❮ Projects page FringeArts

Spatial Analysis Project:

FringeArts is Philadelphia’s home for contemporary performance, presenting progressive, world-class art that stretches the imagination, and boldly defies expectation. As the city’s lead experimenter in the arts, FringeArts exposes audiences to unpredictable dance, theater and music performances by accomplished and emerging innovators who push the boundaries of art-making and redefine the artistic landscape worldwide.

The purpose of this project is to strengthen FringeArts’ impact with its audiences and donors by visualizing attendee locations, donor locations and performance venues in order to gain understanding of how they relate to, and impact, each other. Of particular interest is learning more about the locations of our donor base in relation to the location of our programming.

Because this project spans the entire organization, fellows will work with a combination of our programming, marketing and development staff to understand the motivation for supporting performance art in new ways, through new venues and neighborhoods.

Data available:

FringeArts can provide the following for the years 2013-2015

• Addresses for
  • Ticket buyers
  • Performance venues
• Individual donors
  • Donation data
  • Date of donations
  • Amount of donations
• Performance data
  • Show titles with ticket history
  • Performance dates with ticket history
  • Number of tickets purchased for each show in their ticket history
• Types of shows – Fringe Festival or Year-round program
• For additional depth of the analysis to understand our donor base, its relation to performance locations and ticket buyers, we would like to see certain public data layered in, such as:
  • US census data including income, age, neighborhood,
  • Transportation data – train, bus, trolley, bike, parking availability
  • External factors – for example (via via OpenDataPhilly, EveryBlock API, etc.):
  • Crime related to venue areas
  • Business & restaurants near venues
  • Neighborhood activity and other hyper-local factors

Maps and Reports that will be created:

• Dynamic maps of ticket buyers and donors
  • By neighborhood
  • By performance venue location,
  • Ability to see the changes over time by locations
  • Filters for different, publicly available External factors
• Heat map of venue footprint based on tickets and donations nearby compared with
  • Demographics
  • Event type
  • Event location
  • External factors
• Simple web-based charts and reports of the donors and ticket-buyers
  • By supporter locations that can be filtered via single-point or geo-fence
• By venue location
  • With basic comparative analysis capabilities to
  • See how these supporter types relate to each other through location
  • See how these supporter types differ across shows and venues.

How the maps and reports will be used:

FringeArts has undergone a strategic shift to move from an annual festival to full-year programming with a venue and restaurant. We are an organization whose roots are in the neighborhoods with growth through a combination of national and international artists and a business model expansion through a new permanent home.

It is important, therefore, to understand our supporters in new ways compared to operating only an annual festival. By reviewing the geographic patterns of donor activity, audience draw and demographic correlations across venue locations and neighborhoods, FringeArts can create the necessary new approaches, new formats, locations and pricing.

The maps and analysis will, therefore, be used in all parts of the organization - promoting shows, recruiting artist participation in the festival, outreach efforts in neighborhoods across the city and marketing efforts for the FringeArts building and La Peg.