Following, clientele, public, audience are comparable when they denote the body of persons who attach themselves to another especially as disciples, patrons, or admirers.
Following is the most comprehensive term, applicable to a group that follows either as a physical train or retinue or as the adherents of a leader, the disciples of a philosopher, the customers of a salesman, the admirers of a young woman, or the fans of an actor.
Clientele is chiefly used of the persons, collectively, who go habitually for services to a professional man (as a lawyer or physician) or who give their patronage to a business establishment (as a hotel, a restaurant, or a shop).
Public basically denotes a group of people with a common interest and may come close to following in many of its applications (as to adherents, disciples, customers, and admirers); often, however, it distinctively conveys the notion of a group making active demands rather than one passively or admiringly following.
Audience is applicable to a following that listens with attention to what a person has to say whenever he addresses them (as in a speech or a book).
Audience, rather than spectators (see SPECTATOR ), is also the usual term for designating the body of persons attending a lecture, a play, or a concert on the assumption that they are there primarily to hear, only secondarily to see.