The Mayor of London's bid to entice more theatre-goers to the city has been condemned for its vague objectives, too hasty claims of success and lack of evaluation.
A report by the London Assembly's Culture, Sport and Tourism Committee, says the mayor's claims that this year's theatre initiative has successfully met its aims are premature and that it is too early to consider extending the scheme without a serious re-examination of its objectives.
The first theatre ticket plan - part of a £4m package to support the theatre, tourism and hospitality industries after the events of 11 September 2001 - was launched in December of that year after an approach to the mayor by the Society of London Theatres.
£250,000 in funding was provided by the London Development Agency (LDA) towards ticket promotion, Transport for London offered free bus travel with every ticket, free tickets were given to targeted groups and a total of 47,000 tickets were sold.
However, the Committee believes that no in-depth evaluation of the initiative took place afterwards and yet a second promotion was launched earlier this year.
This time the LDA provided £350,000 for the campaign - which was matched by the London theatre industry. Approximately 70 shows were originally included in the offer and 79,000 tickets were sold.
Evaluation of the results of the second scheme showed that, although younger people were encouraged to visit the theatre, only 2 per cent of them were attending for the first time. Further, nearly 90 per cent of purchasers had been to the theatre at least once in the past year, of which half had attended a performance at least once in the previous month.
The promotion was not seen to have attracted a particularly diverse audience, with 82 per cent of ticket purchasers being white and only 16 per cent being from black or minority ethnic backgrounds.
Professor Lola Young, head of culture at the Greater London Authority, said she hoped a much higher percentage of first-time buyers would be revealed when a more comprehensive audit of the results was undertaken.
Further criticism of the schemes included their focus on West End theatres - whose range of shows was said by Nigel Pittman of the Arts Council England (London) to be much too narrow - and the location of theatres and the timing of shows.
The committee found that disabled and older people found access to the West End both difficult and costly and that the disabled and their carers often found difficulty in getting home after an evening performance. Matinee performances were said to be far more preferable.
The report concludes that the committee welcomes initiatives, such as the theatre tickets promotion, which create new audiences and benefit the theatres of London. However, it feels it is essential that a fundamental re-examination of the scheme takes place to prevent it becoming a feelgood event which subsidises existing theatre-goers without contributing substantially to generating new audiences. Detail: www.london.gov.uk
