For performance lovers in Shanghai, the past year has been a year of contentment and busyness. Sometimes, two well-known dramas are performed at the same time, which will produce such a sweet annoyance as "difficulty in choosing". Xu Yingying, a 32-year-old white-collar worker, regained her habit of watching dramas last year. In the past year, I have watched 23 plays, covering dramas, musicals, children's dramas and other categories, and brushed the musical "The Silent Truth". The most visited theater is the common stage of Shanghai Great World, and the No. 71 bus in front of the door is directly connected, which is the most convenient. A few years ago, I bought the drama "Chicken and Rabbit in the Same Cage", and planned to watch the drama and then return to my hometown for the New Year. She told First Finance and Economics that the quality of domestic original dramas has been greatly improved compared with the past, and the risk of "stepping on thunder" has become smaller: "There are also bad dramas, but at least you can feel that the main creators are trying to do a good job." ”
Recently, the Shanghai Performance Industry Association released the 2021 Shanghai Theater Performance Data. According to the data summary of 70 theaters and 50 new performing arts spaces in 45 professional theaters in Shanghai, the total number of performances in Shanghai theaters and performance venues in 2021 was 24681, of which 8894 theater performances were performed in total, and the performance income was 878.4358 million yuan, which was a strong improvement over 2020 and basically recovered to the level of 2019 before the epidemic.
In addition, a total of 15,787 performances were performed in the new space for performing arts. For the first time, the new performing arts space has entered the list of performances and has shown a strong market advantage. After two years of exploration, by the end of 2021, there have been 100 new performing arts spaces, covering all corners of Shencheng, expanding the style of creation and operation.
For example, the Asia Tower Star Space performed 2418 times a year, becoming the performance venue with the highest performance density in Shanghai and even in the country. Xu Yingying watched the most prestigious "Apollonia" there. She feels that the experience of watching a play in a small space is not the same as that of the past, and this atmosphere is only available in Shanghai: "It is to pass by after work, go in to see a show, and drink some wine." The song is good, the atmosphere is good, and it is not a deep story, it is a happy two-hour. She noticed that some actors who were not originally famous later got the opportunity to play supporting roles in some big dramas. In a way, the small space is like a test field, transporting the play and people to the big stage.
For performing arts practitioners, 2021 is also a year of "persistence is victory". In Shanghai, troupes, performing arts companies and performance institutions that continue to reserve plays and innovate have gained a lot in the past year. At the beginning of the epidemic, the theater was shut down, and the executives of a number of performing arts companies mentioned in an interview with CBN how they resisted the pressure of operation, continued to launch big dramas under the condition of limited attendance, created new content, and developed new categories to meet the gradual recovery of enthusiasm from theater fans. The performing arts market, which has been hit hard by the epidemic, has not stagnated due to external disasters, on the contrary, it has spawned the emergence of new formats.
Taking Shanghai Happy Twist as an example, it performed 774 times throughout the year and received 393,000 audiences. This figure is up 10% compared to 2019. Among them, the new space performing arts content launched last year, "Crazy Barbershop" in Rainbow Heaven and Earth Moon Bay and Raffles City on the North Bund's "Lane 1992", have performed about 200 times in more than three months of residency time.
Wang Haigang, co-president of Happy Twist, mentioned in an exclusive interview with CbN that the expansion of the new space category of performing arts has promoted the performance of Happy Twist to surpass the number of performances and numbers before the epidemic. In 2022, there will be three or four new space products in Shanghai. "Crazy Barbershop" will also be copied to Chengdu, Hangzhou, Suzhou and other places this year.
Why did Happy Twist, who is good at traditional comedy, develop a new space for performing arts? What kind of changes can this new mode and experience bring to the performing arts market? Why has this new format of performing arts space erupted in Shanghai in the past year? Wang Haigang answered in an exclusive interview.
The new space should attract an atypical audience
CBN: The traditional advantage of Happy Twist is the coliseum performance, what is the consideration for developing new performing arts spaces such as "Crazy Barbershop" and "Lane 1992"?
Wang Haigang: The younger generation of cultural consumers has their own characteristics. Trends have an impact on them, but they are reluctant to pursue the big trend in the absolute sense, and the pursuit of experience is more extreme.
We have had a relative lead in the Coliseum for many years. But I worry about how to deal with today's younger cultural consumers. One of the characteristics of China's cultural consumption is that the consumer group is younger, and we must face this group. We have to have new categories, like immersive. But it doesn't have to be a large-scale immersive, but it can also be a unique, compact product with the ultimate experience. In this case, we developed "Crazy Barbershop" and "Lane 1992".
CBN: You mentioned that more than half of the consumers in these new performing arts spaces buy tickets through Dianping and Alipay, rather than traditional performance ticketing platforms, does this mean that these consumers are different from traditional theater audiences?
Wang Haigang: The audience of drama in the traditional sense is limited, because drama has a threshold. The development of mainland theater is not long, and the impression given is more serious. A lot of people will think it's good art, but I'm not going to consume it.
Why do New York Broadway and London's West End have large-scale residencies, resulting in great economies of scale? It is also because musical theater is a relatively popular product, and its audience is wider, which also includes a large number of cultural tourism population. In fact, when people in the United States and even abroad go to New York, going to See a Musical on Broadway is the content of the tour. In other words, the key here is to attract an atypical theater audience.
If the new space wants to achieve resident performances, if it is only around the theater audience, it will not be able to hold up. Taking Shanghai as an example, the strict sense of the theater audience, consumers who have the habit of entering the theater, as far as I know, that is, more than 1 million. Their re-brushing rate cannot be so high, and the residency must attract a large number of new people to enter, either ordinary urban crowds, or from other places. This means that making this product starts from the experience, to bring the audience the ultimate and unique experience. In this way, many people's psychology of staying away from drama can be broken.
Therefore, our sales are not limited to barley and cat's eye, but also through the entrances of Dianping, Little Red Book, and Alipay, which tell everyone that this is an interesting experience. We will more classify new space performing arts as a category of new consumption, and we will also cooperate more with commercial complexes instead of returning to the original theater.
CBN: New performing arts spaces have sprung up in Shanghai in the past year and become a phenomenon, will it become the trend or even mainstream of future performing arts? Will they compete with traditional theater?
Wang Haigang: Today's young people have grown up in a more diverse and rich environment. Categories such as the Coliseum, the traditional mode of performing on stage and watching offstage, they will accept, but they will not be satisfied with this. Consumers need richer content, they will go to the coliseum to see well-known musicals, dramas, but also need to experience the ultimate sense of new space of performing arts content, the two content can complement each other.
In fact, there are not as many people who have the habit of watching dramas every month, in other words, the existence of new spaces can allow young people who have never entered the theater to enter, for example, when he has experienced "Crazy Barbershop", he thinks it is good, he may be interested in watching happy twist dramas, and then watching other label dramas and musicals. He crossed the threshold of drama.
If you say competition, it may be a certain competition with the secret room and the script killing, because the secret room and the script killing are also an experience. But we are a little more complex creative acting content than the Chamber of Secrets and script killing.
Residency is the core model of the performing arts industry
CBN: Compared with the traditional theaters of the past, does the new space for performing arts also provide a more suitable stage for resident performances and new product categories?
Wang Haigang: An important symbol of Shanghai's proposal as an Asian performing arts capital is the development of residencies. Broadway and West End musicals have achieved coliseum residencies, such as "The Lion King" on Broadway for nearly thirty years. In China, musical theater has not been successfully performed in a grand theater so far, but it may be possible in a new space. There are two modes of residency now, one is multi-repertoire residency, that is, 12 to 14 repertoire are staged in the grand theater, and the other is the single repertoire residency in the new space. Since its opening in September last year, Crazy Barbershop has basically maintained the situation that next month's tickets will be sold out later this month.
CBN: Why is residency so important to the performing arts industry?
Wang Haigang: Resident performances are actually the core industry model of performing arts. The core industrial value of the performing arts industry lies in the longevity of a single play, that is, the number of performances it performs. In the past theater group model, it was hard to make a play, and it was over after a few performances. Such a play can win an award and leave this work. But if the work does not continue to perform, its vitality does not continue. The value of the industry is not really reflected. A play may have spent millions or even tens of millions to create, and many people have invested in their painstaking creation, do these costs need to be recovered? How can I make money? We can't shy away from making money, only by making money can we continue to develop new products and plays. Performing arts is essentially an industrial model that accumulates by the number of performances. That's the value of residency.
CBN: At the beginning of the epidemic in 2020, the entire performing arts industry was hit hard, and practitioners were under great pressure at that time. In 2021, Shanghai's entire performance market has recovered strongly, and new performing arts spaces have landed, what are the reasons behind it?
Wang Haigang: There are two factors in the activity of Shanghai's performing arts market, one is the urban character of The Sea. Taking happy twist as an example, the earliest was in Beijing, the cultural characteristics of the north are more obvious, and many lines will be more northern. But when I started in Shanghai in 2013, this was not rejected by everyone. Later, combined with The Culture of The Shanghai School, including the Shanghai dialect in the lines, this is a later matter. The government management level also plays a great role, such as the concept of new space, which is only available in Shanghai until now. Whether a place's cultural consumption is developed has a lot to do with the tolerant and enlightened attitude of the local government.
In the past two years, it has been clearly felt that Shanghai is more lively in terms of performing arts than other cities. In fact, it is also related to the epidemic, and the epidemic control in Shanghai is the most scientific and more accurate. There will be no wind noise, and the performing arts venues will all be closed. This is also a kind of confidence for the consumption of the public and the industry practitioners.
Of course, the epidemic will still have an impact. Now it is also true that as long as there is a recurrence of the epidemic, there will be a refund from the audience. In the face of the pandemic, we must face the reality and see it as the norm. But I think the audience's demand for theater and cultural consumption will not change, or it is growing positively.