Musicals - key economic factor for Hamburg

The enormous ripple effect of musicals benefits the hospitality and other sectors. In 2022, visitors arriving to see a Stage Entertainment musical spent around EUR 1 billion on hotels and other leisure activities, a survey of audiences has found. And the German-language production of “The Lion King” accounted for the lion’s share of turnover. “This year, we will have welcomed more than 16 million visitors to Hamburg since the German premiere of 'The Lion King' on December 2, 2001. That is an absolutely exceptional musical - worldwide, by the way," said Stephan Jaekel, Press Officer of Stage Entertainment.

After the world premiere of "Hercules" in spring, Stage Entertainment will also stage the German premieres of “& Julia and “MJ - the Michael Jackson Musical“."We are investing a low double-digit million sum in these two musicals alone," said Jaekel. After the MJ musical sold two million tickets worldwide, the investment in Hamburg is expected to pay off. "From the very first bar, you are bang in the middle of the musical world with one of the most brilliant artists of all time," he noted. The musical “& Julia”, on the other hand, triumphs with pure excitement and good humour. "This musical shows that Juliet would probably be better off without Romeo. Several number one hits such as Katy Perry's "Roar", Justin Timberlake's "Can't Stop The Feeling" and Pink's "Perfect" celebrate life and give Juliet new opportunities," said Jaekel.

"Cats” marked the start of Hamburg's success as a city of musicals, After celebrating its German premiere at the Operettenhaus in 1986, the show ran for 14 years . The musical boom begun almost 40 years ago has led to an impressive growth in theatre venues. The city now has  five big theatres for musicals and several smaller, dedicated stages. "They have a combined 10,000 theatre seats - 7,500 of which are in Stage Entertainment theatres alone - and attract more than three million fans every year. Only London and New York have more seats and audiences," Jaekel pointed out.

Opened in 2016, the First Stage Theatre, has slightly under 300 seats and has since celebrated 54 premieres including "A Chorus Line" and "China Girl", which pairs the acrobatics of the Chinese National Circus with music by David Bowie. This latest theatre also saw the Hamburg Chamber Ballet, which was founded in 2022, perform on stage for the first time. The theatre collaborates with the Stage School Hamburg and has paved many a career path. It is no coincidence that Germany's oldest and largest school for the performing arts opened in Hamburg in 1985. Since then, more than 2,500 young professionals have trained in dance, singing and acting. "Our graduates feature in the casts of almost all major productions. They include Mae Ann Jorolan, who is currently playing the female lead in Disney's Hercules," said Dennis Schulze, Director of Stage School.

The collaboration between the theatre and the school has resulted in up to 200 performances and is, of course, great for training, says Schulze. "The students benefit from working on stage with experienced industry professionals and the creative team. They have something to show for themselves and start their careers with a full CV." After each performance, the students more or less audition backstage for casters or potential employers. As part of their term project, the students work on a musical production for First Stage Theatre. And they do it all on their own, from idea and concept to casting, costumes, set design, choreography and music. "And they do it really well," said Schulze. "After the premiere of 'Legally Blond' in 2023, all eleven performances sold out, and that was with a minimal advertising budget and mostly by word of mouth." This year, they will stage the rock musical “Rent”, which is a modern version of Puccini's "La Bohème".

The private theatre has fixed monthly overheads of up to EUR 70,000, which are not subsidized. "Then there are the production costs, which vary depending on the duration, performance rights, the costumes and effects," said Schulze. The Big Christmas Show accounts for a good share of the costs. "The production costs alone for the multi-week production come to EUR 250,000," But fortunately, the show is extremely popular. We sold around 16,740 tickets sold in 2023 and had a 98 per cent occupancy rate. Advance sales for this year’s show are going very well and nearly two thirds of the tickets sold out in late April," he noted.
ys/sb/pb