gathers information on their organizational characteristics and their current membership offerings. This survey has up to 32 questions and takes approximately 10-15 minutes to complete.
- The second-level survey is a survey of performing arts audiences. It will be disseminated by organizations who participated in the first-level survey. Each organization will have a custom survey link and will be responsible for sending it to their customers. This survey has 30 questions and will take approximately 12-15 minutes to complete.
Both surveys integrate data from external datasets (CADAC and Artsdata) to maximize the amount of data collected, while minimizing the response burden upon participants.
Who is this survey for?
This survey is intended for performing arts organizations that present live performances and that have an ability to email a customer survey to their attendees.
What’s in it for participating organizations?
Each organization that reaches a threshold of 30 customer responses will receive a custom survey report, with their own customers’ responses. In addition to anonymized, aggregated responses from the organization’s customer data, the report will include benchmarking data from comparable organizations across Canada. This kind of custom report would cost $3,000-4,000 if it were commissioned to a marketing research firm.
Timeline
| Organizations’ Survey | Customers’ Survey |
|---|---|
| February 12 to March 20, 2026 | April 1 to 30, 2026 |
Information Sessions
Multiple information sessions will be held during the first three weeks of the organization survey. These information sessions are intended both for performing arts associations and their members. Please find the registration links below:
English information sessions:
- Thursday, February 12, 3:00 pm EST
- Wednesday, February 18, 3:00 pm EST
- Friday, February 27, 3:00 pm EST
Séances d’information en français :
- Jeudi 12 février, 14 h 00 HNE
- Vendredi 27 février, 14 h 00 HNE
Survey Questionnaires
For information purposes, here are text versions of the survey questionnaires:
Who is behind this survey?
The survey was commissioned by CAPACOA, Orchestras Canada, the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, and the National Arts Centre, as part of the Re-Imagining Customer Relationships project. The survey was jointly designed by project partners and HEC Montréal, with input from WolfBrown and Prairie Research Associates. The survey will be coded, fielded and analyzed by Prairie Research Associates. A detailed bilingual report will be published by HEC Montréal.
The Re-Imagining Customer Relationships project is funded by the Government of Canada, Mitacs, the Azrieli Foundation, the Metcalf Foundation and the Chawkers Foundation.
Communications toolkit
Performing arts associations who wish to inform their members of the opportunity to participate in this survey may use any contents on this web page and in this communications toolkit.