Member Article

Successful first year for Theatre Royal and City Hall tie-up as venues push towards capacity

The Newcastle Theatre Royal Trust is celebrating a successful first year managing Newcastle’s City Hall with booming audience numbers across both its venues and industry-beating capacity figures.

Just under half a million (493k) customers passed through the doors of Newcastle Theatre Royal and City Hall between 1 April 2016 and 31 March 2017 with attendance hitting 81.6% capacity. An increase of 1.6% on last year and a sizeable 20% above the national average.

In that time the Grade 1 listed theatre welcomed 39 theatre, opera, ballet and dance companies across 399 performance performed in front of 378k audience members.

Financially it was another impressive year for the not-for-profit trust with turnover up £3.6m on the previous year to £16m, facilitating investment of £5.2m into the region’s economy over the last financial year while supporting 121 full time jobs.

Chief Executive Philip Bernays said: “The year 2016/17 - being the first year since we took on the management of the City Hall - presented the team with a number of significant challenges and we are delighted to be able to report a hugely successful year which has exceed expectations and is a clear indication of our collective strength.

“There are exciting times ahead – indeed we have committed significant funds towards substantial improvements at City Hall where early stage work is already well underway – and the team is looking to continue to build on the excellent work of the last twelve months to bring together the strengths of each into an even better whole.”