Empirical evidence of marketing practices in the nonprofit sector: the case of performing arts

Arts organisations are adopting marketing practices as international literature suggests. However, there is an important lack of studies proving this. So, the overall goal of this article is to examine how performing arts institutions apply marketing principles in their management process. Specifically, we propose to group these organisations according to their implication with marketing practices. An empirical research design using univariate and multivariate techniques was drawn. The results showed that performing arts organisations are adopting marketing tools but with different levels of implication. So, the three groups found were labelled neutral, involved and image conscious due to the apathy, slight interest and image development shown respectively towards marketing.