The theatre sector only sees 2% drop in attendance despite crisis

Barcelona (ACN).- Despite the economic crisis, the 2009-2010 theatre season has only experienced a 2% drop in its theatre attendance. Although Daniel Martínez, president of the Theatre Business Association of Catalonia (ADETCA), says that these numbers represent a “satisfactory and optimistic” balance from last season, he is worried about how the crisis may affect public budget.

As a result of city council budgetary crisis and a drop in contracts, the president of ADETCA called for a “necessary restructuring” of the theatre system. He calls for this restructuring not during this moment of economic crisis, but rather for the “future when it will be more difficult to return to initial city council budgets”.

The data

Despite the economic crisis, the 2009-2010 theatre season has maintained its numbers with only a slight 2% drop in attendance. With 37% less attendance, the musical has been hit the hardest. Meanwhile, there has been a 70% increase in attendance of plays and a 39% increase in dance performances.

The descent in musical attendance is said to be a result of the lack of big productions this year. The Barcelona Teatre Musical has gone from 297 shows to 100 and the Teatre Victòria from around 330 to 260 shows.

Optimism has grown with the opening of 4 new venues for stage arts: the Alexandra Teatre, the Almeria Teatre, the Antic Teatre and the Artèria Paral·lel. The new venues have raised the number of shows by 30%.

Some 48% of shows were written by Catalans -123 more than last year- and 75% of productions were Catalan with 634 total shows. Regarding the linguistic question, 938,000 people attended performances in Catalan and 403,000 in Spanish.

As far as productions, the most visited this season is the musical ‘Hoy no me puedo levantar’, about the 1980’s Spanish pop band Mecano, at the Teatre Tívoli followed by 'La doble vida d'en John', 'Un marit ideal', 'Garrick', 'La bella y la bestia', 'Boeing, boeing', 'Il trovatore', 'Un déu salvatge', 'Carmen' and 'M'agrada molt el que fas'.