There are many factors that contribute to a spectacular stadium experience.
Good food, comfortable seating, clean bathrooms, and available parking to name a few.
For fans, it's more than just the sport they are watching or the music act they are seeing that impacts their experience.
Stadium experience surveys are an excellent tool to truly understand what specific factors drive attendance to a venue outside of the entertainment act.
They can also provide insight into areas of satisfaction, dissatisfaction, likelihood to return, and other important metrics.
In this blog post, we’ll dive more into stadium experience surveys – the definition, benefits, how to survey attendees, and more.
What is a Stadium Experience Survey?
A stadium experience survey is an online questionnaire that measures feedback from attendees regarding all factors of their time at a game, concert, or other event.
This feedback is essential for sales, events, and marketing teams to improve their strategies with data-driven decision-making.
Especially for sporting events, 59% of fans are more interested in watching games at home. They are attracted to better camera angles, multimedia experiences, and spending less money.
This leads stadiums and venues to make more of an effort to deliver a fan experience that can’t be outdone by sitting at home.
With stadium experience surveys, venues are given a clear understanding of what fans want. Using this insight to drive decision-making will lead to more loyal and engaged attendees.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Fan experience surveys measure overall fan satisfaction at a sporting, music, or other types of event. This way, stadium staff will know how to improve their strategies.
Recommended Reading: Survey Shows What Bills Fans Want for New Stadium in Buffalo
Value of Measuring Stadium Experience
Sports fans and concertgoers are customers, right? They're paying for an experience that goes far beyond entertainment.
And creating an outstanding customer service strategy can only help stadiums thrive.
By investing in stadium experience surveys or season ticket holder surveys, venues will be able to improve upon their attendee satisfaction initiatives.
Below are a few key benefits of measuring fan experience with surveys.
1. Improves Customer Service Strategies
For stadiums that want to improve customer service for visitors, surveys should be the first action step.
Say there's a service issue present at an event that is going unnoticed by staff.
They decide to survey their fans and that issue (among others) is uncovered.
Now, they can take action and figure out how to fix the problem. This is a massive benefit of any kind of customer-centric market research.
And as a result, fans are happier and more likely to return.
When working with an online survey company, like Drive Research, they can analyze what issues to resolve immediately and what can be delayed for future initiatives.
2. Improves Fan Loyalty
Fenway Park is rated the number one stadium in the U.S according to Audacy Sports. There's a reason why the Boston ballpark is so popular, and it's not just about the Red Sox.
Fenway Park is known for providing a best-in-class fan experience.
From their dugout seats to parking to tours of the stadium, a quick read through Fenway Park’s Google reviews will explain why people love visiting.
The same should go for any stadium.
With most people preferring to watch sports at home, it is imperative to make the in-person fan experience unbeatable.
Using a stadium experience survey can determine what factors encourage fans to come to more games in person.
The data can then be used in marketing and sales strategies to improve attendance for both new and returning guests.
3. Drives More Ticket Sales
Stadiums can also expect to see increased revenue as their services improve from stadium experience survey results.
Not only does a good stadium experience help attract repeat attendees, but it also encourages new guests as well.
Online reviews and social media conversations go a long way in attracting locals and tourists to events. If most of the online discussions surrounding your venue are negative, it doesn't make for a good recommendation for those who have not experienced the stadium firsthand.
On the other hand, positive reviews and comments about a place are often bigger drivers to earning more ticket sales than sponsored content coming from your in-house marketing team.
To earn this type of attention though, the stadium experience needs to be worth boasting about.
Recommended Reading: Easy Ways to Increase Google Reviews (+1 Secret Hack)
4. Improves In-stadium Fan Experience
All of these previous points culminate in a great fan experience.
While this is a broad term, the general idea is to keep fans comfortable and well-fed!
Put yourself in the fan's position. Whether it's a game, concert, or any other type of event, what makes you enjoy it the most?
You may want to consider including the following topics in your survey:
- Seating design
- Food and beverage options
- Parking
- Heating/air conditioning
- WiFi
💡 The Key Takeaway: Fan experience at events is critical to the success of a stadium. Stadium surveys provide a huge array of benefits, like increasing fan numbers.
How to Measure Stadium Experience with Surveys
Stadium experience surveys are commonly conducted online. That’s because they are fast, cost-effective, and easily accessible.
With most ticket purchasers buying tickets online, venues have access to their email addresses to send the survey after the event.
Consider using a third-party online survey company, like Drive Research, to execute these surveys.
Our team follows a streamlined process to measure fan experience, so you can remain focused on your day-to-day activities.
Below is the process our market research company follows when measuring stadium experiences for clients.
1. Kickoff Meeting
Once you've chosen your market research team, they'll start with a kickoff meeting.
Kickoff meetings are incredibly important in market research because they are a chance for both the client and the team to discuss a variety of key topics.
Common themes include:
- Survey goals
- Ideal questions to include
- Client concerns
- Timeline
Once these are squared away, both parties can enter into the project feeling "in the know" about what's happening.
2. Survey Design and Programming
The design process is the actual "construction" of the fan survey.
Questions will be drafted and carefully reviewed before being placed into an online survey platform.
During this programming process, it's key for analysts to follow a linear pattern. Going back and forth between questions can create a host of issues that will throw the survey off.
3. Fieldwork
This step refers to the time period where responses are being gathered from fans. It is an ongoing process based on the frequency of events.
Typically, the survey is sent to fans the day after they attended the event. Sending it in a timely manner assures fans' experiences are fresh in their minds.
This provides more accurate, quality data for stadium stakeholders.
As part of the ongoing survey process, our clients gain access to a live reporting dashboard. It is interactive and allows you to export results to compare and contrast from different time periods and events.
4. Analysis and Reporting
The market research team will analyze all survey responses. Any "faulty" responses will have already been discarded during the initial data-cleaning process.
After, the team will create a detailed market research report for the client depending on your needs.
Components of the report may include:
- Common response themes among fans
- Analysis of responses
- Positive and negative feedback
- Tips to move forward with fan experience ideas
Additionally, a monthly or quarterly meeting will be set up to go over the results and answer any questions.
💡 The Key Takeaway: To collect the best fan feedback, stadiums should employ a market research company
Stadium Experience Survey Question Examples
To measure the in-stadium fan experience, a survey has to have the right questions.
Not only does the subject matter have to be accurate, but the questions need to be engaging.
A good market research team will ensure there's variety when it comes to questioning style.
Additionally, you never want surveys to go past 15 minutes (and that's pushing it, to be honest). Short and sweet is the name of the game!
Below are some sample questions to include in stadium experience surveys:
- Does the stadium have comfortable seating options?
- Is the stadium prepared for poor weather conditions (if outdoors)?
- Do you like the food options offered at the stadium?
- Does the stadium provide comfortable heating/air conditioning?
- Are there adequate parking options?
- How likely are you to attend an event at X venue in the future?
- On a scale of 0-10, how likely are you to recommend X venue to friends and family?
These questions are broad because each stadium varies. But you get the idea - the main goal is to ensure fans are comfortable and happy throughout the game.
💡 The Key Takeaway: Creating well-written, relevant questions are at the core of a successful fan survey. This ensures fans will be engaged during the process and will result in thoughtful responses.
Conduct Stadium Experience Surveys with Drive Research
Thinking about taking the leap and putting together a stadium experience survey? We’re here to help.
Drive Research is a market research company located in New York. Our team of pros has extensive knowledge of crafting high-quality online surveys that yield actionable data.
Want to learn more about our market research services? Let’s talk!
- Message us on our website
- Email us at [email protected]
- Call us at 888-725-DATA
- Text us at 315-303-2040
Lark Allen
As a Content Marketing Specialist, Lark has a strong background and passion for creative, professional, and journalistic writing. She is also a self-proclaimed music freak and 90s enthusiast.
Learn more about Lark, here.
