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Qin, Amy. (20 April 2016). China’s Smaller Cities Struggle to Cultivate an Interest in
Classical Music. The New York Times. Retrieved from
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/21/arts/music/chinas-smaller-cities-struggle-to-
cultivate-an-interest-in-classical-music.html
This article is talking about the problems that the concert halls are having in China and the possible factors that could contribute to the growth of attendance. Especially the concert halls that are located in the smaller cities are having the difficulties with the attendance even though there is sufficient capacity and professional musicians that are supposed to attract large audiences. For the theaters attendance is vital, because it brings 50% of revenue (Qin, 2016). The author thinks that in order to boost the demand for the music concerts there should be some institutional changes, in particular better regular concert seasons and several sources of funding. In addition, some concert halls need to develop soft skills, improve the maintenance, etc (Qin, 2016). In recent years attendance declined due to the economic slowdown and underdeveloped philanthropy culture in China. One of the directors at the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing Ren Xiaolong thinks that there should be less control from the government and the theaters and concert halls have to learn how to work effectively (Qin, 2016). Nevertheless, there has been some progress in the development of the major concert halls and there were many visiting orchestras from abroad that played complex classical music besides the world famous melodies. In order to make going to the concert affordable for the middle class people, the concert halls price the tickets to be competitive with the cost of the cinema tickets (Qin, 2016).
The first economic topic that may be related to this article is the market equilibrium. Supply of the concerts has significantly increased in the past years in China, but the demand for the concerts is much lower due to the various reasons. The theaters try to create the market equilibrium buy offering the affordable tickets, but the demand is still low. So one may come to the conclusion that it is not only the price that influences attendance. The author also talks about the shortage of the audience that is interested in going to the concerts. Boosting the demand could be reached by means of improved education of the potential audience and popularization of the classical music in China. In turn, the supply curve of the market equilibrium could be shifted by means of the better season programs including inviting more orchestras from abroad. It is important that the government controls the concert halls less, because its intervention may lead to the ineffective performance and shortage of supply or demand. For example, the customers would like to listen to the foreign orchestras and maybe they would like to pay more money for the tickets, but the bad concert program that depends on the government’s resources holds back the supply.
In my opinion, the problem of popularization of the classical music in China is very complicated and there should be a better balance between building the new concert halls and being able to manage them effectively. It is evident that there is excessive supply and in order to increase attendance, the concert halls have to reduce the prices to the breakeven point. If this is not enough, they should strive for subsidies from the government in order to reduce the prices even more or invest into the quality of the service and musical performance. Another alternative is to improve the repertoire and apply the different pricing strategies to the concerts in which the foreign and local orchestras and musicians participate. At the same time, all strategies will be ineffective, if the population is not interested in the classical music and consequently the demand stays low. So the government and the concert halls should be much more active in spreading the information that concerns the classical music and making it a part of the Chinese culture. For example, in the large Chinese cities there was significant progress which can be attributed not only to the economic development and improved quality of life, but also to the changes in the people’s preferences.