The Canadian Opera Company released information on sales for the 2012/13 season today. Ticket sales totalled 109,297, down from 125,328 in 2011/12 and well below the 137,000 of the 2009/10 season. Ticket revenue was also off at $9.9 million versus $11 million in 2011/12 and $13.4 million in 2009/10. A reduction in the number of performances (and one hopes, costs) meant that capacity utilization only dropped to 90% compared with 91% in the previous season and 98% in 2009/10. At least revenue per seat sold rose to $94.26 compared with $87.76 the previous year though still below 2009/10’s $97.97. Part of this must have been due to the premium prices charged for Tristan und Isolde but one hopes it might also reflect slightly less frenetic discounting.
Overall I think this is pretty worrying. Three consecutive years of significant revenue decline is not good. The economy is tough everywhere but Toronto has probably suffered less than most major opera centres so it’s hard to blame the economy for all of the decline. A 26% drop in ticket revenue in four years is pretty extreme. I’m a big fan of the product that the COC is putting on the stage but I just don’t see the current situation as sustainable and, as yet, I don’t see any sort of remedial action (or even any admission that there is a problem). Still one lives in hope.
operaramblings 
…and of course, the Usual Suspects are taking the knives out:
“But my sense is that there is a trend here and it has to do with the fatigue Toronto operagoers feel with grimly minimalistic and/or bizarrely anachronistic productions that have made the COC a European company in all but name. Fewer and fewer fans are willing to pay for the stark sets and ludicrous goings-on decreed by general director Alexander Neef and and his stable of guest postmodern superstars.” http://arts.nationalpost.com/2013/06/17/kaptainis-the-canadian-opera-company-sales-are-heading-south-and-its-troubling/
I strategically do not blog about ticket sales, either end of year or show by show for various reasons, one being this doomsaying echo-chamber-y thing that some of the MSM commentariat does. Another reason is that a national opera house can’t be in it for ticket sales only, but for education and culture-building purposes too. And there is this presumption in these comments on the declining stats that somehow there was a Golden Age once when the COC sold out 99 percent. What is the most successful year that we’re using as the measuring stick, 2009/10? Earlier?
But I’m sure the COC are aware of the issue… probably why we’ll have a fairly traditional(ist) season coming up.
Ah to be a fly on the wall when programming for the next few years is being discussed…
I don’t think it’s a question of benchmarks. Three consecutive years of significant sales decline is. I’m prepared to consider 2009/10 as some sort of freaky annus mirabilis but a trend is a trend.
I stayed away from speculating on the “why’s”. I don’t have any data to work on there. Sales at the Met are down too but I doubt it’s due to Gelb’s “stable of guest postmodern stars”. My personal view is that COC does a pretty poor job of getting the word out about its product and product quality. Of course that’s made much more difficult by a press that’s uninterested or even hostile but I’m struck by how little my colleagues, a literate and artsy bunch for the most part, know about what’s happening a few minutes walk from where they work.
I don’t know how the COC will react. I think it’s a “rock and hard place” situation. If they stood up a season of Mansouri and Sher it would drive away at least as many people as it brought back.