Daehangno Takes Up 87% of Korea''s Theater Market
[FOCUS] 「2011 Survey of Theaters in Daehangno District」

Daehangno, located in Jongno-gu in the heart of Seoul, is one of the major cultural districts in Korea. It is called the mecca of Korean theatre arts as there are clusters of cultural art institutions, organizational groups, theaters, and also abundant theatrical performances such as plays, music, and musicals.

The Seoul Theater Center, which is operated by the Seoul Foundation Arts and Culture (SFAC), published the results of the 「2011 Survey of Theaters in Daehangno District」 in February. The survey was conducted to establish the basic materials for making theatre-related policies and marketing plans by identifying the scale and status of the theatre market in Daehangno.

Map of theaters in the Daehangno district

122 Theaters in the Daehangno District

In the Daehangno district with an area 30,500㎡, there are currently 112 theaters in operation. This accounts for 13.7% of the 870 theaters throughout the nation, and 39.1% of the 286 theaters in the Seoul region. It was found that especially since Daehangno was designated as a Cultural District (an area designated by law to promote cultural art and to expand cultural space) in 2004, the number of theaters in the district has grown exponentially.

More than 80% of the theaters in Daehangno have fewer than 300 seats. In particular, 60% of all theaters are equipped with only 100 to 300 seats. It was found that 68 (60.7%) theaters were established by private individuals and 18 (15.9%) were established by corporate bodies.

Trends of theatre establishment

According to the report, the total number of works staged in Daehangno in 2010 was 752, and among those 502 works were plays, 97 musicals, and 153 dance and other genres. The market size by total sales was 33.9 billion won (approx. USD 30 million), and the sales from plays accounts for 19.7 billion won (approx. USD 17.5 million), which is 87% of Korea''s 2010 theater market of 23 billion won (approx. USD 20 million; estimated by no. 1 ticket sales website, INTERPARK). 

Premiering Plays Take Up 52% of All Plays.

Looking at the performance period, plays took up the most performance periods of 2 weeks or less with 39%, and works of 2 months or less took up 27.6% of the overall works, while musicals took up the most performance period of 2 to 4 months with 34%. Especially in theatre, the comedy genre was performed the most with an average of 376 days, then drama with 54 days, and musical plays with 53 days.

With 52% (among 502 works) of 2010 plays staged in Daehangno being premiers and 41.2% (among 97 works) for musicals of the same, it was found that over half of the works in plays were premiers. For foreign theatre, they took up 36% of overall plays and 26.8% of musicals, showing that the ratio for original plays were contrarily higher in plays than musicals. When it comes to the number of theatre''s type-specific works, drama was the most common with 75.9%, then comedy with 12.8%, which in total, accounts for 88.7% of the entire genres.

According to the expert evaluation results of 2010 staged works in Daehangno, artistic value scored 2.7 points, level of experiment 2.62 points, and popularity 3.05 points. This shows that they scored artistic value and level of experiment below average while the popularity was scored just around average.

Number of performance works in Daehangno in 2010

Number of works by performance period (out of total 502 theatrical works, excluding 71 works that took part in festivals)

The Capital of Theater and Experiments

From the recognition survey of the people in theatre about the theatres in Daehangno, it was found that the question ''recognition as the capital of theatre'' was responded 91.6% positive scoring 4.29 points, while ''competitiveness of performance halls'' was responded 20.9% positive only receiving 2.63 points. This shows that people in theatre perceived the expertise and continuous competitiveness of Daehangno''s performance halls weaker than other areas.

From the recognition survey of the audiences on the theatres in Daehangno, it was found that 85.2% perceived the theatres in Daehangno as the ''capital of theatre'', and 76% responded positively to the ''variety of works'' giving it 3.75 points. The average number of performances watched in Daehangno per year was found to be 6.3 for drama, 5.1 for family (puppet), and 3.5 for comedies, which shows that drama has the most audience.

The 2010 theatre market in Daehangno through this survey was estimated at 20 billion won (approx. USD 17 million), accounting for 87% of the entire theatre market in Korea, which was estimated by the INTERPARK at 23 billion won (approx. USD 20 million). We can easily say that Daehangno is the capital of theatre, just by looking at the size of its market. As 52% of the plays in Daehangno are premiers, a lot of the plays that were staged there are being re-showcased at theatres in other regions. Also, the ratio of original plays for plays and musicals are dominantly higher than others, and in terms of plays, the ratio of non-repertoire performances account for 53.6%. This means a variety of ideas for theatre are continuously being experimented at the capital of theatre, Daehangno.

Number of works in staged in Daehangno by type