The BBC Proms closed last night with near-record attendances of 93 percent. That’s around 4,000 paying listeners a night, every night for seven weeks, plus more at lunchtime and afternoon performances.
This summer the Proms faced direct competition from the Olympics, along with severe traffic diversions and a deep economic depression. Did that stop people going to concerts? See the stats below.
Some maintain that the Proms succeed because they receieve massive exposure on BBC radio and television. I would reply that so do sheepdog trials and snooker, both of which are suffering steep audience decline.
There is no rocket science here. There is a large audience to orchestral music and it will respond to a familiar brand, allied to the prospect of c0nstant innovation. Allow the second aspect to atrophy, as some managements have done, and the audience will fall away. Keep the formula fresh and it will just keep coming back. Simple, really.
Press information issued 8 September 2012
The end of an extraordinary summer
- · 93% average attendance for main evening concerts in Royal Albert Hall
- · 51 of 76 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall sold out
- · Over 300,000 attend the 88 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall and Cadogan Hall
After a packed two months the 118th season of the BBC Proms comes to a thrilling conclusion this evening with the world-renowned Last Night of the Proms, led by conductor Jiri Bêlohlávek and featuring tenor Joseph Calleja and violinist Nicola Benedetti, at the Royal Albert Hall, part of the final weekend of an extraordinary summer in Britain.
Average attendance for the main evening Proms in the Royal Albert Hall this year was 93%, just below last year’s record level of 94%. 51 of 76 concerts in the Royal Albert Hall sold out and over 300,000 people attended concerts at both the Royal Albert Hall and Cadogan Hall.
More than 35,000 people bought tickets for the first time and over 7,500 under 18s attended concerts across the season. Record numbers of tickets were sold on the first day of sales with over 100,000 tickets purchased.
Roger Wright, Director BBC Proms, says:
“I’m delighted that the 2012 BBC Proms have been so successful with audiences, particularly in such an unique summer in London. The high attendance figures are a reminder of the strength of the BBC Proms brand and the festival’s vision to bring classical music to the largest possible audience. There has been a demonstrable excitement in embracing a wide range of music throughout the festival. The great value for money which the Proms offers is thanks to the ongoing commitment of the BBC.”
Jasper Hope, Chief Operating Officer, Royal Albert Hall says:
“In an exceptional year for the capital, the BBC Proms stand out as the international cultural event of the summer; a truly representative and extremely successful celebration of the very best classical artists from around the globe. It has been a privilege to once again host the world’s greatest classical music festival on the world’s most famous stage”.
From Beethoven to Boulez; tap dancers to organist Cameron Carpenter’s fancy-footwork; a dedicated John Cage evening to an animated dog playing the violin, this season has truly celebrated the vast range of music the Proms champions. With more new music than ever before the BBC Proms demonstrated its commitment to contemporary work with 31 world premieres, 26 of which were BBC commissions.
With Promming tickets remaining at £5 for the seventh year, the festival continues to offer great value for money, broad programming and creative use of interactive technology and social media with more than 16,000 Twitter followers. The Proms website built on new initiatives including streaming concerts in HD Sound which was made available outside the UK for the first time through a syndication agreement with American Public Media.
The Proms offers an extensive learning programme with a rich offering of daily pre-concert and participatory events to enrich the audience’s experience and reach new and young attenders. Sir Henry Wood, founder-conductor of the Proms, believed in making the best-quality classical music available to the widest possible audience and that ambition remains central to the BBC Proms today as shown in the John Cage centenary celebrations which included the first Proms Music Walk where audience members downloaded 10 new commissions to accompany pieces of performance art around South Kensington.
For the first time ever the Last Night of the Proms will be streamed in 3D in cinemas across the UK. Coverage on BBC television continued to grow with more than 11 million viewers tuning in to see the Proms on television, even before the final two broadcasts of the season, including the Last Night of the Proms. Both the Wallace & Gromit and Broadway Sound Proms had over 1.5 million viewers on BBC One and BBC Two respectively, contributing to a record peak in weekly online traffic, up 92% year on year. Katie Derham has been the face of the Proms on BBC Two for the third year running and the BBC Four Proms have been led on screen by Samira Ahmed, Charles Hazlewood, Suzy Klein and Petroc Trelawny. Concerts will have been broadcast across BBC One, BBC Two, BBC Four, and for the first time in 3D on the BBC HD channel. All services are available to listen and watch again on bbc.co.uk/proms and via the BBC iPlayer.
BBC Radio 3 broadcasts every Proms programme live, with an ambitious range of contextual programming around the music, including many of the Proms Plus events as well as interviews, talks, essays and features.
Highlights in 2012 have included Daniel Barenboim’s complete cycle of Beethoven symphonies coupled with major works by Pierre Boulez performed by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, culminating in Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to coincide with the Olympic Opening Ceremony. Requests on YouTube for one of the four television excerpts from the Beethoven Ninth stand at just under 14,000 and total requests for clips from the 2012 Proms season on YouTube are 190,000 and growing.
This year also saw the first ever Desert Island Discs Prom to celebrate the programme’s 70th anniversary. The John Wilson Orchestra returned to the Proms with two star-studded performances in the Broadway Sound Prom and My Fair Lady, his first complete musical at the Proms.
Youth was a major focus at this year’s Proms with the first ever performance by the BBC Proms Youth Choir and a weekend celebrating UK youth ensembles. The Children’s Prom this year included the premiere of My Concerto in Ee, Lad from Wallace & Gromit, performed by the Aurora Orchestra with violinist Tasmin Little and conductor Nicholas Collon. Visiting orchestras included the Berliner Philharmoniker, Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra, Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra and debut Proms performances from the St Louis Symphony and São Paulo Symphony Orchestra, the first ever Brazilian orchestra at the Proms.
The Proms keep the statistics up because year on year they offer more nights that are dumbed down classical: My Fair Lady, Yeoman, Hollywood, Novello, Desert Island Discs etc. As a mathematical exercise they are not comparing like for like.
Does the BBC publish attendance figures broken down by concert? Did a quick search but couldn’t find any.
It should be relatively easy to establish whether the “dumbed down” concerts are keeping things afloat.
one tree does not a forest make.
It was fabulous that so many of the Proms were televised this year. Mixed standards of performance, of course, but what an outstanding concert the Gustav Mahler Jungendorchester gave with its Wagner, Strauss and Ravel under the wonderful guidance of Daniel Gatti. A historic recording of the future, I’m sure. It would be interesting to know audience figures for the televised proms. Nothing wrong with introducing lighter programmes particularly when you get thrilling performances like those directed by John Wilson.
I would be curious to know if the Proms would do well in the States. Cultural differences will come into play. Classical music could be doing better in Europe/UK than the USA, yet overall, we still have some big challenges.
Also, add me to the list that is wanting to know the break down concert by concert. Which concerts are pulling the numbers up?
I admire your optimism on this one though. Thank you!
I find the variety – some pops, some quite serious – a very good mix. Kudos to all involved and thanks for putting so many on TV!
The best comparison in the U.S. would be the Boston Pops Orchestra(s), and I would like very much to see a point-by-point comparison. Philly Pops certainly does well. It takes a gifted leader, like any other ensemble. Unfortunately, it takes a long time to create and maintain an institution, which we do not seem to be good at. Boston is the most English American city, as well. The New York Philharmonic and Metropolitan Opera always draw big crowds when they perform for free in Central Park. Civic engagement is an important activity for orchestras. Not all do well on that. Our biggest obstacle has long been the inability to keep real culture on television. The decline of networks has not helped. They were once required to broadcast “quality” programming, which meant having their own orchestras and regular programs that educated millions. Cable has been a complete failure, it seems. Bravo and A & E long ago gave up any cultural content.
Albeit on a much smaller scale in comparison to the Proms, one should certainly mention the wonderful Grant Park Music Festival held each summer in Chicago under the artistic direction of Carlos Kalmar. The only free outdoor classical music series in the USA, and righly acclaimed for its wide range of enterprising and challenging repertoire. http://www.grantparkmusicfestival.com To take just one example – this year’s final concerts of Dvorak’s infrequently performed “The Spectre’s Bride” attracted an enraptured audience of many thousands to the free lawn picnic area and seating. In my opinion it would be pretty hard to find a more diverse audience anywhere. Additionally, it goes to show that not everything is going wrong in the American classical music scene. Have you been to the festival Norman? Very highly recommended.
You’re allowed to beat your own drum once in a while, Mr. Lebrecht. Good for the Proms that they are going strong and attract a large audience.
However, using an unusual concert format and a long-established summer festival to write:
“There is no rocket science here. There is a large audience to orchestral music and it will respond to a familiar brand, allied to the prospect of constant innovation. Allow the second aspect to atrophy, as some managements have done, and the audience will fall away. Keep the formula fresh and it will just keep coming back. Simple, really.”
sounds a bit flippant, not to say arrogant.
You can’t compare a festival to a regular orchestral subscription season lasting 8-9 months. Most established classical music festivals are doing quite well because their duration is shorter and because they take place in summer when – especially in London – a boatload of tickets will be sold to tourists during vacation season.
One could, indeed, argue that the Proms have succeeded – at least in latter decades – because they maintain a traditional, popular format. Yes, they do present some new ensembles and some fringe repertoire, but that’s not their mainstay. And with ticket prices at £5, who couldn’t fill a concert hall? It would be nice if all classical music ventures received enough government funding to be able to keep ticket prices that low.
Based on your theory, Red {an orchestra}, a highly innovative ensemble, should have been a runaway success. Yet it folded in 2008 due to financial difficulties. Likewise, if you look at the recent history of the CMA/ASCAP awards for Adventurous Programming, you will find these symphony orchestras among the prize winners:
2004: Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, The Louisville Orchestra.
2005: Minnesota Orchestra, Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra.
2006: Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Colorado Symphony Orchestra, North Carolina Symphony, Rochester Philharmonic
2007: Minnesota Orchestra, Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra.
Need I include more years? These orchestras, which follow your formula for success should have been star performers enjoying the same prosperity as the Proms. Instead, they have recently been, or currently are, in dire straits.
The data disproves your rosy theory, doesn’t it?
Not really, Karin. ASCAP is no measure for adventure, more for self-interest. Actual innovation – fresh thinking – has lagged in almost all the orchs you cite.
In what way are the ASCAP programming awards a measure of self-interest rather than adventure?
That is a rather broad statement, Mr. Lebrecht. How do you define innovation in that case?
Based on your article above, innovation is based on programming, mass media exposure and audience engagement – to distill your main points.
If you look at the published programs that won a prize on the ASCAP website, you can’t really say that the winning orchestras were nominated out of self-interest. Unless playing the composers of one’s own country counts against one. Not everyone considers Boulez or Henze the be all and end all of musical innovation.
The LA Phil has already done cinema broadcasts of its concerts with Dudamel. It too was named as a prizewinner by ASCAP multiple times, though I didn’t mention it and other orchestras that seem to be doing well. Remember that there are no government-run TV stations that have public service obligations in the US. PBS does its best to show performances from the Met, but even this channel has to look towards viewer demographics in order to raise funds. The commercial TV stations wouldn’t show a concert unless you paid for the air-time. I doubt even an Obama super pac could raise enough money in his name to pay for broadcasting a concert on NBC. That aside, I personally don’t foresee a great future for symphonic concerts streamed to cinemas, since orchestras are simply not engaging enough to watch for protracted periods of time.
Beyond that, the BBC and through it another institution, the Proms, have a country-wide mission to fulfill. American orchestras, even the top tier ones, are fundamentally regional as regards their mission. Back in the time of the NBC Symphony, this was a different matter, since NBC radio reached the entire US. Likewise with Bernstein’s Young People’s Concerts, which were broadcast in a time when the US only had 3 national TV channels. You can’t compare a festival working with the BBC to a US orchestra. Even local stations only show the local news, while the remaining programming is syndicated. So the chance of the Indy SO getting air time is pretty much nil. Unless they pay for it, that is. How much did the Proms pay the BBC to get televised throughout the UK?
Finally, as regards audience engagement I would dare say that if it wasn’t invented in the US, then it was among the first countries to conduct such activities, and has developed programs that have been copied by orchestras throughout the world. Meet the Composer, pre-concert lectures, post-concert Q&A with the conductor and soloist, special initiatives to bring the music to the audience…all of this is done by every orchestra in its right mind. Years ago, the Detroit SO would mail CD samplers along with their subscription materials so people could get a real “feel” for the season they were about to subscribe to.
I could easily turn your dismissive comment that “ASCAP is no measure for adventure, more for self-interest” around and say that the BBC is no measure for adventure in the area of programming the Proms. It is simply one government organization promoting another in the self-interest of British culture. I’d like to see what the BBC and the Proms would do if all their public funding went away (though I hope that never happens). You’d have a Sky TV equivalent without any cultural programming and a festival using all its time to discover innovative ways to raise funds instead of innovative audience outreach programs.
But as I said earlier, it’s OK for you to toot your own horn once in a while, since the Proms is a fine music festival, certainly a unique one and one of the best in the world. But be careful about dissing the efforts of orchestras and festivals in countries which don’t have public funding for the arts and publicly funded TV. You’re comparing apples to oranges in terms of operating conditions.
I shall discuss innovation – new ways of conceiving the orchestra – in an essay at the end of the month.
Very well Mr. Lebrecht. I shall look forward to reading your highly topical essay in these times, also in the hope that it will address some of the issues I raised above.
All the best!
This was very interesting to read and learn about. I enjoyed the videos and thought they did an excellent job!