South Kesteven District Council reveals number of ticket sales at Stamford Arts Centre, Grantham Guildhall and Bourne Corn Exchange
Ticket sales at council-run arts centres are rocketing - helping to offset the costs of providing a programme of events.
Just three years ago Stamford Arts Centre was described as “dying on its feet” and “lacking vitality, vigour and energy” by residents as they called for urgent action by South Kesteven District Council.
Since then changes have been made including refurbishments and the appointment of a new manager, which have paid off with more sell-out events than ever before.
In the past year 34,706 tickets for South Kesteven District Council-hosted events have been sold at the St Mary’s Street venue, 24,889 of which were for the cinema.
This is up by just over 20% from the previous year.
Last year’s pantomime, Mother Goose, also generated £25,903-worth of ticket sales for its 12-show run.
The figures are being presented to South Kesteven District Council’s culture and leisure overview and scrutiny committee meeting tomorrow (Thursday, May 15), and also show events at Grantham Arts Centre and Bourne Corn Exchange are continuing to flourish.
In Grantham’s Guildhall 17,368 tickets were sold by the council, up from 16,554 from last year.
The venue also generated more than £150,000 in income for the council through a five-week run of a performance of Aladdin.
Bourne Corn Exchange has had particular success with music events, a highlight from last year being Ultra 90s vs 2000s, which was programmed on a split and sold more than £4,000-worth of tickets.
Coun Paul Stokes, cabinet member for culture and leisure, said: "This is great news and shows that we are providing the entertainment people want to come and see - and we continue to do so in our 2025-26 programme.
"It's worth noting that the cost of running the centres and providing all of this entertainment still far outweighs the income, and we work hard to bring great value for money at the arts centres themselves, Bourne Corn Exchange and through our outreach and community projects.
"The overall ticket sales surplus on events we hosted ourselves reached £180,643, which is welcome news.”
Room hire income across all three arts venues is also performing well and showing an increase in income from the previous financial year.