Annual Arts Survey Result Dashboard – 2020/21 Performing Arts

With the unstable Coronavirus situation, performing venues were closed in period of April to May, July to September and December in 2020, as well as the first quarter of 2021. Many onsite performances were cancelled. Some of them were changed to live streaming or recorded performances.

Online performance
There were 1,060 online performing art programmes offered by local art groups this year.  Among them, close to 80% (839 programmes) were new productions created during the pandemic, and 57 programmes ran in hybrid mode, with both onsite and online performance available. Art forms covered in the programmes were mainly Theatre and Music, with 340 and 329 programmes found respectively.

Onsite performance
The number of onsite programmes and performances decreased significantly by 72% in 2020/21*, as performing venues were closed for almost half of the year. Also, some venues only allowed rehearsal use and performances or activities without live audiences in early re-open stage,  the numbers of programmes and performances eventually fell to 1,201 programmes and 2,053 performances (3,067 and 5,151 fewer than previous year respectively). Downtrend has been observed across all art forms, in which the number of performance of Theatre, Variety and Pop Shows, and Xiqu dropped by more than a thousand for each, compared to the previous year.

Limited by the anti-epidemic measures like group gathering regulations and audience number restrictions, reduction in attendance was found larger than the percentage drop in numbers of programmes and performances in this year. Total attendance reduced by 86% to 328,000 in 2020/21, in particular Xiqu attendance was found 525,000 fewer than the previous year.

When both the number of paid performance and attendance registered a drop in this year, total box office income eventually fell from HK$ 3.68 billion in previous year to less than HK$ 40 million this year.

Detailed analysis will be covered in the Hong Kong Annual Arts Survey Report 2020/21 and to be published later.

Below is an interactive dashboard of the Performing Arts statistics which contains three pages. Total figures of online and onsite performances in 2020/21 are shown in the first page. Comparison of the onsite performances within five years are provided in the second and the third page. Readers can select free or paid admission boxes at the bottom to see the filtered charts, or click on the interested art form / year in one of the charts on the second page, the dashboard will be automatically refreshed.  On the third page, readers can click on one of the art forms in the filter to see the figures of the art genres within the selected art form. 

# Attendance by art genres is not available in 2020/21.

*The number of programmes in 2020/21 is based on programmes held in 29 arts and cultural facilities during the financial year from 1 April 2020 to 31 March 2021.  Hong Kong Coliseum, Queen Elizabeth Stadium, Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre, AsiaWorld-Expo, Kowloonbay International Trade & Exhibition Centre, etc are not included in the 29 arts and cultural facilities.  (The list of venues will be published with the Hong Kong Annual Arts Survey Report 2020/21.)