Royal Opera House Annual Review 2017-18

[JohnS]

I see the long expected 2017-18 Annual Review is now published but without as yet any press notice.

 

https://static.roh.org.uk/about/annual-review/pdfs/Annual-Report-2017-2018.pdf?_ga=2.126007757.1939063875.1558728519-1251461159.1552740691

 

The Chairman’s and Chief Executive’s reports are both dated 26 February 2019 - which rather begs a question why it has taken another 3 months for the report to be published.

 

The Annual Review includes the following:

“More than half the tickets at our Covent Garden home cost £65 or less, and more than 30% were £35 or less;

22,000 people attended low-priced enhanced performances for schools, families, students and community groups”

 

The previous Review’s formulation was:

“31% of tickets at £30 or less
38% of tickets at £40 or less

47% of tickets at £50 or less

20,900+ attended a subsidized performance with low-cost tickets for families and schools”

 

Given the lack of precision in the 2017-18 report, it’s impossible to compare what has changed between the years.  My suggestion would be that if we want a comparison with 2016-17’s ‘47% of tickets at £50 or less’, you’d need to be looking at ‘47% of tickets at c£60 or less’ in 2017-18 (as ‘more than half the tickets cost less than £65’). On that basis the threshold for the 47% of lower priced tickets has increased from £50 to c£60, a 20% increase, well in excess of inflation.  But this is guess work and it’s frustrating that there isn’t a direct comparison.

 

There is a more direct comparison between 2016-17’s ‘31% of tickets at £30 or less’ and the latest Review’s ‘more than 30% of tickets were £35 or less’.  Here the threshold for the cheapest seats increases from £30 to £35, a 17% increase and significantly greater than inflation.

 

I’ve always taken ‘our Covent Garden home’ to mean ‘main stage’ but it’s not explicit.

 

I’m sure there are many other nuggets in the Annual Review but thought it might be worth adding a new thread.

 

 

 

[Lizbie1]

You can add to that statistical soup the “40% of tickets at £45 or less” used in Alex Beard’s article in the Autumn Friends magazine - it says this is for “last season”: presumably this refers to 17/18 figures as 18/19 won’t be available for a couple of months yet.

[JohnS]

Many thanks Lizbie

 

I noticed that the new Annual Review hadn't included this statistic and I rather wonder if it was thought a more acceptable figure than the ones in the Annual Review which both suggest pretty significant ticket price increases for more modestly priced tickets.

 

The 40% of tickets at £45 or less best sits alongside the previous year’s 38% of tickets at £40 or less, so perhaps in 2017-18 38% of tickets were at c£43 or less. The increase from £40 to c£43 is 7.5%, still more than double the inflation rate but much less than the implied inflation in the other comparisons.

 

For ease of comparison it would be much better if the Royal Opera House published either %age of tickets below £30, £50 and £70 or the price threshold at which 30% and 50% of tickets are sold.  Whatever option is measured, the Royal Opera House needs to make clear what the basis is ie whether this is an analysis of advertised ticket price for main stage performances available for public booking before any discounting and excluding schools matinees etc.

[MJW]

An interesting read - strange that its not yet available on the Charity Commission or Companies House websites.

[Lizbie1]

One begins to suspect that “ease of comparison” is what they’re trying to avoid.

[capybara]

5 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

One begins to suspect that “ease of comparison” is what they’re trying to avoid.

 

 Precisely. Statistics can be used/distorted to prove anything. They are only of any value if the same measures are used year-on-year.

This annual report, as with so many, is written mainly with an eye on the agenda of the funders.

But thank you, JohnS, for your analysis.

[Dawnstar]

4 hours ago, JohnS said:

The Annual Review includes the following:

“More than half the tickets at our Covent Garden home cost £65 or less, and more than 30% were £35 or less;

22,000 people attended low-priced enhanced performances for schools, families, students and community groups”

 

They don't seem to specify anywhere whether more than half the tickets under £65 includes the 22,000 low-priced performances. It must make quite a difference to the figures depending on whether they're included or not. Ditto whether or not non-main house performances are included.

 

Page 23 "Improve our understanding of audiences" - not sure whether the regular part of the audience would give them very high marks for this bit!

 

I wonder what the "Ethics Committee" does?