Opera’s transcendent value and real-world costs
Date | Author |
|---|---|
February 12, 2024 | Stephen Lyons |
Our upcoming 65th anniversary season projects to be a great success at the box office, and that's certainly cause for celebration, but did you know that ticket sales only cover a fraction of the costs of putting on our grand-scale performances? Historically, revenue from ticket sales has offset only about 30% of our expenses, with the remainder of our operating budget met through sponsorships and the invaluable support of our donors, and that number dipped to about 20% in the immediate wake of the global pandemic. With huge interest in this coming season’s productions (and fast-selling season subscriptions), we’re looking at ticket sales rebounding to the point of covering…right back to just about 30% of expenses. A big part of this is that expenses have become markedly more expensive since COVID, and a dramatic change in the landscape of suppliers and vendors has resulted in fewer options to source ever-scarcer, costlier goods. Another factor is that, unlike in VO’s inaugural season when our dollar vibrated around par with our southern neighbours, the current exchange rate adds some extra sting when we deal with US-based vendors and agencies. If the next sentence shocks you, please stop reading this blog and look at, oh, any news source from the past couple of years. Inflation has made everything – gas, shipping, accommodation and travel expenses for artists, insurance, labour, materials – considerably more expensive. Did you feel some sticker shock the last time you mailed a care package, or even a postcard? To ship the lush, immersive world of Carmen from [another opera company/out east/particular city] now costs us about double what it did just a few years ago. A core Vancouver Opera mandate is to keep opera accessible – whether through opening up dress rehearsals for free to schools and community groups, or by offering low-cost seats to a range of folks who want to connect with the arts, but have a limited budget. VO is a non-profit—and registered charity—and our mission is far broader than just presenting timeless, grand-scale works; we foster the love of opera from the grade school level on up, through outreach initiatives like Vancouver Opera in Schools (VOIS), our brand-new free concert series Voices, podcasts and popups, and collaborations with organizations like the Vancouver Public Library, Pacific Opera, and cutting-edge independent theatre companies. In 2012, VO launched the Yulanda M. Faris Young Artists Program to mentor and encourage rising Canadian opera artists as they move from formal academia into the professional world. Across all of our productions and outreach programs, the majority of our expenses are earmarked for people. Vancouver Opera prides itself on delivering the highest quality of entertainment while paying fair wages to singers, musicians, technicians and designers, and everyone else that helps keep the ecosystem of world-class opera healthy and thriving. We have a fantastically creative and industrious in-house team that builds many of our sets, props, and costumes, wows with photography and design, takes centre stage in promo videos, and even keeps the sacred art of the blog alive. But whether we’re sourcing material to build a set in-house, paying to store a magical world’s worth of props and costumes, renting and shipping a high-quality set in from another opera presenter, or giving audiences unforgettable experiences, the bottom line about our bottom line is that while ticket sales are vitally important, we rely on donations and sponsorships to deliver quality, large-scale productions and keep opera thriving in Vancouver. By the numbers:
Each production costs between $1.1 and $1.6 million dollars (kind of like Dr. Evil’s demands if they were only subject to the inflation rates of the past couple of years. Or if the world leaders added a tip on top of his ransom.)
Looking at just the physical production side (sets, costumes, lighting, and other production elements (including labour), costs have ranged from $250K to $500K per production over the last 10 years, with an average of $365K.
Taking into account load-in and load out, set up, rehearsals, and the performances themselves, we spend an average of 120 hours per production on the QET stage, at a cost of about $8,400 per hour for artistic and production costs.
Leading up to our time at the QET, we scheme, plot, promote, build, and rehearse at VO headquarters, which between rising energy rates and other facility operating expenses has seen an increase of almost 67% since 2015, including a 10% jump in the last year.
Adjusted for today’s dollar, $83K would probably only buy you a single glass slipper, and you’d probably go and forget it at some prince’s ball, wouldn’t you? Well, we make those dollars stretch across an entire costuming budget per production, from design and labour to wigs and waistcoats, and from gowns and garters to tunics, togas, and thesauruses. Actually, we might need to audit, inspect, review, survey or scrutinize that last expense….
