Parsing the numbers

My friend Julia

class=SpellE>Kirchhausen — VP, Public Relations at the American Symphony

Orchestra League — gave me another view on trends in orchestral ticket sales. I’d

said they’ve been declining steadily since 1990, and she said the League’s figures

give a different picture, showing a peak in 1996-97, as follows:

 

season

style='mso-bidi-font-size:11.0pt'>                        

attendance          

style='mso-spacerun:yes'>

style='mso-spacerun:yes'> # of concerts           

1990-91                      

27,198,563                 

25,210        

1993-94                      

30,742,252                 

27,484

1994-95                      

29,862,089                 

28,609

1995-96                      

31,297,124                 

29,661

1996-97                      

32,661,817                 

30,025

1997-98                      

32,161,564                 

31,766

1998-99                      

30,795,560                 

31,549

1999-00                      

31,667,154                 

33,154

2000-01                      

31,532,607                 

36,437

2001-02                      

30,305,376                 

37,118

2002-03                      

27,802,240                 

38,182

2003-04                      

27,682,749                 

37,263

 

But now comes the interesting

part. Julia’s numbers are aggregate figures for 1200 American orchestras,

gathered from many of them and then extrapolated to cover all the rest. My

figures (which I’ve seen, but can’t at this point reproduce here) were gathered

only from some of the largest orchestras. And there’s another difference, too. The

League’s figures cover attendance for all kinds of concerts (family concerts,

classical concerts, kids’ concerts, holiday concerts, parks concerts, you name

it), while my figures covered only sales for core classical subscription events.

So here are two

obvious explanations for the disparity. First, big orchestras might show a

larger sales decline than small ones. Second — and I think this is very likely —

sales for core classical events are declining faster than attendance at all

events. That would be a sign of trouble, since the core classical concerts (at

which orchestras play the music that’s most important to them) are the core of

an orchestra’s artistic mission. That artistic mission (if these figures are

correct) has been getting less support with each passing year, though more

broadly populist events don’t do as badly. There might also be a distinction here

between sales and attendance. School concerts and parks concerts (maybe with

tens of thousands of people listening) count toward attendance; they don’t

count toward sales.

But one thing these

figures certainly show is that we need more data. I might have been too hasty,

drawing conclusions for all orchestras from data that comes from just a few of

them (though of course a sharp decline in large-orchestra ticket sales is very

troubling). But the League’s figures, as Julia so helpfully reported them to

me, are too general to show much of anything (though they do seem to confirm some

kind of decline). There’s also the fascinating increase in the number of

concerts orchestras give. What’s up with that?

We need more data.

For a start, we need sales and attendance figures broken down by size of

orchestra and type of concert. Once we have that, we can start to draw firmer

conclusions, though I stick by my statement that a striking decline in

large-orchestra ticket sales looks very bad for classical music (or at least

for classical music as we’ve been used to seeing it operate).