Overseas ballet companies visiting the UK in 2013

[restor]

You seem to be suggesting that the audience for ballet in London is very limited - visiting companies of which there seem to be a lot are no charge to the Uk taxpayer so why do taxpayers  need to pay out for companies here which are in any case full of foreign artists?

[Jan McNulty]

You seem to be suggesting that the audience for ballet in London is very limited - visiting companies of which there seem to be a lot are no charge to the Uk taxpayer so why do taxpayers  need to pay out for companies here which are in any case full of foreign artists?

 

I really don't think that Aileen has suggested that at all.  I think recent experience has shown that people do not want to pay Coli prices.  I have already seen mention of ticket offers for Boston Ballet.

 

I think that you may find that there is a cost to the British taxpayer because the theatres that they tend to appear at receive ACE grants as I mentioned at post #32.

 

This constant sniping at how taxpayer money is used, on every possible thread it can be mentioned on, is starting to sound like a 78 record with the needle stuck - or at least my responses are!

Edited May 26, 2013 by Janet McNulty
edited to add a couple of words

[Anna C]

I don't know that the appetite for ballet has lessened aileen; rather that perhaps many people just have much less money to spend on going to the theatre and ballet at the moment? I know we do. So it makes sense that if we can only afford to see a few ballets per year, dd wants to see dancers she knows.

 

Restor, you do seem to have an issue with funding for British companies and schools.

[aileen]

I'm not suggesting that appetite for ballet has decreased (I've no way of knowing whether this is the case, or not) only that there seem to be more overseas ballet companies visiting the UK this year than in previous years. What those companies may not realise is that, apart from the very rich, everyone is feeling the pinch at the moment due to pressure on wages and rising prices for many of the basics.

[restor]

Is there an ACE grant for the London Coliseum?  - There is one for ENO - perhaps you confuse the two - the profit from the rental of the venue by overseas companies helps to support the venue & ENO. In the main the cost of tickets to the public by visiting companies is not more than that of the taxpayer subsidised companies.

 

It is wonderful that our hobby of going to see British ballet companies is subsidised. I do not oppose taxpayer support for the arts ,

but how it is sometimes spent or rather wasted. Promoters and visiting companies often have lower costs than the subsidised companies some of which also have low audiences.

 

If, as has been suggeted, there is a low audience generally for ballet then perhaps they should look at  making the grant more dependant  on ticket sales. Tickets are often discounted anyway - and cost less than for many sporting events - which have no subsidy and greater public interest.

 

The lack of willingness to accept that commercial ballet promoters can present high quality ballet at a lower cost and address the waste that does occur in some of the subsidised companies and how they could spend the grant better - within the ballet world - is disappointing.

[Jan McNulty]

ENO owns the Coliseum - they get a subsidy therefore by implication the theatre is subsidised.

 

Do some of the visiting companies (not all) have lower costs because of poor scenery and costumes and because they bring the same 3 or 4 productions each time?

 

I was just thinking Restor, we have all seen ominous signs that the Government is enforcing more cuts and more reviews into who gets what.  Have you contacted appropriate bodies with your views?

[restor]

The hire fees at the London Coliseum generate a profit for the venue. If ENO were not there there could also be visiting opera companies there.

 

All companies that visit the Uk are not the same some are small touring companies that give a tired Swan Lake to the provinces - who perhaps buy more tickets to view that than perhaps Rambert - but that is public taste.

 

With the possibility of further cuts in taxpayer funding it would be good if companies addressed  some of their waste and looked at how some sucessful private promoters cut costs - costs not quality- rather than think they have a right to a certain level of grant. If they don't do this and think ahead they may not manage well if there are more cuts.

[Amelia]

there seem to be more overseas ballet companies visiting the UK this year than in previous years.

It is not surprising if we remember what summer we had last year. Impresarios knew that London will be full of sport fans, it will be impossible for ballet companies to compete with the Olympics' appeal as well as to get fair accommodation rates. The Bolshoi is coming to London this year instead of 2012 for this particular reason. It is one-of-the-kind backlog of business.