Unspectacular results from the BBC Proms

Unspectacular results from the BBC Proms

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norman lebrecht

September 13, 2015

The audience figures are out and they are uninspiring.

Last year, for the first time since 2009, box-office dipped below 90 percent, achieving just 88%.

This year it rose marginally to 89 percent, still below the benchmark of a successful season.

In 2011, it reached 94%.

On the positive side, the BBC reports that more than 37,500 people were first-timers, 14,500 of them attending a Sunday Matinee or Late Night concert. Over 8,600 under-18s bought tickets across the season.

Prom 45, BBC Proms 2012

photo: Chris Christodoulou/Lebrecht Music&Arts

Comments

  • Erich says:

    No wonder with a programme which reached it’s lowest common denominator in the second half with that quite appalling Sound of Music medlee with that second rate warbler ( and let’s also please quickly forget “I bought me a cat.”Thank God for Grosvenor and Kaufmann. Quite honestly, la Alsop is also no genius. The Strauss was a one-dimensional walk-through and she’s an efficient time-beater but not very much more, although her speech was good. All in all though, not a vintage evening.

  • pooroperaman says:

    In other news, the promenaders’ charity collection smashed all previous records, weighing in just below £112,000.

    Which suggests that audiences are actually rather healthy.

  • Max Grimm says:

    Norman, do you know how many people total attended this year’s Proms?

    • pooroperaman says:

      Far more than he would have liked.

      • Max Grimm says:

        His likes/dislikes notwithstanding, they unfortunately do nothing to put the numbers he lists into perspective.

        • pooroperaman says:

          OK, well, capacity of the RAH is c.6000 and there were 76 Proms this year. That makes 100% attendance 456,000, and so 89% is presumably therefore 405,840 (although you would have to add the 12 Proms at Cadogan Hall, for which I don’t have the statistics).

          If classical music really is dying, that seems like an awful lot of mourners.

  • Emil says:

    “Classical music is dying, and I, Slipped Disc, will make sure I am the first to bury the coffin.”

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