The popularity of Grahamstown’s National Arts Festival has
been reaffirmed with the release of this year’s attendance figures, which show
a “significant” increase in attendance in 2015. This increase comes despite
expectations that attendance might flatten after last year’s bumper 40th
birthday programme.
“The total number of tickets issued increased to 241,116,
representing 6.9% growth over 2014. Even more heartening is that, within this
number, there are more paid-for tickets than ever before with the rand value of
tickets bought for Festival shows up by 18%,” CEO Tony Lankester said. “While
the Festival continues to offer great value and plenty of free entertainment,
audiences are showing that they respond to quality work positively, and are
prepared to put their money where their passion is – even in a tough economic
climate. This augers well for the arts sector, and is a ringing endorsement for
the talent and hard work of our artists.”
On the Main programme, Jazz and Theatre each accounted for
roughly one-third of sales, with the remaining third being split between Dance,
Comedy, Music and some of the niche genres.
“The quickest selling show was Irish comedian Dylan Moran,
whose three performances in the Guy Butler Theatre sold out faster than any
show we’ve seen in recent years. We also had a massive response to Thandiswa
Mazwai, Beatenberg, Ray Phiri and MiCasa, as well as to Chester Missing and
Standard Bank Young Artist Award winner for Theatre, Christiaan Olwagen’s A Doll’s House,” Lankester added. “The
list of Main productions that had sold-out houses is long – but includes Three Blind Mice, the Baxter Theatre’s
remake of Barney Simon’s Born in the RSA
and Pieter Dirk Uys’ A Part Hate, A Part
Love. It was also great to see former Victoria Girls High School Head Girl
Nomfundo Xaluva perform to a sold-out crowd on the Standard Bank Jazz Festival
stage,”
Both the Symphony Concert and the Gala Concert featuring the
KZN Philharmonic Orchestra also played to packed houses.
Artistic Director Ismail Mahomed said that he was delighted
with the response to the programme on offer. “Audiences are responding well to
both fresh approaches to classic works (Hamlet,
A Doll’s House, Born in the RSA) and exciting new work (Three Blind Mice, A Voice I Cannot Silence),”
he said. He also noted the success of some of the international work and
collaborations on the programme - notably The Ayrshire Fiddle Orchestra; The Dog Days are Over and Red Earth Revisited.
Comedy and Theatre continue to dominate the massive Fringe
programme, accounting for 38.1% and 25.2% of total Fringe sales respectively.
“If you scan the list of top productions on the Fringe it is still dominated by
Comedy with great performances by Loyiso Gola, Rob van Vuuren in Whatwhat and a series of top-performing
productions from the Followspot Collective (Big
Boys II, Big Girls and Bon Soir),” Mahomed said. Theatre and Dance held its
own, however, with Tobacco and the
Harmful Effects Thereof; Blue; We didn’t
come to hell for the croissants and Woza
Albert all doing well both critically and at the box office.
Lankester pointed to the Festival’s agreement with the
National Lottery as a key driver of the success of the Fringe. “Through this
partnership we are able to keep the Fringe stage open to all to participate,
with a very low economic barrier to entry and with no curation or selection
taking place. This makes it the country’s biggest and most democratic stage,
and saw around 300 productions and 50 visual artists make the trip to Grahamstown.
The Fringe is very competitive and, once again, we saw productions that
combined excellent work with solid marketing doing the best. This can be a
tough but a very useful experience for young theatre practitioners.”
Behind the numbers, Lankester points to a number of other
features of this year’s Festival that organisers are proud of. These include:
- Growth in the number of tickets sold online and through
the Festival’s mobile app, which accounted for 22% of all sales this year.
- The introduction of a free “Festival Hopper” service, run
by a local taxi operator, to move festivalgoers between venues more
efficiently.
- The staging of two works (Waltz and Waterline) from
Grahamstown community-based companies supported by the Festival’s ‘Creative
City’ partnership with the European Union, both of which won Standard Bank
Ovation Awards.
- 28 visiting international producers who used the Festival
as a “shopping ground” to look for work to tour to their Festivals and
institutions.
- Productions from artists emanating from more than 30
countries on the programme – including Angola, Belgium, Senegal, Spain, India,
Ireland, the Netherlands, Canada, Colombia, Benin and Zimbabwe.
- Employment of more than 400 freelance and contract staff, predominantly
from the ranks of the unemployed in Grahamstown and student interns, to work
across the event in different capacities.
“We now get down to planning the 2016 Festival, which will
run from June 30 until July 11 2016,” Lankester concluded. “This year will be a
tough act to follow, but we’re confident we can rise to the challenge!”
To link to the National Arts Festival’s website, click on
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