Charity No: 1062085/0 Company No: 2060996 www.hackneyempire.co.uk
Description
A Grade II* listed building, opened as a music hall in 1901. The auditorium has a seating capacity of 1,275. The theatre was a bingo hall for over 2 decades and reopened as performance venue in the late 1980s. In 2001 the building had a £17m refurbishment.
The venue is famous for comedy but also hosts music, theatre, opera and films. The theatre has a community and education programme and a small performance studio. The theatre bars are run by Parola LDN and the café bar by pop-up, Platterform. In the year ending March 2014 the venue attracted £61k in location filming fees.
In 2011 the theatre had a 9 month dark period and most of the staff were made redundant. A rescue plan was put together for the venue including donations from celebrities such as Griff Rhys Jones and Lord Alan Sugar.
Budget Summary Comments
Income Only £3k profit made from bars and catering. Donations 19k Box office was £941k and theatre hire £377k. Trading 1,760k Arts Council 476k The venue has substantial support from Arts LB Hackney 193k Council England and LB Hackney ACE Capital 339k Other Grants 124k The venue has a large main auditorium with 1,275 seats making it commercially attractive Expenditure to comedy promoters. Publicity 235k Fundraising 57k Staff 877k Depreciation 638k Productions 728k Premises 858k Other 78k Greenwich Theatre
Charity Number: 246186 Company Number: 860847 www.greenwichtheatre.org.uk
Description
It was originally built as a music hall in 1855 as part of the Rose and Crown Pub. It went through a number of incarnations, including a cinema, before being rescued from demolition in the 1960s and reopened as Greenwich Theatre in 1969.
Greenwich Theatre is a mid-scale receiving house for touring theatre. It has 411 seats in a raked auditorium. They also do co-productions mainly theatre but also some musical productions. Their average ticket price in the year ended March 2014 was less than £11. In additional to the professional programme the theatre is used by local colleges and amateur productions. The main funder is Greenwich Council who provided a grant of £259k in 2014. Accounts show 6 office and management staff with total salaries of £127k
Budget Summary Comments
Budget Traditional subsidised theatre model. Reliant Income on council subsidy and careful management of LB Greenwich 280k box office income. Fundraising 32k Coproductions/hires 42k Only £15k profit from bar and restaurant in Box Office 658k 2014. Other Earned Income 137k
Expenditure Production Costs 624k Operating Costs 186k Support Costs 336k Wilton’s Music Hall
Charity Number: 1003041 Company Number: 02553922 www.wiltons.org.uk
Description
Wilton’s is Grade II* listed, oldest surviving Music Hall in the world. It is located in the East End, close to the Tower of London. The Hall receives no regular public subsidy. The income comes from box office revenue, location hires, bar sales and public fundraising.
The programme is a mixture of community performances, Heritage events, craft, music, film and cabaret. There are two bars open Monday to Saturday evenings and operate as a destination in their own right. They do not serve food but encourage people to order local takeaways and have a pop-up restaurant for Christmas. They have a trading subsidiary that runs the bars providing £250k of profit in the year ending March 2014.
The auditorium is available for hire along with 5 other spaces. The main auditorium has a maximum capacity of 300.
In 2014 there were 18 staff, 7 for trading activities and 10 for charitable activities with one fundraiser.
Budget Summary Comments
Income Bars, hires and other trading forms important Trading 740k part of turnover and supports other aspects of Public subsidy 0k the programme Projects 223k Fundraising 497k Very well connected group of supporters, well placed close to City of London to attract Expenditure donations. Trading 456k Projects 654k Very extensive restoration project and Governance 9k unsurprisingly heritage projects are a key part Fundraising 58k Restoration 130k of the programme. HLF key funder of restoration but substantial match funding target. Hoxton Hall
Charity Number: 1107196 www.hoxtonhall.co.uk
Description
Hoxton Hall is a grade II* listed building first built as a music hall in 1863. It spent many years as a place of worship before reopening as a community and performance space. The main auditorium has a capacity of 250.
Cabaret, music and comedy makes up the majority of the programme. The venue has been used for location filming (including Season 4 of Downton Abbey).
Partnerships with emerging performance companies provide diversity to the programme.
Heritage Lottery Fund provided £1.8m towards the recent refurbishment with £412k of match funding being raised. This is part of a 10 year capital plan for the building.
Venue hire for corporate events and weddings and letting workspace are important parts of the trading income.
There are 16 staff but 13 of these relate to the Youth Arts Programme rather than the venue operation.
Budget Summary Comments
Income Hoxton workspace subsidiary provided £89k Trading 370k income in 2014 Subsidy LB Hackney 26k Fundraising 18k Strong youth arts programme funded by Youth Arts Programme 414k Hackney and Islington Councils
Expenditure Made a net profit of £189k on their trading Governance 10k income which covers overheads and Overheads 63k contributes to Youth Arts Costs. Youth Arts Expd 555k Trading Costs 181k Other Venues
Churchill Theatre, Bromley
It is currently operated by Ambassadors Theatre Group on behalf of LB Bromley. It is a modern, well equipped theatre able to host West End productions. In April 2016 the management will pass to Qdos Entertainment, following a re-tender process. Qdos are the UKs leading panto producers and producers of shows for cruise ships. They also manage a further ten venues, mainly in coastal towns. They are receiving a management fee of £317k per annum from LB Bromley and a 25 year lease.
Granada Theatre, Walthamstow
There has been a venue on the site of the Granada Theatre Walthamstow since 1887. It is Grade II listed. In the 1970s it was converted into 3 cinemas. In 2003 it was bought by UCKG but they failed to get planning permission to operate it as a church. In 2014 the venue was bought by the Antic Pub group who have ambitious plans to redevelop the building including a 1,000 seat auditorium, bars, restaurant, cabaret/cinema club and boutique B&B.
The Assembly Halls, Tunbridge Wells
The Assembly Hall Theatre was built in 1939. The auditorium has a capacity of 993 people and is operated by Tunbridge Wells Council. The theatre was refurbished in 2001 and was closed in August 2015 for a £1.5m refurbishment funded by the council to replace tiered seating, roof repairs, fire alarm replacement, new air handling and some cosmetic improvements to public areas. Tunbridge Wells Council has an ambition for the venue to be able to attract West End productions and commissioned a study on the costs to address what are perceived as some of the venues limitations. These include: Not big enough, current capacity is 940 but West End promoters require 1,200 minimum. Not enough space, there is inadequate wing space. Loading and storage, no loading bay facility and little storage, poor access for production trucks Too hot, poor ventilation and air handling in auditorium Poor seating, uncomfortable seating that does not meet modern standards Poor FOH facilities, small, outdated bar area. The study provided costs of two different scales of refurbishments. Option 1 would provide a 1,250 seat venue with upgraded facilities that would meet needs for the next 10-15 years at a cost of £12.5m. Option 2 would achieve the same as Option 1 but to a much higher specification making it the venue of choice for large-scale promoters and meet needs for a further 75 years at a cost of £25m.
Comparison to Broadway Theatre budget
As the case studies demonstrate, venues are all very different and influenced by a number of factors including their location, scale, management arrangements, levels of public subsidy and ability to raise earned income. Following the recent budget savings the Broadway Theatre revenue budget looks as follows:
Budget Summary Income Community Services Budget 106k # Regeneration Budget* 172k Bars and Catering 40k Box Office/Hire Fees 215k
*the regeneration budget contribution is part of a corporate budget and is not specifically assigned to the Broadway Theatre but is extrapolated from average spend over the last 2 years.
Expenditure Salaries 107k Agency staff (FOH, technical etc) 84k Supplies and Services 170k Cleaning contract 35k Utilities 59k R&M 51k Rates 27k
The council subsidy of the Broadway Theatre covers the building costs including cleaning and the salaries of the two permanent staff members. These make up the majority of the fixed costs of the building leaving approximately £40k of other costs such as software licences, marketing etc to be covered by earned income. The theatre hires and bar income therefore need to cover the costs of agency staff required when the building is open to the public, any other supplies and services and generate at least a £40k profit over the course of the year. The theatre operates a trading budget where the income and expenditure can rise and fall from year to year depending on that year’s activities but should provide a balanced budget at year end.
The theatre is projecting an overspend in 2015/16 which is largely due to the delay in delivering the staff reorganisation as well as the extended dark period restricting the opportunity for earned income.