Vista Group has announced the release of a new audience data profile of US moviegoers. Based on a 2024 survey commissioned by Vista Group, the results offer definitive insights into the behaviors and demographics of today’s moviegoing audiences. The data also supports Movio Research in providing an accurate representation of the overall moviegoing population.
Movio Research, part of Vista Group, is the industry’s leading theatrical audience research platform. It leverages anonymized moviegoer loyalty data from leading exhibitor chains across 49 states. The platform provides a picture of moviegoing audiences, exploring and comparing the behavioral, demographic, ticket purchase, and geographic characteristics of moviegoing audiences from over 4 million individual loyalty members and more than 160 million unique visits to 5,000 movies dating back to 2016.
Loyalty programs contain an inherent demographic bias, and the survey was part of the data normalization process to ensure the demographic distribution of Movio data accurately represents the overall moviegoing population. The study was conducted in 2024 across a representative sample of more than 5,000 adults living in the United States. The results were weighted by age, gender and region to match US Census data and corrected for differences between the survey sample and the general US population.
When compared with publicly available data in the Motion Picture Association’s THEME Report, Vista Group found that audiences have evolved in some meaningful ways over the past three years, and some key findings from the report highlight significant trends in moviegoing, including a shift in audience demographics, where the mix of moviegoer audiences has become significantly younger, with children aged 2-17 and younger adults aged 18-39 increasing their share. The comparison also revealed a rebound in cinema attendance with the percentage of the domestic population visiting cinemas rebounding to 70% in 2023-24, up from 47% in 2021 and almost in line with the 76% reported in 2019. The share of frequent moviegoers (those who visit a theater on average once or more a month) fell dramatically from 11% in 2019 to 3% in 2020-21, before doubling to 6% in 2024.
The full report, containing detailed data and analysis, is available to download on the Vista Group website. In addition to what Vista Group has released publicly, full subscribers to the Movio Research platform also gain access to additional data, including moviegoer recency, viewing time and day, average tickets per group, sales channel, occupation time, income level, and more.
“US moviegoer audiences have changed a lot over the past few years, and we recognized the need for accurate and timely audience data,” said Dr. William Caicedo, Vista Group’s global head of data science and analytics. “Our report ensures that the movie industry continues to have access to valuable insights into moviegoer behaviors and demographics. Movio Research provides useful context to guide our studio clients and validate their hypotheses, allowing the industry at large to keep a finger on the pulse of cinemagoing.”
“Our research reveals that most pre-COVID moviegoers have found their way back to the big screen, but many are watching far fewer movies now,” said Matthew Liebmann, Vista Group’s chief product innovation and marketing officer. “This means that exhibitors can leverage their own assets to reverse the ‘negative bracket creep’ in which moviegoers have slid to lower frequency brackets. Tailored programming, promotions, offers, hospitality and leading-edge facilities can all be used to encourage people to watch more movies in theaters. Throughout this process, we recognized that this definitive benchmark data would benefit exhibitors, distributors, studio, and other stakeholders. We are delighted to share these insights and hope they will serve as a valuable resource for the industry.”
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