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UK Arena Attendances Fall Heavily in 2010
Monday, 14 March 2011 Written by Dave Ball
UK Arena Attendances Fall Heavily in 2010

Figures revealed over the past weekend by the National Arenas Association (NAA) show that attendance at arenas for music events over the past 12 months have fallen heavily, down by a fifth on 2009 due to the volume of shows they hosted dropping sharply.

2009 saw a record 13.6m people attending shows across the UK’s 17 largest arenas with 2010’s figures down by 19% at 10.9m the International Live Music Conference was told. Although those figures look like a frighteningly high drop off, it should also be noted that 2010’s figures are slightly up on 2008 (10.4m attendees).
 
While music events still dominate the calendars of arenas with around 60% of all foot fall resulting from people attending concerts, only three of the top ten events of 2010 were music related, the highest placed of those being the X Factor tour at number one with 478,000 attending the shows.
 
Elsewhere Lady Gaga’s tour reached number four with Rod Stewart at number ten. NAA chairman Phil Mead presented the figures and suggested the main reason for the fall is down to the drop in the number of performances held at arenas during the 12 months, down 6% on 2009.
 
Another reason noted for the fall was the length of current tour schedules, with many bands now hand picking a few dates in each country rather than spending a month at a time working their way through every corner of a destination and instead only targeting the major cities.

"Once an act becomes big internationally they simply don’t have the time to tour up and down arenas in the UK, so increasingly it’s domestic things like X Factor that are keeping them alive. The business is not as big as it used to be. The NAA numbers show that arenas should be down on their knees to Simon Cowell,"
 
The X Factor was also the only musical representative for number of shows which seemingly agrees with this. At 57 shows, Cowell’s gravy train still only managed number six on the list, falling behind the likes of Strictly Come Dancing, Disney on Ice and Cirque De Soleil.

The O2 Arena also reported a decrease in both attendance and occupancy last year, however these were much smaller drops and the venue did maintain it’s status as the World’s most popular live music venue.

Jim Frayling, head of music at Wembley Stadium, expressed his surprise at the figures although he did also confirm that Wembley had seen it’s calendar contain more empty dates than in past years
 
"Stadium-level is a lot more cyclical than arenas but the facts are that last year we had four shows at Wembley compared to 12 the year before," said Frayling. "Perhaps the NAA figures provide evidence that there might have been fewer acts out on the road in 2010."

As expected ticket prices rose again with a rise of slightly under 2% pushing the average ticket price above £45 at £45.69, arena event prices in general were up 1% at £36.59 while sport actually saw a slight decrease in average price, dropping to £24.78 per ticket.
Frayling did expect that figures would rise again next year, citing the likes of Rihanna, Adele, Westlife, Justin Bieber and Kings of Leon as some of the major acts who he expects to draw the crowds back in for 2011.
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