London has overtaken New York as the world's biggest theater capital, according to a new report by the Society of London Theatre. In 2012/13, London theaters took in £618.5m ($1.04 billion) at the box office, more than the city's movie theaters.
The average ticket price overall was £27.76 ($46.73), while the average for commercial West End theaters was £36.05 ($60.69). (All dollar amounts in this article are calculated at today's conversion rate.) By contrast, the average ticket price for a Broadway show passed the $100 milestone this season, hitting $103.88.
West End attendance outstripped Broadway's by 20%. However, the report notes that as no similar study has been carried out on New York theater as a whole, a comparison between London and New York taking Off- and Off-Off-Broadway into account wasn't possible.
Over 22 million people attended performances in London's 241 professional theaters. That's 40 per cent more than the 13 million who turned up at Premier League soccer matches. Both admissions and box office were up over the previous year.
London's 241 theaters seat over 110,000. That includes both non-profit and commercial, non-subsidized (e.g. the big West End theaters, equivalent to Broadway) and subsidized. It encompasses theaters of all capacities, from the Lord Stanley pub theatre with 30 seats to the London Coliseum with 2,359.
The 42 commercial West End theaters account for 42,500 seats, more than a third of the total capacity. Seventy-six Arts Council-funded (subsidized) non-profit theaters offer a combined 28,514 seats.
On average, over 3,000 performers and 6,500 full-time staff are working in London theaters, together with over 10,000 part-time and freelance staff.
Not surprisingly, the London press is playing up the "West End beats Broadway" angle of the story, with headlines like the Independent's "West End wipes the floor with Broadway." Look at those average prices, though--just over $100 on the Great White Way, just over $60 in London. And some of the difference has gone to refurbishing Broadway's theaters, which are by and large in much better condition than the West End's.
And London had Shakespeare, too.
The Bard would have been proud of today's London theater universe in this, his 450th anniversary year, if he could but return for a gander. As Nick de Somogyi wrote in Shakespeare on Theatre, "From the brown paper crown used to taunt the Duke of York in one of his earliest plays, to the 'baseless fabric' in one of his last, [Shakespeare] remained keenly aware of the essential fragility of his craft, and that the 'spectacles' his plays created do indeed 'scarce last like shoes of brown paper', leaving 'not a rack behind'."
With all that, London theater itself soldiers on.
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