Annual Review Report 2013/14
St David’s Hall
Arts Council of Wales
May, 2014
About the Annual Review Meeting
Venue:
Arts Council of Wales Office, Bute Place
Date of meeting:
24 March 2014
Present St David’s Hall:
Roger Hopwood, Arts and Theatres Manager
Aiden Plender, Music Adviser
Glender Charles, Arts Development Manager
Graham Carbis, Administrative Manager
Lisa Every, Marketing Manager
David Baxter, Arts Active Manager
Susan King, Programme Manager
Present Arts Council:
Lisa Matthews, Portfolio Manager
Suzanne Griffiths-Rees, Development Officer
Date of draft report:
22 April 2014
Date of final report:
4 June 2014
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1. Organisation Background
St. David's Hall (SDH) was built in 1982, and is owned and managed by
Cardiff Council. It houses one main auditorium seating 1,956 and a less
formal space which accommodates up to 350 people. There is also a gallery
area. The venue presents a mixed programme of professional events and
performances including ballet, classical music concerts, children's shows,
comedy, popular music and light entertainment.
St David's Hall is the location for the annual Welsh Proms and biennial BBC
Cardiff Singer of the World competition. The BBC National Orchestra of Wales
is the orchestra in residence. Arts Council of Wales funding supports the
classical music programme.
2. Programme of activity
a. Current year activity and issues 13/14
St David’s Hall continued, during 2013/14, to present its usual broad based
programme of arts and entertainment.
In 2013, Cardiff Singer of the World returned to St David’s Hall for its biennial
competition and its 30th anniversary. All the heats and final for the main
competition were held at the Hall, with the heats for the Song Prize held at the
Dora Stoutzker Hall at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama and the
final taking place at St David’s Hall. Both finals were truly inspirational, with
the exceptional American Mezzo Soprano Jamie Barton, clinching both
competitions. The English tenor Ben Johnson was awarded the audience prize.
The highlights of the 2012/13 International Concert Series for this year
included the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra concert on 17 April 2013 with Jiři
Bělohlavek conducting a predominantly Czech programme including
Smetana’s Má Vlast and Josef Špacek performing Mendelssohn’s Violin
Concerto. On 8 May 2013, Elgar’s concert overture, In the South (Alassio)
featured in the Philharmonia concert conducted by Sir Andrew Davis. This
concert also featured pianist Lise de la Salle performing Mozart’s Piano
Concerto No. 9.
The 2013/14 season opened on 16 October 2014, with performances of
Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 and Rimski-Korsakov’s Scheherazade
given by the Tchaikovsky Symphony Orchestra of Moscow Radio conducted by
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Denis Lotoev, with Noriko Ogawa as the soloist. On 18 November 2014, the
Czech National Symphony Orchestra toured the United Kingdom in celebration
of the 80th birthday of its music director Libor Pešek. During their visit to St
David’s Hall they performed Schubert’s Symphony No. 8 and Dvořák’s
Symphony No. 7.
The Philharmonia visited on 21 February 2014, with an all Brahms programme
with German violinist Christian Tetzlaff and Latvian conductor Andris Nelsons
who will take up his position as music director of the Boston Symphony
Orchestra in two years’ time. On 13 March Floreligium and Floreligium Choir
performed Charpentier’s Te Deum, Gluck’s Flute Concerto and Mozart’s
sublime Mass in C minor with Welsh soprano Elin Manahan Thomas.
During the year, a programme of education and outreach work has run in
parallel with the International Concert Series. In the Chimes project, Brass
students from the BTec Performing Arts Course at Michaelston Community
College worked with brass players and composers to create their own fanfare.
The musicians, including a mix of local orchestral musicians and students from
the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama, became a human “Garage
Band”, bringing their ideas to life and allowing them to explore compositional
approaches. The piece was performed at St David’s Hall prior to the Monzil
Brass concert and also at the launch of the British Council’s Take Over Cardiff
event at the Senedd.
The Music Mix project has a schools composition project that is directly linked
to the International Concert Series repertoire. The intention is to engage young
people with music making and introduces them to unfamiliar musical forms
through creating a fusion of traditional orchestral instrumentation and popular
musical forms. The ICS concert performance on 21st February 2014 saw three
schools present their own compositions inspired by the Brahms Violin Concerto
before the Philharmonia concert.
Composer and instrumentalist Adrian Lee has been working with composition
students at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama on a project centred
upon Steve Reich’s Electric Counterpoint. The students spent a session on the
gamelan at the Hall with Adrian looking at some of the inspiration and origins
of the minimalist movement. Some of the students’ work was showcased at
Adrian’s concert in March.
Following a trial project in the summer of 2013 as part of the Welsh Proms,
Arts Active is developing the venue’s former restaurant as a studio space for
music-focused performance work by, for and with young people. The work,
funded via a Capital Lottery grant from the Arts Council of Wales, will
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increasingly become a valuable resource for the Hall’s education and
community offer. In this new space – Lefel 1 – Arts Active presented Britten’s
Five Canticles performed by a young graduate company from Royal Welsh
College of Music and Drama and Cardiff University.
b. Reviewed against Revenue Funding Agreement (RFA) Targets 13/14
Headline targets

To programme the International Concert Series (ICS) throughout the year,
comprising of between five and 10 concerts by UK based and International
orchestras, featuring guest soloists and conductors. The series will be
complemented by a comprehensive programme of education and outreach
work. To evaluate your approach to ICS programming in order to make the
programme more sustainable in the long term.
Average concert attendances this year, (excluding the Orchestra of Welsh National
Opera), were just short of target. This is in part due to the concert on 8 May
2013, by the Philharmonia Orchestra, conducted by Sir Andrew Davis having
considerably fewer concert goers than was anticipated. However, even with this
underperformance, attendances are within 151 of the target for the season.

Commission new contemporary work from composers and orchestras,
including young Welsh composers wherever possible.
A large scale orchestral piece has been co-commissioned from the German
composer Jörg Widmann by St David’s Hall, Welsh National Opera Orchestra,
the Grafenegg Music Festival, Austria (the main commissioner) and the
Amsterdam Concertgebouw. The work will be around 25 to30 minutes long
and will receive its UK premiere at the Hall in April 2016 as part of the Three
concert, following its first performance at the Grafenegg Festival in 2015.
The project requires substantial fundraising to support the planned three new
commissions. Each commission will represent the standard concert format of
overture, concerto and symphony. With the Widmann piece as the second half
component of the concert, current efforts are focussed on developing the two
new commissions for the first half and the Hall is currently in negotiation with
Paul Mealor and the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama.

To research and develop new marketing and audience development
initiatives to attract new audiences including the use of social media and
internet marketing in relation to the ICS programme.
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Analysis by the venue shows that 23.3% of e-marketing material is opened on
mobile devices. The traffic from iPads and tablets to the St David’s Hall website
has increased by 439.6% in comparison to 2011, which equates to approximately
50,000 iPad/tablet users. This clearly demonstrates that the development of new
e-flier templates, both mobile optimised, and allowing for analysis of open rates
and click rates, has proved an excellent investment.
Building on this, the mobile optimised website is now up and running and
performing well. Work has now been completed to reconfigure the ticketing
section of the website following the move of the box office system to a web based
‘cloud’ system. One of the aims of this is to integrate the information and
ticketing sections of the website so a visitor can be tracked right through the
process and work can also identify drop off levels or abandonment of shopping
carts. This work is ongoing as currently resources are an issue.
The practice of following up on those that clicked on event information but had
not yet booked has now been introduced and this has had excellent results.
Investment in social media has also paid dividends with Twitter followers up from
2,000 to nearly 11,000 in the last three years. Facebook likes are also up by
almost a 1,000 from last year to close to 3,000.
Recent benchmarking activity has begun with several other Cardiff venues
including the Wales Millennium Centre and Chapter to ensure that St David’s Hall
levels of digital engagement are on par with industry norms. Results to date show,
that despite drastically different staff resources, St David’s Hall is currently leading
the way with this technology.
Website development has included the introduction of a full-season page plus an
International Concert Series button on the home page. As well as this the season
brochure is now available as a downloadable PDF or online as an e-book.

To sustain and continue to develop your relationship with the Royal Welsh
College of Music & Drama (RWCMD) and other Cardiff based universities
to allow students to attend rehearsals, master classes and recitals.
St David’s Hall’s strong commitment to supporting students from RWCMD and
Cardiff University continues. Both RWCMD and Cardiff University are aware of
opportunities for students to attend rehearsals for any of the ICS events and
requests are always accommodated.
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A concessionary £5 ticket is available for students to attend any of the ICS concerts
and the Hall’s lunchtime concert recitals are also available at the reduced rate of
£2.50 or just £1 for specific RWCMD events.
The Philharmonia continues to develop its relationship with the College with
master classes in the context of its concerts in the Hall.
Arts Active’s current programme includes working with Adrian Lee and
composition students from the RWCMD on a project centred on Steve Reich’s
Electric Counterpoint - as outlined above.
c. Coming year’s activity and issues 14/15
From April 2014/15 St David’s Hall will no longer be a Revenue Client of the
Arts Council of Wales. However, lottery funding has been awarded to support
the International Concert Series and some work by Arts Active.
3. The creation of artistic work
As a presenting venue, St David’s Hall does not produce work itself but works
closely with other organisations to ensure that the work programmed and
presented at the Hall is of a high artistic value.
The International Concert Series is curated by St David’s Hall staff and a
freelance consultant. They are supported by in-house marketing, education
and outreach opportunities for each concert are also investigated and
organised by in-house staff including the Arts Active team.
St David’s Hall has regular meetings the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, the
Welsh National Opera and the Royal Welsh College of Music. They work
together to ensure that programming of classical music in the city is balanced
and potential clashes are avoided. Joint marketing initiatives help ensure a
mutually-beneficial result for all concerned. Whilst St David’s Hall is part of the
Orchestral Consortium Membership, the benefits have yet to be seen and this is
something that is currently being discussed.
As part of savings that St David’s Hall has to make (due to the reduction in core
funding from Cardiff Council), three of the four concerts for the Welsh Proms
were cut. However, Owain Arwel Hughes has secured three concerts at neutral
cost to the Hall – from the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, BBCNOW
and Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. In addition to these concerts there will
be a wide range of music presented this year, including a Folk Day with
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traditional Welsh music at its heart. Artists include Jamie Smith’s Mabon,
Haddo and Olion Byw. Funding has been secured from PRS for a new
commission from the combined forces of Allan yn y Fan and DnA. There will
also be opportunities for participation and “have a go” sessions on the harp
and traditional clogging.
4. Audience and Participation
Attendance Figures
2011/12
Events Attendances
Exhibitions
17 236,831
0
2012/13
Events Attendances
17
0
% Change
Events
Attendances
194,645 0%
Film Screenings
Performances by
Touring Companies
Performances at
Presenting Venues
261
164,655
302
210,135
16%
28%
Total Attendances
302
405,269
355
408,139
18%
1%
24 3,783
0
0
36
3,359 50%
-18%
0%
0%
-11%
Source: Arts Council of Wales Survey of Revenue Funded Organisations 2011/12 and 2012/13
Participation Figures
Children & Young
People
Open Access
Targeted Sessions
(BME, Disabled People)
Total Participation
2011/12
Sessions Attendances
629 14,884
280
688
6,475
8 60
917
2012/13
Sessions Attendances
73
27
21,419
788
% Change
Sessions Attendances
13,821 9%
6,718
-7%
-74%
4%
399 238%
20,938
565%
-14%
-2%
Source: Arts Council of Wales Survey of Revenue Funded Organisations 2011/12 and 2012/13
Audiences are holding well at St David’s Hall, and the organisation has been
working hard with its social media and electronic marketing as detailed earlier
in this report.
The effectiveness of social media as a marketing tool was highlighted by a
recent event at St David’s Hall. This involved the comedian Jack Whitehall,
who was touring smaller venues as a warm up to his arena tour. When he
came to the Hall for the tech rehearsal to his sell-out concert, he asked whether
the choir stall seats had been sold for the concert that evening and was told
that they were not as they were behind the stage. He then requested that they
be put on sale as the arena tour he was doing was in the round, and it would
be good practice for him. St David’s Hall promptly tweeted that there were
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tickets available, and all but a few tickets sold that afternoon. A real example
of the power of social media for marketing.
In house data analysis has illustrated the impressive reach of the venue - 50%
of all classical music attenders in Wales go to St David’s Hall despite them only
holding 22% of the total number of classical concerts. The Hall has recorded
attenders from every post code bar two in Wales, with 10.6% of all households
attending the Hall being from Communities First Areas.
.
5. Business development
a. Financial Roundup
Financial Year
Total Incoming Resources (£)
ACW Revenue Funding (£)
ACW Project Funding (£)
ACW Revenue and Project Funding as a % of
Total Incoming Resources
Earned Income (£)
Earned Income as a % of Total Incoming
Resources
LA Funding (£)
LA Funding as % of Total Incoming Resources
Total Expenditure (£)
Total Attendees/Participants
2011/12
2012/13
6,061,160
5,665,228
65,000
65,000
-
-
1%
1%
4,638,632
4,067,804
77%
72%
1,357,528
22%
6,061,160
426,688
1,532,424
27%
5,665,228
429,077
Source: Financial Information Supplied by Organisation
b. Employment Figures
Employment Figures Full Time Part Time Volunteers Casual/Contract
2011/12
42
6
14
32
2012/13
42
6
14
32
Source: Arts Council of Wales Survey of Revenue Funded Organisations 2011/12 and 2012/13
The BBC National Orchestra of Wales and its new director have shown a
strong desire to work together with St David’s Hall as much as possible to
reach their objectives and increase classical music audiences. The two
organisations have also agreed that the orchestra becomes part of the
International Concert Series.
The Hall has built on its excellent customer care by maintaining and further
developing its front of house customer care task force. These are primarily
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volunteers, and the venue works hard with them to ensure that full training is
provided and high standards are maintained.
Digital media and social networking sites are also being used by St David’s
Hall to ensure that its promotional material is seen by more and more people.
As highlighted above, it has seen a massive increase in Twitter followers and
Facebook likes as well as launching a mobile optimised website.
6. Governance, management and finance
St David’s Hall is a local authority owned and run venue. It is part of Culture,
Tourism and Events, which is itself part of Sports, Leisure and Culture, reporting
to the Corporate Director of that title. St David’s Hall responds to the needs
and aspirations of the Cardiff Corporate Plan which itself looks forward 3 years
and is reviewed each year.
From this Corporate Plan, targets and key performance indicators can be
identified and are discussed monthly at Sport Leisure and Culture Senior
Management Team meetings and then with St David’s Hall staff and Managers
responsible for the delivery.
The future of the Hall is currently uncertain, with the Local Authority planning to
cut funding to the venue as part of cost cutting measures. Managers at the
Hall are being positive and are seeing this as an opportunity to programme a
little more experimentally and to take risks.
As a receiving house, St David’s Hall is obviously reliant upon what product is
available. There are programme planning meetings with the Arts and
Theatres’ Manager, the St David’s Hall Music Consultant and for the Welsh
Proms, the Artistic Director Owain Arwel Hughes. The International Concert
Series and Welsh Proms will normally have a lead-in time of 18 months to two
years and will therefore have been planned at an early stage.
There are monthly management financial reports with monitoring primarily
focusing on all income generating sections to establish profitability. In
addition, all department heads are provided with relevant financial information
which compares budget versus actual for each event and series of events.
Exhibitions, including Welsh Artist of the Year, are monitored throughout the
year as a stand-alone budget.
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Overall financial targets are established as part of the Cardiff Council budget
setting process with promotions surpluses and attendance monitored via KPI’s
reported to corporate directors.
Development ideas are sought from senior staff as part of their Personal
Development Reviews where all business plan targets are monitored and
discussed.
7. Partnerships
The most important partnerships for St David’s Hall are those with its resident
orchestras - the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and the Orchestra of the
Welsh National Opera. It has also established a three year partnership with
the Vale of Glamorgan Festival which will mean the finale concert of the
Festival is performed at the Hall each year as part of the International Concert
Series. This partnership supports the Hall’s endeavours to develop its
contemporary music audience as well as the Festival’s ambition to present
concerts at the major venues in the city. The partnership also includes
supporting one contemporary music lunchtime concert recital each year to
coincide with the Festival launch.
St David’s Hall has strong partnerships with all major classical music promoters
and orchestras as well as promoters for a range of other artistic strands such as
light entertainment and comedy. It works with Creu Cymru, Audiences Wales
and Live Music Now and works with other organisations throughout Wales and
beyond such as BBC Cardiff Singer of the World, British Association of Concert
Halls, A Head for Art, IMG International Touring, Royal Welsh College of Music
and Drama, Wales Millennium Centre and Orchard Media.
Arts Active partnerships include Community Music Wales, National Dance
Company Wales, Grassroots, Welsh National Opera, Royal Welsh College of
Music and Drama and Rubicon. These are key collaborators and through the
Welsh National Opera, a new piece was commissioned by Jak Poore, which
was also used as part of the Parc and Dare’s Flights of Fancy project.
8. Equalities
St David’s Hall operates as part of the Local Authority, and as such as bound
by the policies of Cardiff Council, including the equalities policy.
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Disabled access to St David’s Hall is excellent but the venue is working with the
Arts Council to enhance current provision and will be part of our forthcoming
Audit programme. The venue offers discounted/free ticketing for disabled
visitors and their companions.
The Arts Active programme for children and young people is open to all and
the Hall is committed to working with Communities First areas.
9. Concluding comments
This is the final year that the Arts Council of Wales will be revenue funding St
David’s Hall, but the relationship will continue with programming for the
International Concert Series and some work by Arts Active being funded
through the Lottery. It is hoped that this realignment to project funding will
liberate the Hall to curate more holistically across its concert programmes and
participatory work.
St David’s Hall has an impressive record as far as ticket sales are concerned
but there is longer-term uncertainty regarding Local Authority funding.
Focussing on the now - and what is within the control of the committed team at
St David’s Hall - we expect it to continue to programme for its audiences with
enthusiasm and tenacity and the relationship between it and the Arts Council of
Wales, although changed, will continue to be strong.
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