Consumer insight for the global experience economy
GXE Consumer is an independent research and insight company. We track, measure and analyse how consumers think, feel and spend across the global experience economy — giving operators, brands and investors the understanding they need to make better decisions.
Our vision
To be the world's most trusted source of consumer insight in the experience economy.
We give operators, brands and investors the understanding they need to build experiences that people love — and that build lasting commercial value.
We sit on the demand side — independent, rigorous, and focused entirely on the consumer.
Who we work with
Theme parks, festivals, pub groups, hotels, spas, play centres. The experience is your brand — we help you understand it, benchmark it and improve it.
Spirits, luxury goods, FMCG. The experience is your medium. We tell you whether it's building or eroding your equity — and why.
Building or investing in a new experience? Consumer evidence, not instinct. We tell you what people want and where the market is moving.
Independent, credible data to underpin client strategies. Four media-ready moments a year with proprietary GXE data behind each one.
What we offer
Quarterly tracking across 13 experience sectors and 7 markets. A consistent, benchmarked read on how consumers feel, behave and spend.
Annual deep dives into a single experience sector. Larger sample, greater depth. Wave 1: Live Football — UK, US and Germany.
A framework for measuring how live experiences and sponsorship activations move brand equity — before, during and after the event.
Bespoke consumer research and strategic advisory. Built around the question your business actually needs answered.
GXE Consumer is an independent consumer insight company focused exclusively on the global experience economy. We started it because the research industry wasn't keeping up with the way consumers had fundamentally shifted their spending — and the people building and investing in experiences deserved better data.
Our vision
To be the world's most trusted source of consumer insight in the experience economy. We give operators, brands and investors the understanding they need to build experiences that people love — and that build lasting commercial value.
How we work
When there's tension between what a client wants to hear and what consumers actually think, we publish what consumers think. Our independence is the foundation of everything we do.
Projective techniques, semiotics and behavioural science. Consumers rarely tell the whole truth. We close the gap between what people say and what they actually do.
The industry has plenty of data about what happened. We focus on what consumers want next — and where appetite is shifting before it becomes obvious.
Consumers don't live sector by sector. Neither does our insight. We span sectors, connect data sources, and see the full shape of the experience economy.
Data without interpretation is noise. Interpretation without recommendation is academic. If our work doesn't change something — a decision, a strategy, a product — we haven't done our job.
The experience economy deserves research that is methodologically serious. Our standards don't bend to commercial pressure or a desire for a cleaner headline.
The team
Amy has spent 13 years working in consumer research, CX strategy and brand development exclusively within the leisure, hospitality and experience sector. Before GXE, she led consumer insight at Brand Vista, working with some of the most recognised names in the industry — LEGO, Greene King, Merlin Entertainments and David Lloyd among them.
Her work has ranged from quantitative trackers and brand health studies to qualitative deep dives and behavioural science-informed research. She understands how experience consumers think, what they trade off, and what it takes to turn that understanding into meaningful strategy.
Phil is the founder and CEO of GXE, the Global Experience Economy intelligence platform. GXE Consumer sits within GXE's broader mission to build the world's most comprehensive intelligence layer for the experience economy — from consumer insight to brand equity measurement and market analytics.
Phil brings commercial and strategic leadership to GXE Consumer, shaping the product roadmap and driving the commercial relationships that will define the business over the coming years.
We offer four ways of working — from always-on tracking products to bespoke consultancy. All of them are grounded in the same thing: rigorous consumer research, designed to answer questions that matter.
Syndicated tracking
A quarterly tracker across 13 experience sectors and 7 global markets. Consumer Pulse gives the industry a consistent, benchmarked read on how people feel, behave and spend across the full experience economy.
Each wave captures participation rates, spend behaviour, intent, sentiment and cross-sector wallet share. Enriched with spend data and social listening. Published quarterly.
Wave 1 — Live Football 2026. Covering the full matchday journey: attendance, F&B, atmosphere, spend, sponsorship and the World Cup.
Sector deep dives
Annual deep dives into a single experience sector. Larger sample, greater depth, more nuance. Where Consumer Pulse gives you the read across the economy, GXE Focus goes inside one category at a time.
Wave 1 is Live Football — UK, US and Germany. Quantitative study (n=1,500) plus 30 qualitative depth interviews, covering the full fan journey from planning through to the post-match.
Sponsorship measurement
A framework for understanding how live experiences and sponsorship activations move brand equity. Pre, during and post — with a composite Brand Equity Score that tracks what shifted and why.
Built around five pillars: salience, difference, association, emotion and behaviour. Combines quantitative surveys with on-site qualitative research and behavioural science techniques.
Bespoke research
We plug in where the insight matters most. Not a replacement for strategy or design expertise — we're the consumer and market research layer that makes your decisions land.
Built on 13 years working exclusively in leisure, hospitality and the experience economy — with clients including LEGO, Greene King, Merlin Entertainments and David Lloyd.
Syndicated research · Quarterly
The global consumer tracking study for the experience economy. 13 sectors. 7 markets. Four times a year. A consistent, benchmarked read on how consumers feel, behave and spend — across the full picture.
What it is
Most research in the experience economy sits in sector silos — sport here, music there, hospitality somewhere else. Consumer Pulse sees the whole picture. How consumers allocate their leisure time and spending across sectors, what's growing, what's declining, and where wallet share is shifting.
Live music, spectator sport, festivals, theatre, cinema, attractions, immersive experiences, competitive socialising, active sport, experiential F&B, experiential retail, travel and wellness.
UK, US, Australia, Germany, Japan, Brazil and UAE. Selected to give regional coverage across key experience economy markets, with a GDP per capita weighting to ensure comparable consumer bases.
Nationally representative samples, weighted for age, gender and region. Consistent methodology across every wave to enable reliable trend tracking and market comparison.
Core survey data layered with spend data, social listening and review analysis — giving a richer, more complete picture of consumer behaviour than survey data alone.
What it measures
Who is attending, how often, and how this changes over time and across markets.
What consumers spend across sectors, how they allocate leisure budgets, and where wallet share is shifting.
How consumers feel about each sector and their stated intentions for the next quarter.
What consumers value most and where current experiences fall short of expectation.
How consumers trade off competing sectors — which experiences win when budgets are squeezed.
What stops consumers attending more — cost, access, time, awareness, or something else entirely.
What you get
A narrative-led report covering the headline findings from each wave, with market comparisons, trend lines and strategic implications. Available as a PDF and presentation deck.
An 8–12 slide, shareable summary of the most media-ready findings from each wave. Designed to be used by clients in their own communications and press activity.
For subscribers with a specific sector focus, we provide a detailed cut of the data for their category — with full cross-market breakdowns and quarter-on-quarter trend analysis.
Clients can purchase bespoke questions appended to the standard questionnaire. Only you see the data — giving you proprietary insight within a syndicated study.
Sector deep dives · Annual
Annual deep dives into a single experience sector. Where Consumer Pulse gives you the read across the economy, GXE Focus goes inside one category at a time — with a larger sample, richer methodology, and far greater depth.
Wave 1 · 2026
Football stadiums host hundreds of millions of people every year. The matchday is one of the most emotionally charged consumer experiences in existence. And yet the industry's understanding of what fans actually want — beyond the result — remains surprisingly thin. Wave 1 changes that.
500 live football attendees per market across the UK, US and Germany. Online survey, nationally representative within the live attending population.
30 depth interviews with live football fans, exploring the emotional and identity dimensions of fandom that quantitative methods can't fully reach.
Planning and booking, travel, pre-match, the match itself, F&B, atmosphere, post-match — and everything that shapes whether fans come back.
A dedicated module on the upcoming World Cup — where people plan to watch, willingness to travel, and fan park attitudes across all three markets.
Topics covered
Frequency, travel distance, ticket type, league differences
Avid vs casual vs social, emotional and identity drivers
What makes people attend, what stops them, cost and alternatives
Pre-event, arrival, during the match, post-event dwell
Tickets, F&B, merch, travel, planned vs impulse
What fans want, mobile ordering, quality, price tolerance
What creates it, what ruins it, crowd energy
Comfort, navigation, facilities, accessibility, social spaces
Immersive tech, premium tiers, mixed-use precincts
What makes them great, location, willingness to pay
Recall, activation impact, what works vs feels forced
Viewing intentions, travel intent, fan park awareness
Custom add-ons
Clients can purchase bespoke questions appended to the Wave 1 questionnaire. Only you have access to your module's data — giving you proprietary insight within a syndicated study. Example topics include brand perceptions among fans, drinking behaviour, sponsorship impact and attitudes to low and no-alcohol options.
Wave 1 custom question deadline: 17th April 2026.
Sponsorship measurement
A framework for understanding how live experiences and sponsorship activations move brand equity. Pre, during and post — with a composite Brand Equity Score that tells you what shifted, by how much, and why.
The problem we solve
Experiences create deeper, more durable brand associations than advertising alone. But most brands investing in sponsorship and activation have no robust way to measure what actually changed in people's minds. We built this framework to close that gap.
Experiences create deeper, more durable brand associations than advertising alone.
Brand presence that feels intrusive actively undermines equity, not just visibility. We measure this.
The right experience aligns with your audience's identity and values — not just their demographics.
From atmosphere to activation, experience shapes how your brand is felt, recalled and talked about.
The five pillars
Spontaneous awareness — the brand's place in the consumer's mental repertoire.
How unique or distinct a brand feels from its competitors.
Whether consumers connect the right values and perceptions to the brand.
"A brand for people like me" — the most powerful predictor of long-term loyalty.
Likelihood to consider, purchase and recommend — the commercial output of brand equity.
The approach
Online survey of the target audience before the event. Establishes a brand equity baseline and competitive benchmark. Optional qualitative focus groups to explore deeper associations using behavioural science techniques including moodboards, personification and projective methods.
Live QR-code survey capturing in-the-moment brand impact. On-site depth interviews exploring perception of brand touchpoints, identifying wow moments and pain points as they happen.
Comparative online survey with the same audience. Quantified brand equity shift with diagnostics into what drove the change. Optional post-event focus groups for deeper qualitative exploration.
Bespoke research · Strategic advisory
We plug in where consumer insight matters most. Whether you're entering a new market, developing a brand, testing a concept or trying to understand why your experience isn't landing — we build the research around the question you actually need answered.
How we work
We're not a replacement for your strategy or design expertise. We're the consumer and market research layer that makes your decisions land — designed from the start to fuel strategy, not to generate generic market data.
Who are your audiences, what do they want, and where does the competitive opportunity sit? Desk research, focus groups, depth interviews, social listening and market mapping.
Consumer insight used to identify, shape and stress-test brand territories before you build strategy on top of them. Stimulus-led qual, projective techniques and survey validation.
Propositions, experience concepts and F&B ideas pressure-tested with consumers. Know what will fly before you commit. Accompanied walkthroughs, on-site research and quick quant.
Did it work? Brand tracking, NPS, CX surveys and customer segmentation to close the loop on your strategy.
Why GXE Consumer
Every piece of research we design is built from the ground up to answer experience economy questions. The methods, the stimuli, the questions — shaped around how experience consumers actually think and behave.
Research that identified a flagship London site was wrong before signing — saving a multi-million pound lease commitment. Concept testing that revealed a premium F&B proposition was wrong for the venue occasion before launch. Brand research that redirected a mid-market positioning strategy before it went to market.
Whether you're interested in Consumer Pulse subscriptions, a custom question add-on, the Live Football deep dive, a brand equity measurement programme, or a bespoke research brief — we'd love to hear from you.
Get in touch
We'll get back to you quickly — and if you're not sure exactly what you need, that's fine too. A conversation is a good place to start.
GXE Consumer · Published Research
Our reports give operators, brands, investors and agencies the consumer data they need to make better decisions. Quarterly trackers, sector deep dives and focused studies - all independently produced.
Syndicated tracker
Quarterly consumer tracking across 13 experience sectors and 7 global markets. Each wave delivers a benchmarked, trend-tracked read on participation, spend, sentiment and intent.
The first wave of our quarterly tracker. Cross-sector participation rates, spend behaviour, sentiment and intent across 13 experience sectors in 7 markets.
The second quarterly wave. Trend data vs Wave 1, sector shifts and emerging demand signals across the full experience economy.
Sector deep dives
Annual deep dives into a single experience sector. Larger sample, qualitative depth, and the full picture - from fan types and spend behaviour to sponsorship impact and venue innovation.
The definitive study of the live football fan experience. Attendance behaviour, the matchday journey, F&B, atmosphere, sponsorship and the World Cup 2026.
The second annual sector deep dive. Sector to be confirmed. Register your interest to be notified when the Wave 2 focus sector is announced.
GXE Demand
We can append questions exclusively to your brief across both Consumer Pulse waves and GXE Focus deep dives. Only you see the data.