Learning Session: Stimulating Social Initiating Behavior
- 7 hours ago
- 2 min read
June 16, 2026
Speaker: Alan Brown (WolfBrown)
How do people decide to attend arts and cultural events? More importantly, what motivates them to invite others to join them?
In this recent WolfBrown Learning Session, we explored new research on one of the most important—and least understood—drivers of cultural participation: social initiating behavior. Time and again, our research has shown that social invitations explain a significant share of demand for arts and cultural experiences. Yet many organizations continue to struggle with a central question: How can we encourage more people to become initiators rather than followers?
This 60-minute virtual briefing presents a research-based framework for understanding social initiating behavior and offers fresh perspectives on how arts and cultural organizations might strengthen attendance by supporting participation in small social groups.
During the session, we shared selected findings from the 2025–26 Membership and Affiliations Survey, fielded in October 2025. The discussion continues our broader exploration of customer loyalty, membership, and audience engagement, examining how affiliation, belonging, and social connection influence attendance decisions.
The session also considers a challenging reality: while many organizations have experimented with discounts, referral programs, and membership benefits, we have yet to fully understand what kinds of incentives genuinely encourage people to extend invitations and bring others into the cultural experience. The findings presented here are intended to spark new thinking about how organizations can cultivate stronger social networks around their work.
If your organization is interested in building audience loyalty, strengthening community connections, and encouraging more social participation, we invite you to watch the recording and join the conversation.
We hope the ideas shared in this session inspire new approaches to audience engagement and help organizations think more strategically about the social dimensions of cultural participation.
