The data is in for arts organizations looking for new attendees, and it’s a mixed bag. In February, the Wallace Foundation released its final report after a multi-year, $52 million audience-building study titled “In Search of the Magic Bullet.” (Spoiler: There is no magic bullet.) The study finds that while non-traditional marketing approaches could help reach new attendees, most of these newcomers did not then become regular patrons. It also concludes that traditional audience-building strategies have not always been effective in building audiences in the long term. This has been borne out in recent seasons at opera companies, which have seen record numbers of first-time attendees who haven’t returned as frequently as companies might like.