Following the New Year holidays, the most visited events were ice shows and Christmas trees

Following the New Year holidays, the most visited events were ice shows and Christmas trees. Thus, the top 5 of Yandex Posters and MTS Live included “Evenings on the Farm” by Tatyana Navka, despite the traditional popularity of Christmas trees with Ticketland and Ticketscloud. At the same time, promoters warn that such successful projects usually give rise during the New Year period to a wave of low-quality “clones” that can attract citizens with lower ticket prices.

“Kommersant” got acquainted with the statistics of ticket services for the sale of tickets for entertainment events from December 30, 2023 to January 8, 2024. It follows from it that during the New Year holidays, Russians gave preference to events with children (performances, concerts, Christmas trees), as well as ice shows. Thus, at Yandex Afisha, the number of tickets sold for entertainment events (excluding cinema) during the holidays increased by 57% compared to the same period in 2022, a representative of the service said.

Average spending also increased by 21.5%, to 4.4 thousand rubles. The top 5 events by the number of orders from Yandex Posters were headed by the musical “Don’t be afraid, I’m with you.” The second, third and fourth places were taken by ice shows – “The Love Story of Scheherazade” and “Evenings on the Farm” by Tatyana Navka, as well as “The Little Mermaid” by Evgeni Plushenko. In fifth place are ticket sales for the Ice skating rink in Sokolniki.

Ice shows, which are rapidly gaining popularity, have become firmly established in the preferences of Russians this year, says Yandex Afisha Content Director Enrico Mazavrishvili: “We see that sports are becoming a preferred form of entertainment along with theaters and concerts.” Thus, during the holidays, orders in this category doubled, he added. Among the January matches in the capital, the leaders in the game are CSKA – Kunlun RS, CSKA – Torpedo, Spartak – SKA.

At MTS (controls the Ticketland and Ticketscloud services), Christmas trees have become the undisputed leader (65% of all visits), said Vladimir Ageev, director of strategy for MTS Live. He added that the volume of events attended in monetary terms exceeds sales for the same period by more than three times: “This is also influenced by the fact that people again began to purchase tickets in advance: 85% of tickets for events that took place during the holidays were purchased until the new Year”. The leader among the most attended events in terms of the number of tickets sold during the period was the Kremlin Christmas tree “Far Away New Year”. In second place is “Show of Water, Fire and Light!”, followed by the Christmas tale “The Secret of the Old Mirror” in the Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The ice show “Evenings on the Farm,” according to MTS Live, took only fifth place, and the musical “Don’t be afraid, I’m with you” — eighth.

While we do not have the opportunity to compare how successful shows by foreign performers would be during the New Year holidays, reminds the head of the NCA concert agency Mikhail Shurygin: “And we have not yet joined the eastern formats.” Therefore, the events that Russian organizers do with the highest quality come to the top – ice shows, children’s and circus performances, the expert says.

But this is fraught with the emergence of a large number of clones of successful projects with low-quality musical accompaniment and organization, Mr. Shurygin warns. Their managers, as a rule, try to make quick money during the New Year period and do not think much about the content of the project, explains Kommersant’s interlocutor on the media market: “The prices for such shows are lower than the official ones, which is why the viewer goes to them.”

At the same time, it is quite possible that next year new symbiotic formats will appear that will attract the younger generation to the classics, believes Mikhail Shurygin. In preparing such events, you can use 3D mapping (a system for illuminating objects to demonstrate a bright and realistic image of a product or service), new effects and visualization tools.

Yulia Yurasova