COMMENTARY ON CULTURAL ATTENDANCE DURING CALENDAR YEAR 2014 Task This note examines the 2013 and 2014 attendance data for Glasgow s principal cultural venues, museums, theatres and halls, and its main arts festivals. The interest is in picking up any general indication of the particular impact of the special programmes and promotions undertaken in the city during 2014, especially around the Commonwealth Games. Overall data The attendance data for 2014 overall show that most of Glasgow s major cultural institutions enjoyed exceptional attendance during the year. Visits to the Glasgow City Museums rose by 16.1% in 2014, and to the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery by 21.1%. Glasgow s theatres also did well, especially the King s, with sales up by 13.6% 1. The Theatre Royal and Citizens increased attendance by some 8.5% and 8.1% respectively. The SECC results as a whole showed attendance increased by 51.4% in 2014, compared with the previous year. Of course, this was mainly driven by a full year s trading of the newly opened Hydro. Museums (visitors) and live entertainment (paid admissions) MUSEUMS (visits) Glasgow City museums a 3,128 3,633 +16.1 Hunterians 133 161 +21.1 Tramway (footfall) 158 155-2.1 LIVE ENTERTAINMENT (paid admissions) King s Theatre 356 404 +13.6 Theatre Royal 108 117 +8.5 Citizens Theatre 56 65 +8.1 Glasgow Concert Halls b 252 235-6.8 O2 Academy & ABC 264 260-1.5 The Hydro, Clyde Hall, H4 et al 772 1,168 +51.4 Source: Glasgow Life, University of Glasgow, ATG, Citizens Theatre, SECC. a b Excludes Pollok House and Fossil Grove. Includes zero-priced tickets. The principal exceptions to the picture of strong growth in attendance were in the area of music. In contrast to the exceptional SECC results, both the Glasgow City Halls and the Academy Music venues saw their attendance fall, by 6.8% and 1.5% respectively. Glasgow International Jazz Festival attendance also dropped, by 14.8%. Quarterly analysis of museums The quarterly analysis of Glasgow City Museums attendance confirms that the Games were a factor in this exceptional year. Growth was much the greatest in Q3, the Games quarter, at 28.9%. However, both Q2 and Q1 saw impressive growth already, well in advance of the Games, well in quarter one, at 17.3% and 9.8% respectively. 1 Both the Hunterian Art Gallery and the King s Theatre figures are boosted by incorporating a full year s trading after partial closure in 2013. 1
Glasgow City museums, total attendance by quarter Glasgow City museums (visits) a 1 st quarter 696 764 +9.8 2 nd quarter 844 990 +17.3 3 rd quarter 912 1,175 +28.9 4 th quarter 676 703 +4.0 Total 3,128 3,633 +16.1 a Excludes Pollok House and Fossil Grove. Theatres and festivals Monthly sales data would help clarify the influences at work on the excellent year experienced by Glasgow s theatres, especially the King s, Theatre Royal and Citizens. These are not available at this moment. But the increase is clearly too large, in the range 8% to 13%, to be attributable either the Games quarter or to the cultural programme of the Games themselves, which had little presence in the theatres. The festivals for which data have been obtained had for the most part exceptional years. The Merchant City Festival was an extended platform for the Games cultural programme, and it is not surprising that attendance increased by 113.5%. Festival attendance Merchant City 100 214 +55.2 West End (free) 109 169 +35.5 Mela 35 47 +34.3 Celtic Connections 84 107 +27.3 Aye Write! 27 30 a +11.1 Glasgow Film 35 41 +17.6 West End (ticketed) 18 18 +0.1 Glasgow International 205 201-1.9 Doors Open 81 69-14.8 Glasgow International Jazz 23 16-30.4 Source: Glasgow Life; organisations. a Includes Wee Write! Again, it is striking that Glasgow s three festivals held in the early part of the year, before any direct Games effect could have been an influence, each also had exceptional years. A particular bright spot was the 27.3% increase the Celtic Connections festival. Glasgow Film Festival, up 17.6% and Aye Write! newly twinned with Wee Write! also did well, with a rise of 11.1%. Despite losing a little ground, with a 1.9% fall in relation to 2012, Glasgow International was a major success, with 201k visits. Tramway The footfall at Tramway in 2014 was 2.1% lower than in the previous year. Programming, as always, must have been the major factor, and more detailed analysis would be needed to unpick this. The Tramway footfall showed significant increase in the Games quarter of 9.2%, but for the rest of the year its footfall was down 3.6% in Q1 and by 4.3% in Q4. 2
Tramway, attendance by quarter 1 st quarter 38.45 37.06-3.6 2 nd quarter 42.10 41.44-1.6 3 rd quarter 37.97 41.45 +9.2 4 th quarter 39.71 34.99-4.3 Total 158.23 154.94-2.1 Riverside Of the individual museum sites, Riverside experienced much the largest rise in visits overall, up by 40.2% on 2013. This compared with an average increase for Glasgow City Museums of 16.1%. The Riverside growth peaked in the Games quarter, at 71.1%, yet Riverside had already enjoyed an increase of 11.3% in Q1 and of 38.6% in Q2, well in advance of the Games themselves. Glasgow museums attendance, by site Riverside 740 1,039 +40.2 People s Palace 310 380 +22.6 St Mungo s 121 137 +13.8 Scotland St School 54 60 +11.0 Provands Lordship 78 86 +10.4 GoMA 572 622 +8.8 Kelvingrove 1,044 1,122 +7.5 Resource Centre 15 14-7.2 Burrell 193 172-11.1 Pollok House 58 46-21.5 Hunterian Art 60 76 +27.7 Hunterian Museum 73 84 +15.6 What explains Riverside s extraordinary rise in popularity in each quarter of 2014? It had been named European Museum of the Year in 2013 and was Glasgow s most recently opened attraction. Were these sufficient factors to reverse the usual loss of public as the novelty value of a new building wears off? It seems possible that anyone prompted to visit Glasgow from general curiosity about a City preparing for the Commonwealth Games might have wanted to look up the most recent, hot attraction. Riverside also put major effort into maintaining a public-relations presence in the local press, which carried stories on numerous small display changes. A vigorous programme of activities mounted during the year drew people to the site, including free travel on the Govan ferry. This approach probably combined well with a receptive public. Nevertheless, the scale of the bounce was exceptional. People s Palace Another direct beneficiary of impact of the Games appears to have been the People s Palace, with a 22.6% increase in visits across the year. The People s Palace is located in Glasgow Green which was one of the main platforms for the free cultural programme and its conservatory had been refurbished before the Games. People s-palace visits during the Games quarter rose by 27.0%. Whilst the People s Palace had started the year quietly with a rise in visits of 4.6% in Q1, the interest in this museum rekindled by the Games, continued reverberating later in the year, with 83% more visits in Q4, 2014, than in Q4, 2013. Other museum sites Visits to St Mungo s, Scotland Street School and Provand s Lordship rose in 2014 by 13.8%, 11.0% and 10.4% respectively. St Mungo s and Scotland Street School had strong Games quarters, up by 25.7% 3
and 44.5% respectively, in which tourists (and possibly Games attenders) were probably a main factor. The pattern at Provand s Lordship was different, with Q4 showing the strongest rise of 23.1%. Both Kelvingrove and GoMA experienced increased visits in the Games quarter, up by 14.0% and 24.3% respectively. Q2 was reasonably strong, with visits up by 12.8% and 8.5%. A poor Q4 reduced the annual rises in both cases to 7.5% at Kelvingrove and 8.8% at GoMA. Kelvingrove experienced a substantial Q1 increase in visitors of 23.6%. There was probably a special factor at work, in this case the popularity of the Vettriano exhibition. Kelvingrove s Q4 visit numbers showed a sharp fall of 18.3%, which was probably also the Vettriano effect in reverse. It is notable that both the Burrell Collection and Pollock House experienced falling numbers in 2014. At the Burrell, this was evident in each quarter and the decline accelerated across the year. The fall probably presaged the impending closure of the museum, and it is striking that the special display of its major pictures did not appear to counteract this effect. Burrell attendance declined by 11.1% in 2013 overall, and by 19.5% in Q4. Pollok House appears to have suffered by association with the Burrell, its close neighbour and a popular-attraction pairing for tourists. Its visits fell by 21.5% in 2014. Selected Glasgow museums, attendance by quarter Riverside 1 st quarter 175 195 +11.3 2 nd quarter 213 296 +38.6 3 rd quarter 202 346 +71.1 4 th quarter 150 202 +34.6 Total 740 1,039 +40.2 People s Palace 1 st quarter 73 76 +4.6 2 nd quarter 101 112 +10.6 3 rd quarter 100 127 +27.0 4 th quarter 36 65 +83.2 Total 310 380 +22.6 Kelvingrove 1 st quarter 227 280 +23.6 2 nd quarter 263 295 +12.3 3 rd quarter 297 338 +14.0 4 th quarter 256 209-18.3 Total 1,044 1,122 +7.5 Burrell 1 st quarter 40 39-0.1 2 nd quarter 50 47-5.2 3 rd quarter 60 51-14.2 4 th quarter 43 35-19.5 Total 193 172-11.1 Travel and tourism That increased tourist visits played a part in making 2014 an exceptional year can be inferred from the substantial jump in Glasgow hotel occupancies in the year. The two principal data sources each give a five percentage point rise in 2014 compared with the previous year. Hotel occupancies 2013 2014 2013/14 change Percentages LJ research 76.3 80.3 +5.2 STR (upper mid, mid & econ.) 79.6 84.0 +5.5 Source: GCMB. 4
Official tourism-trip data are not yet available for 2014, but some support for this view is given by travel data, and, in particular, the 18% rise in passengers reported on the Glasgow/London rail route in 2014. Glasgow Airport terminal passengers also increased during 2014 by 4.8%, from 7.4 million to 7.7 million, but the rate of increase in passengers was much less than on the Glasgow/London rail route. The quarterly analysis shows that the Games quarter experienced the lowest growth in passengers of the year, at 2.7%. It is not possible to say whether Glasgow residents may have postponed their travel during the Games quarter, since the official figures do not differentiate passengers by home base of the airport-terminal passengers. Glasgow Airport passenger passengers All destinations 7,357 7,712 +4.9 Glasgow/London routes 2,224 2,257 +0.7 Other routes 5,109 5,455 +6.8 Source: CAA. The highest quarterly growth at Glasgow Airport in 2014 was 8.4% in Q4. Route transfers and new services were a factor in this. It is notable that on the London routes, terminal passengers actually fell in the Games quarter by 4.2%. Again, the highest quarter was Q4, with a rise of 4.3%. Glasgow airport terminal passengers, by quarter 2013 2014 % change All routes 1 st quarter 1,345 1,416 +5.2 2 nd quarter 1,987 2,066 +4.0 3 rd quarter 2,342 2,405 +2.7 4 th quarter 1,683 1,825 +8.4 Overall 7,357 7,712 +4.8 Glasgow/London routes (5 airports) 1 st quarter 513 520 +1.4 2 nd quarter 573 582 +1.6 3 rd quarter 594 569-4.2 4 th quarter 556 580 +4.3 Overall 2,236 2,251 +0.7 Source: CAA. Conclusion The audience data for 2014 show that it was indeed an exceptional year for Glasgow s cultural institutions. Museums, theatres, and most of the festivals showed exceptional growth in attendance. The Commonwealth Games played a part in this, certainly in respect of the museums, as is evidenced by the high peak in visits to museums experienced during the Games quarter. It is striking that so much of the increase in museum visits and festival attendance took place early in 2014, well in advance of the Games quarter. More detail is needed to understand fully the success of Glasgow s theatres in 2014, but the rise in attendance was clearly too large to be attributed to the Games quarter or to cultural programming for the Games. There were several special factors contributing to this wider success of the year, such as the new Hydro, the reopening of the Hunterian Art Gallery and the Theatre Royal after refurbishments, some popular exhibitions, the naming of the Riverside as European Museum of the Year, and a special publicrelations effort by Riverside in 2014. Nevertheless, these factors seem insufficient in themselves to explain the considerable size of the total rise and the growth in visits in the pre-games quarters. The City certainly caught the headlines with its preparations for and during the year, which could well have stimulated interest from Outer Glasgow and the wider region. The strong hotel occupancy and the growth of traffic on the London/Glasgow rail route, imply that travellers played some part in this exceptional year, but the air passenger data are ambiguous. 5
The fact that the Riverside, Glasgow s most recently opened museum building, and named European Museum of the Year in 2013, experienced much the largest rise in visits amongst museums, implies some visitor dimension to this increase. New visitors to the City would have wanted to prioritise seeing this particular museum, which was already perhaps fully familiar to Glasgow residents. Additionally, it is tempting to argue that the physical preparations for the Games, the strong messages on the significance of the year communicated to the people of Glasgow, and the evident optimism abounding during the year, may well have heightened social engagement in the City before the event itself took place. A contributory factor could well have been the major campaign with the strapline Let s Celebrate, a strand of the People Make Glasgow brand, which was launched in the City in autumn 2013 with the intention of stimulating use by the City s residents of its cultural system. On this basis, Glasgow s museums, theatres and festivals will have been beneficiaries of a boost to the social energy of the City. On balance, it would seem likely that this rise in attendance from a reinvigorated City was probably generated mainly by residents of the energised City itself, supported by a putative early bird increase in interest from the wider region. The phenomenon of the City deciding to start the party early could be very Glasgow. It is something that may merit further investigation. 6