ROH Friends recent RB reviews

Forty years on it is interesting to reflect on what has changed. Sherine Krause, the House’s Deputy Development Director (membership) has responsibility for the Friends and the Trust. She is the Friends’ advocate, making sure that they get an appropriate package of benefits, and in her opinion the Friends are central to the House’s purpose.

Following reorganisation, the current Chairman of the Friends, Marco Compagnoni, is a member of the main Opera House Board. Like the other Board members his responsibilities cover all of the House’s activities, but the primary reason why he is at the “top table” is because of his chairmanship of the Friends’ Advisory Council. Compagnoni, is a senior partner at Lovells, a large City law firm, which is itself a Patron Member of the ROH’s Trust. He is described by Krause as a long-time Friend and “massively” committed to the Friends.

The Friends’ Advisory Council

The recently created Advisory Council evolved out of the two previous Friends organizations, the Council and the Committee of the Friends. The Advisory Council’s role is to work with its Chairman in ensuring that the “needs and the feelings of the Friends” are understood by the main Board, and to keep the dialogue going between the Friends and the House. To achieve this, representatives from around the House present themselves before the Advisory Council at their twice-yearly meetings.

Photograph © Bill Cooper and courtesy of ROH

While there is no reason to doubt the commitment and sincerity of those currently serving on the Advisory Council, it still begs the question of why those particular Friends have been chosen. The answer lies in the fact that, while the Advisory Council may be a recent creation, its members are not new recruits. Rather it consists of those who were formerly on the previous two bodies. While Krause was uncertain how precisely they were selected, it is believed that they were self-elected, with existing members, as necessary, suggesting the names of others. When the Advisory Council was formed those on the Committee and the Council were simply given the option of joining the new body. Asked why these people should be seen as the ones to represent the Friends’ views, Krause explained, that they had been part of the organisation for a very long time, and had really put themselves in a position of caring enough to want to do this work for the House. While there was no proposal at this stage as to how Advisory Council members might be selected, this is an issue that the ROH is looking at.

Overture to Act IV – Befriending the House

Increasing new blood and especially more young blood for the Friends is an important goal. There are various types of relationships available – Overture for the under 26s costing £25 (joiners get £25 worth of discount vouchers); the basic Friends’ package for a fee of £64 escalating in price to the very top tier of being able to call yourself an Act IV Friend at a cost of £1,395. There are some 1,500 who are at the higher levels, having purchased membership in one of the four “Acts”. For their money these people get the odd extra event, but only Act III and Act IV Friends receive any additional ticket priorities.

As ticketing priority is acknowledged by the House to be the main reason why most people join the Friends, there could be a problem if those at these higher levels consumed a high proportion of available tickets. According to Sherine Krause this is not the case, and the House would take active steps to make sure it did not happen. Further, the press often claims that Friends’ bookings remove all the good seats from wider sale to the general public. This is simply not true. In fact, Friends and Trust bookings normally only account for some 40% of tickets sold for any particular performance, with 80% being the maximum percentage of priority booked seats that the House will sell.

From a low of 12,000 when the House was close for refurbishment, Friends’ numbers have grown to 27,000. Many are rejoiners, but not all. The average age does remain relatively high at 58, although there is obviously huge variation. As many of the newer recruits are of working age, it is quite possible that over time the average age will fall slightly.

With so many members (and the hope of more) there has to be a fear that some Friends will, on occasion, be disappointed that the benefits of membership may not always be available. Krause maintains that not everyone joins the Friends or stays a member for the same reason. Surprisingly, there are a large number of Friends who never even come to the House. This being the case, the risk of running out of priority tickets is, in fact, very low. This is, of course, not necessarily true for special, one-off performances of world famous artists, when there tends to be heavy demand or for open rehearsals for which there is usually only some 900 seats available. But, even for rehearsals, only a very small proportion of the Friends apply for tickets.

Friends and Fundraising

Increasing membership is important for fundraising, as it is mainly from membership fees that the Friends’ financial contribution to the House is drawn. (During 2001/02, for example, the Friends’ contribution was £1.5m into the House’s coffers. The total fundraised income for the period was £11.2m.) Although the Friends’ element of the total is not excessively large, what is collected is very important to the House’s finances particularly in these market turbulent times when to rely on only a few major donors or corporates is a foolhardy approach.

Photograph © Bill Cooper and courtesy of ROH

The money raised from the Friends is not subdivided between the different performing companies, but goes towards the House’s general running costs. This is fair enough given that the vast majority of Friends attend both opera and ballet. 16% of Friends attend ballet performances only and a similar percentage limits themselves to opera. In the circumstances there is not a strong case for creating separate ballet and opera Friends organizations. But, keeping to the original spirit, some of the Friends’ money is specifically earmarked for certain productions in any year. During the current season these were the operas Wozzeck and the Cunning Little Vixen, and for the ballet company the Manon revival and Sinfonietta.

Friends’ Events

Sherine Krause argues passionately that Friends should not see membership as primarily a way to priority booking, but rather that they should take advantage of all that joining offers. The House is now offering more events with greater variety, focusing not only on performers, but also on the work of the orchestra and production staff. Events are frequently not sold out, particularly those scheduled in the middle of the working day. Children are being specially targeted. Capturing a very young audience is highly desirable to any arts venue, and the ROH would like Friends to bring their children or grandchildren to events with the hope that they will become the audiences of the future.

More Friends might come to events if they knew what was on offer, and the House intends to promote events more aggressively. This has tied in well with the rationalisation of the booking process. The hope is that those applying for tickets for a performance will be more inclined to book at the same time and on the same form for an allied Friends’ event. Krause hopes that the number of Friends who come regularly to events, (currently only some 2,000), will increase. If that did happen there might be implications given that the Linbury has a seating capacity of slightly less than 400 and the Clore has room for only half that number. Repeating a popular event might seen to be a solution, but this is frequently not possible considering the resources, both external and internal, and the co-ordination required.

The programme of events has recently become the job of the House’s Education Department. This department’s focus is very much on continual learning, and it is closely linked to the recently launched ROH2 Department. Together they are looking at the long-term strategy of how to develop audiences. There is also recognition that Friends have different levels of knowledge, with some being basic beginners and others very knowledgeable. The aim is to pitch events at the right level with something for everyone, and to try to encourage people to sample new things

In future the House intends to make it easier for Friends to increase their knowledge, and will keep in contact with Friends, suggesting other events they may want to attend. This approach recognises the value of the Friends. In Sherine Krause’s words, “they are the core of the audience, in some ways they are the future of the organisation”. As David Webster saw, their support and advocacy is not just for the first 40 years, but will be needed for a long time to come.