Who’s in the audience?

The War GameI have spoken about concentration and the fact that my work can be an audience training ground before, but I’d like to take a moment to consider some of the different characters you might find in an audience.  I am neither a scientist or a psychologist but based on my experience the following six characters are amongst those that make up audiences of young people.

(A) participates boisterously.  (A) will talk about the presentation during the presentation, calling out and is always a willing volunteer.

(B) participates enthusiastically.  Like (A), (B) is a willing volunteer but will reserve their verbal participation for when it is encouraged.

(C) participates attentively.  (C) listens hard but is more reserved than (A) or (B).  (C) is more likely to share their thoughts and feelings privately.

(D) participates distractedly.  (D) is a willing volunteer but is as likely to watch other audience members as the presentation.  Dominant audience types are tricky for (D).

(E) participates dangerously.  (E) is like (A) but their chat is off topic and can be destructive or aggressive.  They are different to (F) because they are prepared to be convinced by the presentation.

(F) participates inappropriately.  For one reason or another (F) cannot engage with the presentation.  Where this is a choice rather than circumstances (F) is more challenging.  (F) can manifest actively or passively and may leave the presentation (this ejection may be their choice or sadly somebody else’s).

Launching RBKC Homework Club

We may not see these characters as clearly in older audiences because of social and economic factors but they might help to explain the behaviour of adults during presentations for young people.

We could analyse these character traits further but suffice to say audiences are unique and rightly or wrongly, my expectation of an audience will vary according to the environment, the occasion and the content of the story.  In my experience (B) and (C) make up the largest parts of an average audience of children and thankfully I rarely see (E) or (F) but part of my role is to prepare and respond to different crowds.  For some, sitting through the entire story will be an achievement where for others articulating why they liked, disliked or preferred another story will define appropriate participation.

Whilst the make up of the audience will influence the presentation it doesn’t change my job; to share a story.  Now here’s my question to you, what type of audience member are you?