Opera House accounts in the spotlight: Ticket sales drop by £300k in three years

Thursday 31 August 2017

The Jersey Opera House’s accounts are in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons after it was revealed that ticket sales have nosedived by more than £300,000 since 2014.

Recently-published accounts have shown the financial drama playing out backstage at the much-loved island music and theatre venue.

Total comprehensive income was £51,947 last year – a partial recovery from a dip to just £12,581 the previous year, but still nearly £25,000 worse off than two years earlier.

Despite more money being pumped into advertising – an increase of nearly £8,000 since 2014 taking the overall spend to £55,372 – revenue generated from ticket sales fell by £310,000. Last year, the box office took in £472,342 compared with £783,081 in 2014.

Annual running costs also appeared to have jumped. Light and heating costs increased by just under £9,000 from 2014 to 2016, while health and safety-related expenditure rocketed from just £228 in 2015 to £5,976.

Pictured: The most recent annual report for the Jersey Opera House revealed plummeting ticket sale revenue.

It appears the institution, which has been a fixture of Jersey’s cultural scene since 1865, is mostly supported by theatre hire income, which soared by nearly £90,000 to £195,667 from 2015 to 2016. Take-up of children’s drama classes also provided a steady income of around £14,000 each year.

But bar and food sales were by far the largest non-ticket earner. Last year they totalled £262,955 – nearly half the amount spent on tickets.

The news comes a little over a decade after a lack of funds forced the closure of the Opera House. It shut its doors in 2005 after spending the following year’s budget, but public donations and pledges worth £61,000 later brought its finances back to health.

Since then, the States have injected hundreds of thousands into maintenance projects in the 2010s, including the transformation of a derelict area into a new performance and rehearsal studio, and have provided it with grants. In 2016 alone it received £463,600 in funding from the Economic Development Department and has been promised further financial assistance for 2017 as part of a three-year agreement.

But the latest accounts reflect an uncertain future. “At the date of signing these financial statements it is unknown what level of ongoing support will be available from the States of Jersey. Although a three year agreement has been signed (2016-2019) the level of funding has only been agreed for 2017. The result of this situation may affect the Company’s ability to continue in its role as Manager of the Jersey Opera House,” a foreword to the Opera House company’s annual report read.

This year, the stage has welcomed big names from the worlds of comedy and music including Omid Djalili, Jasper Carrott and Alistair McGowan, and singer-songwriter Newton Faulkner, and is now preparing for the Jersey Festival of Words, which will see it host media personalities Clare Balding, Greg James and philosopher Richard Dawkins. The effect those high-profile guests will have on the Opera House's earnings, however, will not be revealed until the 2017 accounts are audited and published next year.