For decades, concerns have been raised about the declining, ageing audience for classical music, with both scholars and policy makers suggesting it could lead to the art form’s decline. There is a flourishing research tradition on cultural participation, but little is known about the ageing audience. This project aims to explain the driving forces behind the ageing audience by developing an age-period-cohort perspective. The project harmonizes survey data collected over long time periods, collects survey data about attendance, and analyzes longitudinal data on participation. The project also develops a predictive model to forecast the size of classical music audiences.