According to the data monitoring and calculation analysis of the ticket information collection platform of the China Performance Industry Association, the number of commercial performances (excluding entertainment venues) nationwide from January 1 to March 31, 2024 will be 119,000, a year-on-year increase of 72.71% over 2023; the box office revenue will be 10.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 116.87% over 2023; the number of audiences will be 38.8699 million, a year-on-year increase of 77.88% over 2023. The national performance market has started well, achieving a good start in terms of the number of performances, box office, and audience.
01. Performances during the Spring Festival holiday were very popular, and the effect of boosting consumption was outstanding
During the 2024 Spring Festival, professional theaters, new performing arts spaces and other performance venues will have many projects, many sessions and many types, covering drama, opera, cross talk, concerts, musicals, children's plays, etc., which are popular products that meet social needs, family consumption and parent-child consumption during the Spring Festival holiday. The repertoires of domestic theaters and troupes such as "Under the Red Flag" by Lao She of Beijing People's Art Theater, "The Paint Is Not Dry" comedy of Tianjin People's Art Theater, "The Tea Bottle Plan" of Pingju "Hua School", and "Red Chinese New Year" New Year Concert of Shanghai National Orchestra will be performed continuously during the Spring Festival holiday. Among the foreign projects coming to China, the Broadway musical "The Sound of Music" and Shanghai Majestic Theater jointly created the first New Year Theater Market, which attracted widespread attention. In addition to professional theaters, small theaters and new performing arts spaces will continue to be open during the Spring Festival holiday, and the performance categories are mainly cross talk, magic and children's plays. The Spring Festival holiday is also the peak travel period, and the strong travel is the key factor in maintaining the high popularity of tourism performances. Celebrating the "Cultural Year" and using performances to help local culture "go viral" has also become an important part of organizing and planning Spring Festival holiday activities across the country.
02. Large-scale concerts maintain consumption activity, and the proportion of overseas artists at music festivals increases sharply
After experiencing explosive growth in large-scale commercial performances in 2023, the market for large-scale commercial performances, including concerts and music festivals, remains hot this year. The first quarter was originally the off-season for large-scale concerts and music festivals, but the market in the first quarter of 2024 showed a trend of "off-season but not off-season", with nearly 200 large and medium-sized concerts and music festivals with more than 2,000 people nationwide. Popular projects such as Jacky Cheung Shanghai Station, JJ Lin Chengdu Station, Joker Xue Qujing Station, Cyndi Wang Hefei Station, and A-Mei Chengdu Station were all staged in the first quarter. According to information from the ticketing platform, more than 20 singers released their full-year performance plans in the first quarter, and Jay Chou Hangzhou Station, Phoenix Legend Changzhou Station and other popular projects were concentrated on ticketing, and the concert ticketing market continued to heat up.
Due to the strong driving effect of performance projects, many places have combined New Year cultural tourism projects with music festivals, such as the 2024 Canal Peak Music Carnival, Super Live New Year Music Carnival, Dandelion Music Festival, etc. Many brand music festivals, including Bubble Island Music Festival, Cactus Music Festival, Haichao Universe Music Festival, M_DSK Music Festival, Dream Future·Shine Thousand Hands Music Festival, etc., released performance plans in the first quarter, and the proportion of overseas artists far exceeded that of last year. Among them, the May Day performance lineup of Hangzhou "Dream Future·Shine Thousand Hands Music Festival" includes 14 groups of overseas artists, accounting for more than 50%.
It can be foreseen that when the market fully recovers, as one of the most active categories in the market, music festivals will present a richer and more selective supply of performance products in multiple dimensions such as theme selection, content planning, band invitations, and commercial cooperation.
03. The number of professional theater performances and performances exceeded that of the first quarter of previous years
In the first quarter, there was an abundant supply of popular plays in professional theaters, and the enthusiasm for viewing and consumption remained unabated. Beijing People's Art Theater's "Sunrise" was performed 15 times in a row at the Cao Yu Theater, and all the tickets were sold out as soon as they were released. Many star-level dramas and musicals such as Lin Zhaohua's "Yinding Bridge", the annual drama "Les Miserables" of Central China Art Theater, and Tianjin People's Art Theater's "Strange People in the World", the musicals "No Longer Human", "Anna Karenina", and "Phantom of the Opera 2" were staged one after another in the first quarter. Dance dramas also showed an obvious "clustering" phenomenon. Hot market projects such as "Riverdance", "Li Bai", "Peacock", and "Only Green" are all being performed. "Only Green" has toured more than 60 times in the first quarter alone. The tour of popular stage art works has effectively driven the consumption of theater performances in various places.
Because the first quarter includes the winter vacation, there are many children's drama performances. In addition to large theater projects such as "Wonderful Night at Dunhuang", "Ultraman Series", and "Physics Show", innovative small theater projects such as "Dreaming of the Chinese Poetry Conference of the Tang and Song Dynasties" and the poetry conference "Poetry Filled Chang'an" also meet the family viewing needs at multiple levels.
04. Small theaters and new performing arts spaces continue to advance and integrate into various urban spaces
In 2023, the role of small theaters and new performing arts spaces in stimulating consumption will be fully demonstrated. Local cultural and tourism departments will attach great importance to and promote them in depth, and the type classification will also become more diverse.
In January and February this year, Yangzhou launched the "Good Drama" small theater exhibition season event. 26 excellent small theater plays (festivals) carried out exchange and tour activities in various theaters of all sizes. More than 20 small theater representatives carried out nearly 400 performances of various types of small theaters. The Hangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Film and Tourism evaluated and announced the first batch of 40 "Urban Art Stages·New Performing Arts Spaces", including 5 gold medal performing arts new spaces, 15 demonstration performing arts new spaces, and 20 urban art stage street performing arts demonstration projects.
In the past, private production and operation organizations were the main force in the performance and operation of new performing arts spaces. In response to the increasingly diversified performance market segmentation needs, state-owned art institutions pay more and more attention to the flexibility of small theaters, constantly promote the development of small theaters, increase down-to-earth and small-scale performances, and form a complementary and mutually reinforcing relationship with large theaters and large theaters. At the end of February, the new performing arts space of the China Puppet Art Theater, the "China Puppet Art Theater Shuangyifa Performing Arts Center Theater", was unveiled, aiming to create a vibrant comprehensive cultural performing arts space integrating performing arts, exhibitions, education and training, and bring a new experience to the audience. Hebei Art Center launched the Art Space, breaking through the original theater concept, integrating performing arts, tourism, salons, and cultural creation. It not only has professional theater-level stage design and high-quality services, but also breaks through the traditional stage to achieve 360-degree panoramic image immersion and multi-floor marching interactive performances, adding new scenery to urban culture.
