How it works?

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The Theatre Benchmarking Reports have proved invaluable to defining the work of our audience development. The reports build up a detailed snapshot of audience behaviour and help us compare ourselves to other venues in the area to see were we might improve our practice in order to connect with more people. Used in conjunction with other resources from Audiences Yorkshire and internal research, we can build a really clear picture on how to move forward and utilise the findings every step of the way.

Member - Audiences Yorkshire

Jargon Buster

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Drivetime or isochrone

What does this mean?

One way of defining an organisation’s catchment (see core catchment). This is based on drawing a line surrounding all the places that are a given drivetime (usually in minutes) from the facility.

Care should be taken to use – where available – a drivetime that reflects the prevailing conditions at the relevant time of day (e.g. peak, rush hour, mid-afternoon, etc.) Data on the relevant drivetimes is available from the audience development agencies licensed to provide AREA PROFILE REPORTS [Copies of an area profile report – for any given area – can be obtained from the three national audience development agencies that have been commissioned to undertake this role. These agencies are: Arts About Manchester (tel: 0161 238 4500); AMH (formerly Arts Marketing Hampshire) (tel: 01962 846 962); and Audiences Yorkshire (tel: 0870 160 4400). However, rather than contacting these agencies direct, there can be particular value in asking your local audience development agency to arrange for the relevant area reports to be obtained for you, especially since your local agency will be able to discuss your particular needs, and help you with the interpretation of the reports once they have been received.]

How did we get this definition?

Here this term does not relate to the broadcasting expression meaning ‘the time of day when people are travelling to and from work’. Rather, when used in relation to audience data, a drivetime (or isochrone) is a line drawn around all the places in an organisation’s catchment area that require roughly the same number of minutes car travel to get to a specific arts facility. (For instance, a 30-minute drivetime surrounds all those places that lie 30 minutes’ car travel away from the facility.)

Although it assumes that attenders and visitors always come to a facility using a car, it is still an extremely useful indication of a key part of a facility’s catchment area. As John Ozimek notes:

'Very simple models may be couched in terms of crow-fly distance, but for short distances it is very dangerous to ignore the effect of the actual road and communications networks. A [facility] may be a very short measurable distance away from a potential customer, but be on the other side of a river or railway line, so drive time is usually a more accurate way of determining [the facility’s] catchment area.’

Related and similar definitions

In Great Britain, the area profile reports (see pages C3, D13 and D125) take as their cornerstone the 30-minute drivetime area surrounding a given facility.

Thus it should be noted that these areas are drawn using data showing the average and standard times for driving from one place to another on the types of roads available in that area (for instance, motorways, A and B roads). However, although this builds in an intrinsic accuracy that reflects the nature of the local road network, this is an indicative model, and should be used as such.

So each organisation might wish to consider using the area mapped for the area profile and – where necessary – making allowances for the different times of day that events actually take place (for instance evening rush hour, weekends, etc.)

When to use

Use to identify key parts of an organisation’s catchment as the basis for customer analysis and of targeted marketing campaigns. Also can be used as one way of substantiating the local usefulness of an arts facility to local authorities and regional funding agencies.