To make the average cost of webcasting a theater show profitable during the pandemic, the “virtual” ticket would have had to be sold for twelve times more than the $17 requested.
We can put it another way: to balance the accounts of theatrical webcasting and keep the price of viewing at a relatively arm’s length threshold, it would be necessary, depending on the scale of the creations, to generate three to ten times more online traffic. .
In addition, cinematic quality filming, such as those made during confinements, offers no economy of scale. Filming a play entails additional expenses that can add up to 50% of the cost of stage production already incurred.
We are not being forced to go digital. We are still thinking about how to put digital technology at the service of living art. It seems that these are two worlds difficult to combine.
In short, as it stands and according to high standards of achievement, the digital distribution of theater as it was experienced in 2020 and 2021 is neither profitable nor even popular, according to the assessment obtained by The duty.
The show webcast project had the support of the Digital Ambition program of the Ministry of Culture and Communications (MCCQ). A special grant of one million dollars has been allocated to the preparation of this dematerialized programming.
The sum largely supported the recording of some twenty plays (including two audio) offered over two years by the eight member theaters of Théâtres associés inc. (TAI): the Théâtre d’Aujourd’hui, Duceppe, La Bordée, Denise-Pelletier, the Rideau Vert, the Quat’Sous, the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde (TNM) and the Trident. The exceptional subsidy also made it possible to carry out the analysis of the attendance data in the end.
“The grant has supported high quality recordings, and we are really happy to have tested this formula, comments Marc-Antoine Malo, co-director general and administrative director of Trident, but also president of TAI. At the same time, the observation remains: the model remains to be built. Even in the midst of a pandemic, when audiences couldn’t come to theaters, the webcast model was not profitable at all. »
On line
The findings around video on demand in theater are to be paid into the balance sheet of the great online shift of cultural circles encouraged by governments or by the force of circumstances. Some sectors, such as museums or archives or news media, seem to be greatly increasing the influence of their collections and their productions with the Web. Other sectors are still struggling to make the effort profitable. This is the case of the digital book, whose sales are still quite marginal.
“We are not being forced to go digital,” says Mr. Malo. We are still thinking about how to put digital technology at the service of living art. It seems that these are two worlds difficult to combine. »
The twenty productions presented on screen attracted more than 35,000 viewings during periods of sanitary confinement, which is approximately the number of spectators in theaters for a single play successfully shown (and additional) at the TNM during a season. usual. The data shows that more than a third (37%) of these web viewers lived more than 25 km from the theater and that a small half (45%) had not attended a theater in person during the two years preceding the pandemic.
Marie-Claude Hamel, director of communications at Duceppe, also qualifies the pessimistic reading that one could make of the data revealed in the balance sheet. “Yes, it’s expensive to broadcast online, but if we managed to get at least the same number of virtual viewers as in theaters, an average of around 12,000 people, the model would be viable, says- She. In any case, we would not be very far from being able to finance this additional mode of distribution. »
A digital recording costs around $200,000. Mme Hamel also believes that an alliance with a well-established platform, such as Tou.tv or telequebec.tv, could swell the clientele. Télé-Québec, for example, broadcast a performance of the play live The dark side of the moon, by Robert Lepage, on February 6, 2021.
Back to gasoline
The webcasting project did not induce strong competition in the sector either, since 85% of the virtual public only consulted the online offer of a single company. This data can also be read in a more depressing way for theaters: more than eight out of ten web clients did not return after the first connection.
The information obtained does not make it possible to dissect the distribution of funds to understand who has benefited the most from them, artists, theater technicians or digital companies. Part of the envelope was used to assume the costs generated by the contracts negotiated with the union members in front of and behind the cameras to authorize the webcast.
Clauses mark out any reruns. Relay authorizations for Quebec parts are only valid for Canada. There are limits to being able to mimic theatrical release of New York’s MET Opera productions…
Mr. Malo explains that, despite the project’s failure from a profitability standpoint, some theaters are still thinking about how to continue the webcast experiment. “I would be lying if I said that we will all continue to do so”, says the president of TAI. In any case, Le Trident is not committed to it for the next season. “We are going to return to the essence of what we are”, that is to say presenters of shows in person, and not virtually.