Shakespeare’s Globe back in black after successful summer and demand for £5 tickets

A “particularly successful” summer season and its popular £5 ticket helped Shakespeare’s Globe achieved a surplus for the first time since the Covid-19 pandemic.

Newly-filed accounts with Companies House have revealed that the venue achieved a total income of £29.9m in the year to October 31, 2023, up from £19.1m.

That more than offset its total expenditure rising from £21.2m to £23.7m to leave Shakespeare’s Globe with a net income of £6.1m.

In the prior financial year the venue posted a loss of £2m.

Shakespeare’s Globe is a reconstruction of the Globe Theatre, an Elizabethan playhouse first built in 1599. The venue is run by The Shakespeare Globe Trust.

“We have had a successful year”

In a statement signed off by chair Margaret Casely-Hayford and chief executive Stella Kanu, Shakespeare’s Globe said: “Aware of the contributory influences of a cost-of-living crisis as well as the economic impact of events such as the pandemic, Russian invasion of Ukraine and of responses to Brexit, we entered 2023 with a plan to rebuild.

“Alongside many other venues and visitor attractions, responding to new audience patterns of attendance has been a challenge.

“However, unlike others, we have had a successful year, overreaching our historically modest, but currently stretching, income target, which saw us end the year for the first time since before the pandemic.

“Our combined free reserves and designated funds stands at c.50 per cent more than planned because of legacy income, increased Theatre Tax Relief, achieving box office targets, increased investment income and the effective management of contingency budgets.

“We are heading in the right director for financial recovery and stabilisation corroborated by the first year results of the three-year plan, 85 per cent of the KPIs are now either complete or already in progress including some KPIs that relate to year two or three of the plan.”

Success of £5 ticket boosts Shakespeare’s Globe

Shakespeare’s Globe added that it has been able to retain its £5 ticket option, which is not sponsored and instead invested in by the venue itself.

It said that during the year “audiences have paid us back by returning to us and helping us overreach many theatre production audience targets, something many of our sector colleagues are not forecasting until 2024 or 2025”.

The venue added that it welcomed more than 408,000 visitors during last summer with over 189,000 paying £10 or less for a ticket.