Theater's Nostalgic Connection: Nostalgia's Impact on the Entertainment Industry and Strategies to Solve an Age-Old Problem

Abstract

Non-profit theater companies around the United States struggle to attract younger audience members, which becomes a bigger problem with each passing year as their current consumer base is dying from old age. This paper discusses using nostalgia as a method of attracting the millennial generation to attend the theater. The paper first analyzes the middle class millennial and the reasons that they choose to not attend the theater. The paper continues by defining nostalgia, its history, and its effects on the individual and on consumer behavior. The paper lists examples in other forms of entertainment that compete with theater and in retail that have used strategies with nostalgia that have proven to be successful with the millennial generation. The paper ends by observing how nostalgia has been successful in theater and provides tactics and strategies for theater companies as possible solutions to the lack of younger audience members.