InterMedia: Russia’s entertainment industry market will fall in 2022

In 2022, due to the departure of foreign and some Russian stars, the entertainment industry market, instead of the expected recovery, will continue to decline, which began due to the pandemic in 2020, follows from the forecast of the analytical agency InterMedia, presented at the music industry conference Colisium International Music Forum on September 24. “The level of the most successful 2013 for the entertainment industry will not be reached soon,” said Yevgeny Safronov, editor-in-chief of IA InterMedia. In 2021, according to the agency, the turnover of the entertainment industries amounted to about 83% of the pre-pandemic 2019 volume.

According to the InterMedia methodology, entertainment events in the field of culture include poster performance events (concerts, performances, shows of all kinds with the participation of performers and the distribution of tickets or open entrance), film screenings and film festivals (sales of tickets to cinemas, producers’ shares from foreign distribution of Russian films, budget appropriations and subsidies allocated for the production and distribution of films, as well as for holding film festivals), non-advertising performing events (private, state, corporate, etc.). Spectacular events in the field of sports are not taken into account.

For the first time in the history of the entertainment industry in Russia, in 2021 the volume of budget allocations (subsidies, grants) exceeded the volume of income from commercial activities: 134 billion against 123 billion rubles. respectively. At the end of 2022, according to the forecast of the agency, 140 billion rubles will fall on revenues from the public sector, and 110 billion rubles on commercial activities.

According to the agency, in 2022 the number of organizers of entertainment events in Russia will be 3,000, of which 1,123 are organizations financed from the budgets of all levels. The number of venues for entertainment events is 4200, of which 2653 are managed by organizations financed from the budgets of all levels.

Ticket services earlier reported about the decline in sales after the announcement of partial mobilization in Russia: on September 21, the decline was 30-40%. The situation can be compared to the end of February, when hostilities began in Ukraine, market participants say, although there is no such clear wave of returns as then. Experts expect a further decrease in the depth of ticket sales, which already fell during the pandemic: viewers are less likely to buy tickets for events in advance, which affects the stability of the organizers’ business.

Julia Silence