Attracting Theater Audiences Based on Their Seeking and Escaping Motivations: Assessing Mediator Role of Gender

Spectators are the most important group of audience in theater industry. Not only they are the main buyers and consumers of this artistic product, they can also cause the theaters and groups to continue their activities or close down. Considering the financial concerns of the managers and due to the fact that most of the chances of some private theaters in Tehran are empty, it is necessary to know the motivations of the spectators to attend the theaters. Accordingly, the purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of search and escape motives (personal and interpersonal) on the presence of spectators in theaters. The present study is applied in terms of purpose and descriptive-survey in terms of method. Based on non-random method, 407 spectators from the subscribers of “Tiwall” webpage in Tehran have been chosen and their answers to the questioners have been studied. To investigate the variables and hypotheses, SEM, SPSS and AMOS software was used. The findings indicated that personal and interpersonal seeking and personal escaping are effective on spectators’ attendance.