Is a theater ticket too pricey when it costs more than a month's salary? That's the question arts lovers are asking. Reporter of Shanghai Daily investigates the reasons behind the exorbitant cost of a Shanghai Grand Theater ticket.
The early spring breeze was soothing, but it didn't soothe Sun Yu. The 21-year-old junior viola major at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, was on a mission, racking his brains as to how to get a ticket to the Shanghai Grand Theater. There, the Vienna Philharmonic, arguably the greatest orchestra ever, led by Japanese conductor Seigi Ozawa, was about to begin the second half of its Shanghai debut concert.
Apart from bringing Shanghai the world's most dazzling string work, the 161-year-old orchestra also won the prize for most expensive tickets to an orchestra concert ever in Shanghai, with tickets averaging more than 2,200 yuan (US$265). "You want tickets? One thousand yuan for two tickets -- the last two," buzzed a scalper. Sun shook his head mournfully and turned around.
Even such a generous offer was too much for a music student, about the cost of his entire monthly living expense. "The price is just too outrageous for a concert," Sun murmurs. Despite the dwindling of hope, however, Sun and his 20-plus schoolmates stuck around, hoping for a miracle. "Many of us will work for a regional orchestra after graduation, and that's why we treasure the experience of watching a live performance of a world-class orchestra like this," says Sun's classmate Yu Jia, who waited for a returned ticket for more than an hour.
"It's something you can't ever learn in school." The exorbitant price of top-class performances at the Shanghai Grand Theater has been a thorn among local music buffs for quite some time. In a city where the average citizen's annual disposable income just topped 14,000 yuan (US$1,687) last year, a two-hour concert at the theater can cost nearly half that amount. In December 2001, the most expensive ticket at Luciano Pavarotti's Shanghai solo soared to an astounding high of 6,000 yuan (US$723). The extraordinarily high prices have driven grassroots audiences home to seek alternatives like watching DVDs.
But for local orchestras and performing agents, the Shanghai Grand Theater remains the city's only venue spacious and good enough for a decent performance. Whether this will change when the Shanghai Oriental Arts Center in Pudong opens and the vintage Shanghai Concert Hall finishes its relocation later this year remains to be seen. In the meantime, orchestras have no choice but to pay the 80,000 yuan (US$9,639) per night rental fee, so far the highest in China.
Yet local performing agents say that the rental is not the problem -- if that were the only cost. The average ticket price at the 1,800-seat lyric theater would be no more than 50 yuan. But according to performing agent Duan Weiliang with the Shanghai Philharmonic Association, it is the multitudinous and sometimes unreasonable extra fees charged by the theater that have jacked up ticket prices. Some of the extra charges listed in the theater's standard contract include a double rental fee on weekends, based on the fact that performances are best sold on weekends; a 20 percent share of the total sales volume as the ticket agent; 2,000 (US$240) yuan for using the piano; and 1,000 yuan (US$120) to use the subtitle machine.
More controversially, the theater also sets an upper price limit for rental performances. For the volume made from tickets priced above 220 yuan (US$26.5), the theater takes an additional 20 percent. "Even if the highest price is reached and the concert is a sold-out success, there is only 80,000 yuan left to cover the musicians' pay. That might have been fine in the old days," says Duan, raising his voice in frustration. "But today, even an ordinary national orchestra requires 200,000 yuan (US$24,096) for a single concert -- leave alone world-renowned artists."
"The more the musician or the troupe is known by local market, the more they charge, which will in turn be balanced by raising the ticket price," explains Li Wen, a business executive with the Shanghai Culture Exchange Agency. "The progressively increasing sales share taken by the theater also encourages the organizer to further boost ticket prices." But high prices also run the higher risk that it will keep more audiences at bay. To solve the dilemma, some reckless agent companies simply bring in a second-tier troupe in the name of a first-rate troupe, to draw more audiences while keeping down the cost.
Local performing troupes who can afford neither the risk nor the subterfuge have to find another way out. The Shanghai Symphony Orchestra will sign a collaborative contract with the Shanghai Concert Hall this October to become the hall's only resident orchestra. According to the contract, the hall and the orchestra will share the ticket sales in a certain ratio approved by both sides. Before the savior concert hall showed up, the orchestra has been mainly performing at the smaller Shanghai Art Theater and Majestic Theater throughout last year, where the seats and rent were less, and acoustics were worse.
"Without the burden of rent, we would be set free from the market shackles," says Chen Guangxian, general manager of the orchestra. "As an orchestra aiming to become the country's best, we have to accumulate more signature works through live performances, although they may not always appeal to local audiences." The overheated market has also stirred up concern among local authorities. They called for a healthy performing industry that makes elite artwork more approachable to the average citizen.
"In developed countries, attending a top performance at the country's most sumptuous theater only costs a small portion of an average person's monthly income," says veteran actor Cao Lei. "Shanghai, however, puzzles me. I just wonder which one is more valuable? The art or the theater?" As the critics circle in, the theater raises its own defense. As a financially independent theater which receives no governmental aid, the theater's only source of income is the rental charge, which they claim was carefully calculated. "We referred to the different rental systems adopted by overseas counterparts, including the Sydney Opera House and the Carnegie Hall in New York. Our rent is generally 20 to 30 percent lower than theirs," says Qian Shijing, vice general manager with the theater.
According to Qian, the fixed rent doesn't affect the ticket price as much as some critics think -- instead, it is the vicious competitiveness between agent companies that have indeed "brought the water to a boiling point." Take the case of the Vienna Philharmonic, for instance. The orchestra usually asks for US$100,000 for a single concert, but they ended up receiving 400,000 euros after two concerts in Shanghai, with the margin driven up by the concerts' organizer.
"They start out quoting a high price, in order to lure world-class overseas troupes, and then shift the burden to the audiences. But the audiences are ignorant about these under-the-table things, and they only assume that it is the theater who takes the lion's share," Qian says. Between 2001 to 2003, the theater itself organized a total of 1,558 performances with the average price at only 107 yuan (US$13). Beginning in September 2002, it launched a program of "Saturday at the Shanghai Grand Theater," which aim to popularize a variety of classical art forms including classical music, opera, and Kunqu Opera among others.
The program runs every Saturday at the lyric theater, with the highest price only 60 yuan (US$7.2). "We will still make the effort to support these programs for the sake of public welfare, but as for commercial performances, I suggest that agent companies seek sponsorship from enterprises to cover some of the cost," Qian says. "After all, it's a matter of business."
Ticket prices of overseas theaters The Metropolitan Opera House, New York "Tristan und Isolde"(September 30, 2003)
Tickets: US$25-295 Annual disposable income per capita of New York City (2002): US$30,778
The Bastille Opera House, Paris "La Boheme"(October 4-19, 2003)
Tickets: US$12-140 Annual disposable income per capita of France (2000): around US$20,000
The Sydney Opera House "Merry Widow" (March 11)
Tickets: US$23-92 Annual disposable income per capita of Australia (2000): US$31,851
(eastday.com April 6, 2004)
