Visual and auditory factors on seat preference in a small musical theatre

This paper investigates the visual and auditory factors influencing seat preference in a small musical theater. The venue is as a versatile space capable of accommodating musical performances, with an irregularly shaped seating area designed for 300 seats. Specifically, the seating structure is designed to enhance intimacy, connecting from the first to the second floor, and features staggered blocks of seats arranged in a curved formation. Visual images of the stage view and binaural impulse responses towards the center of the stage were collected at nine selected seats in situ conditions. To determine factors related to visual, auditory, and seat preferences, a paired comparison method was employed in a laboratory setting to derive scale values for each seat. Ten subjects with experience attending musical performances and normal hearing were participated in the experiments. The auditory stimuli were convolved with vocal anechoic recordings, and visual images were synthesized to depict the same performance scene. Preference scores were obtained through three type of experiments, considering visual information only, auditory information only, and simultaneous presentation of visual and auditory information. Based on the results, influence of visual and auditory factors on seat preference was discussed.