Festival attendance well up on AK03

The French-Canadian multimedia show 'Les 7 Doigts de la Main' was among festival highlights.

With the Auckland Festival AK05 wrapping over the weekend, organisers can breathe a sigh of relief and confirm that, contrary to some reports, the festival has bettered the inaugural AK03 ticket sales - even though it has also made a loss estimated to be at least $600,000.

Sales were poor for some shows, such as Steven Berkoff's Shakespeare's Villains, which sold out two weeks ahead during its Perth season prior to his Auckland visit.

Here, Berkoff's three-night season at the Bruce Mason Theatre was less than half full, although it did better during a two-night run at the Civic.

Ticket sales for high-profile Australian production 3 Furies were also poor. AK05 chief executive David Malacari, a former director of the Adelaide Arts Festival, said the failure to attract a solid audience for 3 Furies was frustrating, but he was more positive about another Australian show, Bush, by the Bangarra Dance Theatre, which ran for five nights at the 2000-seat Aotea Centre.

"Bush had 400-500 people each night, which is a good audience in a theatre which seats 2000," he said. "In Adelaide, we used to do the same thing - put a contemporary dance group in a large theatre and expect an audience of 500 for them.

"It was our fault we budgeted as if it was a 2000-seat show. The outcome was pretty good for that show and the audience response shows that."

But shows such as the Tao Drummers, Cabaret Decadanse and Zakir Hussain sold out, while sales for Nina Nawalowalo's drama Vula, the American rap group Def Poetry Jam and the panto Jack and the Beanstalk were healthy.

Mr Malacari acknowledges changes will have to be made for the next festival in two years. For starters, it will be more clearly branded with the title Auckland Arts Festival.

It will have more of an outdoors programme that will be seen broadly through the city.

And Mr Malacari and his team will be more realistic about audience targets next time around. Just before AK05 opened on February 25, the festival team was quoted as being worried about poor ticket sales. That was a mistake, he concedes.

"We probably made this rod for our own backs by trying to stir up ticket sales to start off.

"People kept saying 'ticket sales have been poor', but they've actually been really good. Our targets were too ambitious but we make no apologies for that."

Mr Malacari said because they had no model to work with, they were pulling figures out of the air.

"We've learned more about what our targets should be for next time. We had no historical data for this time of year and this type of event."

In 2007 Mr Malacari aims to programme "staggered" events so people can attend more than one production during a night out, much like film festival attendances.

He would also like to see Aotea Square used more appropriately. "We could have changed the mix of what we did there, and extended a bit and given it a longer life."