Ticket sales recover for Dublin Theatre Festival

The Dublin Theatre Festival moved back into the black last year as ticket sales recovered and its Arts Council funding increased by 5 per cent, its latest accounts show.

The company, a registered charity, swung to a surplus of €67,641 in 2017 after recording a loss of €157,959 the previous year.

In 2016 the festival recorded a 20 per cent dip in ticket sales but that position changed last year and sales increased 3.77 per cent to €578,611.

Additionally, the company saw its Arts Council funding increase to €850,000 in the year. The Sunday Times reported in June that the company had requested funding of €912,500 for its 2018 festival but this wasn’t granted and its funding fell to €825,000.

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Established in 1957, the organisation runs an annual season of Irish and international theatre performances across Dublin, typically running from the last Thursday of September for 18 days.

In 2017, the festival presented 32 productions, including 21 Irish and 11 international projects. Of the Irish productions 12 were world premieres, a fact that underlines “the festival’s strategic role in supporting Irish theatre artists to create, present and promote new work”, the directors said in their report.

The Dublin Theatre Festival employed 22 people last year, down by two on the previous year, with 14 of those employed through the course of the festival. Its payroll costs increased slightly to €454,815. The company's artistic director and chief executive, Willie White, received compensation between €70,000 and €80,000.

Income at the company increased 5.4 per cent last year while overheads dropped a marginal 2.8 per cent helped by a 19.5 fall in travel expenses to €16,345.

“The company is committed to maximising its investment in the festival programme. In acknowledgement of the risk involved, the company currently budgets on the basis of generating a small annual surplus of around one to two per cent of revenues,” the directors said in their report.