Malta theatre audiences up 22%
Theatres enjoyed an increase of 22 per cent in audiences last year, according to the National Statistics Office.
The NSO said the theatres staged a total of 314 productions and 579 performances in 2008, with audiences of 209,000.
It said the number of productions had increases by 70 over the previous year. The majority of these productions were concerts, comprising 58 per cent of the total. Theatres put up an average 1.8 performances per production, which totalled 579 - an increase of 13 per cent with respect to 2007.
Concerts were more frequent despite having the lowest number of repeat performances per production, on average. In fact, it resulted that the highest number of repeat performances in 2008 was in respect of dramatic productions, with an average of 4.6 performances.
Musicals and comedy came next, with averages of 3.5 and 3.0 respectively.
Theatre audiences totalled 209,003, an increase of 22 per cent when compared to 2007. The biggest audiences were those attending concerts (24 per cent), followed by musicals (17 per cent) and comedy (13 per cent).
A different pattern was observed upon calculating average audience size per performance. The NSO said it had emerged that theatre audiences prefered musicals, with an average of 822 per performance. Dance and opera followed, with average audiences of 645 and 600 per performance respectively.
Theatre-seat utilisation stood at 59 per cent, an increase of 8 per cent over the preceding year. Unlike previous years, average theatre-seat utilisation was highest for musicals, and stood at 78 per cent. Significant averages were also registered for opera (76 per cent) and comedy (64 per cent) as during the previous two years.
During the year under review, theatres employed a total of 61 paid workers and 102 voluntary workers. It resulted that these theatres earned a total of €1.4 million and spent €1.2 million in 2008. Just over 45 per cent of the total income was attributed to the leasing of halls and related services, while another 24 per cent was attributed to theatrical activities organised by the theatres themselves. A significant proportion of theatre expenditure was attributed to staff and sub-contracting costs - 72 per cent of the total expenditure
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Thomas Camilleri
Jun 10th 2009, 14:03
(In response to Mr. Florian)
Simply because when taking into account venues like the MCC, The Astra and Aurora theatres in Gozo, the MFCC and other venues around Malta which have a much higher capacity than the Manoel, this would reflect in the average audience size per performance.
Stephen Florian
Jun 3rd 2009, 23:20
How can NSO come up with an average of 822 pax per performance when the Monoel theatre capacity is near the 600 mark ? Statististics huh ?
K Spiteri
Jun 3rd 2009, 15:31
And they say that there's no need of building the Opera House site as it was... a Theatre!!!
Shame on the government's advisors... They only want to please the elite!!!