Statistical processing

Source data

Information about which theaters have received funding in a season is annually provided to Statistics Denmark by the Agency for Culture and Palaces. This information forms the basis for the survey population of state-funded theaters. Since the 2017/2018 season, Scenit, which manages the Tereba database, has supplied data to Statistics Denmark. This has likely improved the coverage of the statistics and, thereby, increased the activity of the theaters. In the 2023/2024 season, an invitation to report was sent to 452 performing arts producers.

For the 2020/2021 season, the Danish Theater Association provided data on the activities of theaters on tour, which has been used for quality assurance.

Information from individual theaters is reported via an electronic questionnaire. Reporting for the statistics is voluntary. The reports include information on individual productions, audiences, and, for state-funded theaters, financial key figures for the season.

Frequency of data collection

Every year.

Data collection

Electronic questionnaire.

Data validation

Troubleshooting is carried out based on reports from previous seasons. This primarily involves recurring theatres, such as the Royal Danish Theatre, regional theatres, local theatres, and small-to-medium-sized city theatres, which remain stable from year to year.

For the 2023/2024 season, there is considered to be good consistency in the reports following the 2019/2020, 2020/2021, and 2022/2023 seasons, which were affected by COVID-19 to varying degrees.

In the 2022/2023 season, there was more consistency in the reports than in the seasons impacted by COVID-19. The reports were therefore comparable to the 2021/2022 season. If there were significant deviations, these were further investigated by contacting the theatres. Similarly to the 2021/2022 season, data were also troubleshot at the aggregated level, where changes in the season were compared to previous seasons for the different theatre categories.

In the 2021/2022 season, due to the normalization after COVID-19, there was not the same consistency in the reports, and they were not comparable to the 2019/2020 and 2020/2021 seasons, which were much more heavily affected by COVID-19 than the 2021/2022 season. If there were significant deviations, these were further investigated by contacting the theatres. As with the 2020/2021 season, data were also troubleshot at the aggregated level, where changes in the season were compared to previous seasons for the different theatre categories.

In the 2020/2021 season, due to COVID-19, there was not the same consistency in the reports, and they were therefore not comparable to previous seasons before COVID-19. If there were significant deviations, these were further investigated by contacting the theatres. Similarly to the 2019/2020 season, data were also troubleshot at the aggregated level, where changes in the season were compared to previous seasons for the different theatre categories.

In 2019/2020, there was no consistency in the reports compared to the previous year due to COVID-19 and the shutdown in the spring of 2020. If there were significant deviations, these were further investigated by contacting the theatres. In addition to troubleshooting individual units, the data are validated based on the aggregated figures found in the statistical database tables. To assess theatre activities in the 2019/2020 season, where activities were affected by COVID-19 in the second half of the season, different types of support were used to determine whether the theatres’ activities differed from similar theatres.

Theatres that have not reported are imputed if they had reported in the previous season. In the 2019/2020 season, special imputation rules were applied, where similar theatres, such as those with the same support type or consistency in audience numbers in previous seasons, were considered. Additionally, other data sources were used to estimate the audience activity and accounts of the imputed theatres. This method has since become a fixed part of the imputation method, ensuring that the imputation follows the development for each theatre category.

Data compilation

In the 2023/2024 season, surveys were sent to 474 theaters. The data collection started on september 25, 2024. Theaters that find it difficult to provide information are postponed, i.e.. possibility to report later. Data is processed and debugged on the individual theatres and by looking at aggregated numbers. The statistics only include theaters that have reported one or more activities (eg number of spectators or number of performances) on one or more of the productions. It is assumed that theaters that are registered as reported, but have not filled in information on attendance, number of performances, etc. have not been active during the season in question. The theaters that have not accessed the form (i.e. non-response) are imputed if they have reported the year before. If non-response has also been imputed to the season before, they will not be imputed again.

In 2023/2024, 38 pct. was non-response, where appr. 13 pct. was imputed. In 2022/2023, 38 pct. was non-response, where appr. 16 pct. was imputed. In 2021/2022, 43 pct. was non-response, where appr. 14 pct. was imputed. In 2020/2021, 46 pct. was non-response, where one out of five was imputed. 2019/2020 was 42 pct. non-response and one out of thee was imputed. In 2018/2019 24 pct. was nonresponse and half of the nonresponse was imputed. In the 2017/2018 season, there was 36 per cent. theaters that were non-response, and approx. one in five of non-response could be imputed from the 2016/2017 season.

For the 2023/2024 season, the same imputation rules as for the 2020/2021, 2021/2022, and 2022/2023 seasons are applied. Here, theatres and performing arts producers are compared with similar theatres to correct audience numbers for the season. For certain theatres, other sources have been used, such as ticket information from Tereba for the season and variations in the number of tickets sold and audience numbers in previous reports, to estimate and impute audience figures for the season.

Adjustment

No corrections are made to data other than what has already been described during data validation and data processing