Wigmore Hall says it no longer requires public funding

[Hitch]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/mar/26/wigmore-hall-london-public-funding-arts-council

[oddoneout]

That counts as good news on more than one front I reckon; they reached their target and two years early. Being able to shed the Arts Council funding also presumably means they don't have to be subject to the increasingly onerous and bizarre requirements and decisions of that body, which is perhaps alluded to in this statement

...the fund allows Wigmore Hall to remain ambitious and artistically bold while retaining its independence.”

[Bella Kemp]

Good for them. Covent Garden could easily have done the same years ago - thereby allowing the Arts Council to channel funds to ENO.

[french frank]

' ... financially self-sustaining in “an uncertain public environment for classical music in the UK” ...' and having a good idea which sources of funding are likely to be 'uncertain' for classical music.

AKO Foundation's priority areas are: to improve education and the wellbeing of young people, to promote the arts, and to combat the climate emergency. All good - let's hope they maintain equal status.

[LHC]

Good for them. Covent Garden could easily have done the same years ago - thereby allowing the Arts Council to channel funds to ENO.

Covent Garden receives £23M a year from ACE, which represents about 15% of its total budget. Wigmore Hall's grant was around £350k, or just 3% of its budget. With such a low level of funding from ACE it was an easy decision for Wigmore Hall to decide that the increasingly bizarre and intrusive levels of bureaucracy required by ACE simply weren't worth the effort and that their energies were better spent in running themselves as they saw fit.

The idea that the Royal Opera could easily forgo £23M a year is simply ridiculous.

Edited to add, if the ROH was to establish an endowment large enough to provide them with an annual income sufficient to replace the Arts Council grant, they would probably need to raise a fund in excess of £600M.

[Ein Heldenleben]

Covent Garden receives £23M a year from ACE, which represents about 15% of its total budget. Wigmore Hall's grant was around £350k, or just 3% of its budget. With such a low level of funding from ACE it was an easy decision for Wigmore Hall to decide that the increasingly bizarre and intrusive levels of bureaucracy required by ACE simply weren't worth the effort and that their energies were better spent in running themselves as they saw fit.

The idea that the Royal Opera could easily forgo £23M a year is simply ridiculous.

Edited to add, if the ROH was to establish an endowment large enough to provide them with an annual income sufficient to replace the Arts Council grant, they would probably need to raise a fund in excess of £600M.

I was going to make precisely the same point so thank you for putting it so eloquently.
A fifteen per cent rise in ticket prices to make up for loss of the Arts Council money would put a moderate Amphitheater seat of £110 ( current price for Carmen ) up to £126. Most of the people who go there are not on vast incomes.
At the ballet the other day I was struck by how many young (under 30 ) people there were at the performance of Romeo and Juliet. Again few of these are flush with money.They are also repaying Student grants and paying vast London rents. If “high” culture is not to be the preserve of the seriously moneyed than an element of public subsidy is reasonable.
The problem with ENO is partly that they’ve had a series of managers who haven’t played an admittedly poor hand that well. The ROH’s commercial arm is tremendously successful but ENO’s attempts at that - e,g, the partnership with Lord Grade didn’t bring in much money and didn’t “enhance “ their brand as they say,

The Wigmore Hall is not really the right comparator. It’s in a wealthy part of London and has a seriously well heeled and loyal customer and indeed membership base. Its running costs are a fraction of an Opera house’s.

[NeilSchofield]

The Wigmore Hall is not really the right comparator. It’s in a wealthy part of London and has a seriously well heeled and loyal customer and indeed membership base. Its running costs are a fraction of an Opera house’s.

I think there's also a question of whether this model works for the arts outside London - where audiences are less well-heeled and private sponsorship is deterred by the fact that audiences tend to be less "high-value".

I used to sing with Mid-Wales Opera in its community chorus, taking fully-staged opera (with reduced orchestration) to venues around Cymru. We were performing to audiences of 500 at most, with a realistic maximum seat price of £25 or so (because in Wales, outside Cardiff, you can't go much above that without deterring your audience). The company has been completely defunded by Arts Council Wales - which means that there is no possibility of staging fully-staged opera in the forseeable future. And MWO is just one casualty of a systematic defunding of the arts in Wales - classical music is on its knees here, as readers will know.

Where will the alternative funding for the arts outside London? The UK is a poor country with a few rich enclaves, mostly in London and the South East. Corporate philanthropy is rarely disinterested, and is mainly about brand exposure to "high value" audiences. Who will be prepared to put their money into opera in Llanelli or Newton, if not the state?