London theatre revenues at record level despite slight fall in audience numbers
West end theatre revenues were higher than ever before last year despite a slight fall in attendances, a dip that can be attributed to the arrival of a large number of major shows that closed theatres for longer than normal.
The Society of London Theatres (Solt) said the arrival of mega-musicals such as The Wizard of Oz, Shrek, Ghost and Matilda meant there were more weeks than usual when big theatres were closed as the shows were installed. Instead of 85 dark weeks in 2010, there were 146 in 2011, helping to explain a drop in overall attendance from 14,152,230 in 2010 to 13,915,185 last year.
But while attendance figures were down, the average number of people at each performance increased; as were revenues, up 3.1% to £528,375,874.
"The figures show the west end is very healthy and full of great shows that audiences are keen to see," said producer Mark Rubinstein, president of Solt. "There has been year-on-year growth for eight years, which is very encouraging."
The slight drop in attendance was disappointing but "understandable," he added. "We had fewer performances because a lot of the big theatres changed over so their were new shows coming in to the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, the Palladium, the Piccadilly and Cambridge. Big shows do take quite a time to get in."
Rubinstein said the continued strength of the play was another characteristic of the west end, with revenues up by 10% on 2010. One particular standout was Jez Butterworth's wildly popular Jerusalem. It finished its sold out second west end run earlier this month, attracting religious fervour-like devotion with people camping through the night in the hope of buying on-the-day tickets.
Its success shone a light on the huge importance of the subsidised sector in the overall supply chain as it was originally commissioned and produced by the Royal Court. Other examples are War Horse, selling out at the New London Theatre, and One Man, Two Guvnors doing similar business at the Adelphi and providing lucrative streams of revenue to the National Theatre.
Not that it was all subsidised sector commissions – there was also Richard III and Noises Off at the Old Vic and Much Ado About Nothing at the Wyndhams which added to the general sense of buoyancy.
The importance of London theatre to the UK economy was highlighted by the £88,062,646 in VAT receipts for the treasury in 2011.
The figures in their present form have been collected since 1986, a year when there were 213 productions and audiences of 10.2 million. The attendance figures peaked in 2009 at 14.2m and are now at 13.9m with 256 new productions.
The big question mark for the west end this year could be the Olympics with mixed predictions of how things will turn out. The National Theatre is bullish, pointing to healthy summer advance ticket sales for War Horse. Andrew Lloyd Webber, meanwhile, has warned of a "bloodbath" and is planning to close three of his seven west end theatres.
Rubinstein said there are reasons to be optimistic, including advanced bookings for this year being up onlast year. "Some shows are substantially up for the Olympic period." The society would, he added, be working hard to attract visitors from the Olympic site into the west end with both live and video entertainment promoting theatre.
"Also, looking one, two, three years down the line, that promotion of London across the world is a fantastic advert and that can only be beneficial in the long term."