Somewhere in your database is a person who did something small and easy to miss. They bought a ticket, came back a few months later, and bought another. Or they took out a membership and then, added a gift.
That second action is the subject of this piece. It is what makes someone a Buyer, and it is one of the most reliable signals you have that a relationship is deepening rather than simply repeating.
A Buyer is a patron whose behavior shows more than one type of engagement, repeated within a year. Buyers sit in the middle of the loyalty pyramid, between Tryers and Advocates.
| Tier | Share of a typical database | Share of revenue | Defining trait |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advocates | Under 2% | Roughly 30-40% of annual revenue in many organizations | The longest, most stable, most personal relationships |
| Buyers | 5–10% | Meaningful and growing | The "magic of and" |
| Tryers | Over 90% | Varies by region | Infrequent, often one-and-done |
Buyers are defined by behavior rather than by product. A Buyer is identified the same way whether their relationship runs through the box office, a membership scheme, a subscription package or the development office, using four data points:
Recency: how recently the patron acted, and whether anything is on the calendar.
Frequency: how often it has repeated.
Monetary investment: what that relationship is worth.
Growth: whether it is rising, flat or slipping over time.
A single large gift does not by itself make an Advocate, and a single first visit does not settle what a Tryer could eventually be worth. The pattern over time is what identifies the tier.
The "magic of and" is TRG Arts' term for the types of behavior that define a Buyer: a patron doing one thing and another. A Tryer does a single, often one-off thing. A Buyer adds a second: a single ticket and another single ticket; a subscription and a gift; a membership and an extra performance.
The specific combination depends on what an organization offers. The signal underneath it does not: it is a conscious decision to transact with the organization more than once, and in more than one way, inside a year. Multi-transactional, multi-type engagement is a stronger indicator of household value and loyalty than transaction volume alone, and the more transaction types an organization tracks in its systems, the more complete that picture becomes.
Buyers are worth more because their behavior is repeated and diversified, which makes their future revenue more predictable. Over the long term, a Buyer is worth four to five times more than a Tryer in the UK, and as much as ten times more in the US.
That regional gap changes what the figure means for you. In North America, Tryers are around 90% of the database but only 30-35% of revenue. Most income already comes from the loyal tiers. In the UK, Tryers are 90-95% of the database and closer to 80% of revenue. A UK organization reading this is therefore looking at a larger untapped opportunity in its middle tier, not a smaller one.
Buyer relationships break down because they are often newer relationships than their 'on paper' value implies. Relationships in this segment have typically been consistently active for only two or three years, and first-year renewal rates on a new subscription, membership or gift average around 50%, often lower.
Lower, specifically, at the entry level. A subscriber who buys a three-show package renews at a worse rate than one who commits to six or seven. A patron joining at the lowest membership tier renews worse than one a tier above. Investment, frequency and recency are interlocked, and each pulls on the others.
Most organizations make this harder rather than easier. Enormous effort goes into producing the first transaction (the first ticket, the first membership, the first gift) and comparatively little into turning that transaction into a habit. That is a costly place to stop, because once a patron renews a single time, their likelihood of renewing again roughly doubles or triples. The second and third renewals take far less work than the first.
Focus depends on where the Buyer sits in the relationship. The four dimensions carry different weight at different stages.
| Stage of the relationship | What matters most | What that looks like in practice |
|---|---|---|
| Early | Recency | Lock in the renewal habit and annualize it. Patrons should reliably know when they give and when they buy |
| Maturing | Monetary value and growth | Upgrades and uplifts: an added performance, better seats, the next giving tier |
| Throughout the season | Use, not just purchase | Are patrons using their benefits? Are they being reminded of the value of what they already committed to? |
On where to spend scarce time: an hour spent on a Buyer at risk of lapsing typically returns more than an hour spent pursuing a new first-time Tryer. Both matter. They are not equally leveraged uses of a full plate.
In short, no. More Buyers means more recurring revenue, which is a positive growth signal rather than a constraint.
The question usually arrives as a worry about subscribers or members occupying too much inventory. An organization discovering that subscribers or members consume a high share of its capacity should read that as evidence of unmet demand, and respond by adding capacity (more performances, longer runs, expanded programming) rather than capping the segment that is disproportionately funding its future.
The full conversation is in the latest episode of Leading the Way, How to Grow Loyalty With the Team You Already Have, where the TRG team works through the "and" behavior, the renewal gap, and how two departments can share one goal without a restructure.