Zhitong Finance App learned that according to data monitoring and research estimates from the China Performance Industry Association ticketing information collection platform, in the first half of 2024, the number of commercial shows (excluding performances in entertainment venues) was 0.2517 million, up 30.19% year on year; box office revenue was 19.016 billion yuan, up 13.24% year on year, and the number of spectators was 79.1013 million, up 27.10% year on year.

Concert box office continues to grow, and the music festival market is becoming more stable and standardized

The large-scale performance market continued to rise for half a year. The box office revenue for concerts and music festivals increased 134.73% year on year; the number of spectators increased 63.35% year on year. Among them, large-scale concerts with more than 5,000 people contributed the most to market growth.

Large-scale concert venues are mainly in Tier 1 and 2 cities. Many large-scale concerts hosted by Andy Lau, Jay Chou, Legend of Phoenix, and Zhou Shen were sold out as soon as tickets were issued. Take Andy Lau's Beijing concert as an example. The total number of tickets was 0.03 million. When it went on sale in June, it attracted more than 1.2 million people to grab tickets online at the same time. Meanwhile, due to the boom in the concert market in 2023, performance agencies have expanded their performance scale this year. Some singers switched to venues that can accommodate a larger audience this year. For example, Cheung Sin-cheol's concert was converted from a stadium to a stadium, and Wong Yee-shan's concert was changed from a theater to a stadium.

Large-scale performances continue to play a comprehensive driving role. For example, Jay Chou's concert in Changsha, according to estimates, the four-day concert attracted nearly 0.149 million viewers, with 92% cross-city attendance and 68% across provinces; in addition to the audience inside the venue, the total number of visitors outside the venue also exceeded 0.05 million.

In the first half of 2024, the large-scale music festival performance market showed a more rational and standardized development trend. There was an increase in the number of music festival projects with brand influence and personalized lineup design, such as the Flash Thousand Hand Hangzhou Music Festival, which focused on the differentiated arrangement of performance lineups. The first time it was held during the May 1st period, it attracted a large number of young audiences and sold out at the box office. At the same time, the overall quality of music festival operation services improved in the first half of the year. According to ticketing information data monitoring, the box office of well-known music festival IPs, music festivals with high-quality performance lineups, rich market experience and operational service capabilities were all higher than last year. The music festival market is gradually returning to a stable, safe and healthy development track.

There are many original and innovative theatrical performances, and the content forms are diverse

Creativity is fundamental to the development of the performance market. Compared with the same period last year, there was a marked increase in the number of newly released original repertoire in the first half of this year, and original works covering various art categories appeared one after another. Examples include the Guofeng suspense drama “Qingming River Map Code”, the drama “Three-Quarter Classic”, “The Crocodile”, “Yongding Gate”, the new national style dance drama “Li Qingzhao”, the original national standard dance drama “April Heaven on Earth”, the dance poem “Nine Songs”, and the musical “Chasing Dreams”.

The premiere of the original innovative repertoire, which is well-produced and has many highlights, has kept the performance market active. In the past, most of the premieres of original shows from all over the world preferred to choose first-tier cities such as Kitakami and Guangzhou, hoping that the flag would win to help promote subsequent tours. In the first half of this year, many original plays, such as “Tiangong Kai,” premiered in Nanchang in April, and the first round of national tours in Xiamen, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Chengdu began; Mo Yan's work “Crocodile” by Yanghua drama premiered in Suzhou in May, then toured Nanjing, Fuzhou, and Yantai.

The content and forms of performances in small theaters and new spaces are diverse, and more art genres begin to explore immersive performances. The new experience of small spaces and the new vitality of old scenes make small theaters and new spaces show more plasticity. On the basis of maintaining rapid growth for 3 consecutive years, the number of new shows and performances continued to rise in the first half of this year. Nearly 80% of comic, magic, talk shows, children's dramas, and concert performances were performed in small theaters and new spaces, and interactive drama projects where the audience participated in plot interpretation continued to be loved by young audiences. Taking Tianjin as an example, new immersive repertoire series with diverse content and forms, such as the mystery suspense drama “Song Meiling's Lost Earrings”, the red-themed immersive party class “The Power of Faith”, and the upgraded version of the immersive drama “Looking for a Dramatist” have all received market recognition. In the first half of 2024, the number of performances in professional theaters, small theaters, and new spaces increased by 32.21% year-on-year.

Combining consumer demand and integrating technological development, tourism performing arts actively experiment with multi-dimensional innovation

Demand for travel is strong and the deep integration of cultural tourism continues to advance, and performances have become a major driving force for local cultural tourism promotion to attract traffic. Shenzhen, Shaanxi, Hunan, Shanxi and other places have introduced special measures or subsidy programs to help the development of tourism and performing arts. In the first half of 2024, the number of performances in large and medium-sized tourism shows across the country increased by 26.37% year-on-year.

In the context of cultural tourism consumption continuing to rise, tourism and entertainment companies are actively seizing opportunities to innovate in multiple dimensions. Themed events were created at important holiday points, and became one of the innovative models of tourism and performing arts, such as national style and martial arts themed events in the Songcheng Ancient Scenic Area, and the Guochao Cultural Festival in the Happy Valley Scenic Area. Using special activities to revitalize existing project resources, traditional tourism and performing arts programs can welcome the increasing number of visitors with a fresh look. At the same time, tourism and entertainment companies are targeting the current tourist consumption model update, actively exploring new performance models, and vigorously developing “immersive” and “walking” tourism and performing arts programs, so that the market can show new vitality in full bloom. Harbin continues the popularity of winter tourism to create a large-scale live performance “Meet Harbin” on the Songhua River; the immersive travel performance “Dream Canghai”, which focuses on the story of Qingdao's marine culture and Chinese nautical history, creates a multi-dimensional, realistic, and vivid sound space and sailing experience for the audience; the ancient city of Langya in Linyi City launched a large-scale indoor tourism performance “National Show · Langping”, a multi-space three-dimensional reality and folding canopy technology to form an art feast full of technology.

Overseas projects spread Chinese culture and expand influence through market-based operation

In the first half of this year, many new domestic repertoire went overseas and received praise from overseas markets, promoting the international dissemination of Chinese culture and art through commercial performances. Zide Piano Club, a private orchestra founded ten years ago, went abroad for the first time. The Malaysian concert “What Is the Piano? Don't Smoke?” performed four consecutive concerts in Kuala Lumpur, attracting more than 2,000 viewers. In addition to commercial performances, the orchestra also went to local high schools to teach traditional Chinese instruments such as drums, guqin, guzheng, Chinese nguyen, pipa, and flute. Beijing Jiuwei Culture and the acrobatic ballet project “Swan Lake” went to London to host a commercial performance, which was well received by local media and audiences; the UK performance plan for the dance drama “Wing Chun”, which is jointly operated by a number of domestic performance agencies, including Jiuwei, was also officially announced in the first half of the year, and will soon hit the British stage in August.

In addition to expanding overseas commercials for multiple shows, high-definition stage art screenings in the first half of this year also achieved a breakthrough of zero overseas trips. The global Chinese-language stage high-definition video exhibition, co-hosted by Beijing Oldswell Culture and the Anglo-China Film Cooperation Research and Development Center, began on April 29 in theaters in many parts of the UK. 10 outstanding high-definition stage images of dramas, dances, and Peking opera continued to be screened. This is the first time that Chinese-language stage artists have teamed up overseas in the form of video, so that more overseas viewers can learn about contemporary Chinese stage art works through watching movies.