display
Brochures for “The Lion King”, “Tina Turner”, “Pretty Woman” or “The Ice Queen” are displayed at the entrance to the Stage Entertainment headquarters in Hamburg's Speicherstadt, as if it were a normal winter time.
But it is not.
Customers don't flock here to buy tickets like in previous years.
The musical theaters haven't played since March.
A few floors above the entrance hall, managing director Uschi Neuss says in an interview how she is leading Germany's largest musical provider through this crisis and what she urgently needs in order to be able to give actors and the company a perspective for life after the pandemic.
But even the typical Rhinelander finds it difficult at times to maintain her confidence.
WORLD:
Ms. Neuss, your musical theaters have been closed since March due to the corona pandemic.
Nothing is known of any major government aid for your company.
Do you look at the news with mixed feelings that your competitor Deutsche Entertainment AG has just received a loan of 25 million euros from the KfW development bank to finance working capital?
Uschi Neuss:
No, I would like to say “Congratulations” to DEAG boss Peter Schwenkow, like every company in our industry, if it receives money in these times.
Those who have to close their theaters need outside funds to survive the crisis.
Stage Entertainment does not meet the criteria for such loans because our corporate structure is different.
Our legal seat is in the Netherlands and we do not have a house bank in Germany.
This door is closed for us.
So far we have been able to live on our reserves.
And this year our owner supports us.
display
WORLD:
Your owner is the family business Advance Publications from New York.
How much help do you need?
Neuss:
At the moment we need around five million euros a month to keep operations going.
My main concern is not the money.
It is much worse and scary that you feel like a supplicant when you get help.
We have a successful business model and have always done well.
Now we are the victims of a professional ban and have to go cleaning the doors.
In addition, it was a mistake that politicians did not consult our industry before drawing up the aid programs.
Therefore most of the supports do not fit.
WORLD:
What kind of support does Stage Entertainment receive?
display
Neuss:
Essentially, it is the short-time work allowance, which also helps us a lot.
Almost all of our approximately 1500 employees are on short-time work, including all artists.
In the administration, however, this only affects a small part.
We have tried everything, our specialist colleagues and auditors have checked all funding pots.
But little of it fits us.
From the so-called culture billion of the Minister of State Monika Grütters, for example, it is becoming apparent that we will receive up to 100,000 euros per theater.
This concerns the investments caused by Corona.
If things go well, we might end up getting a single-digit million euro amount in government aid.
To put that into perspective: We will have closed the musicals for at least a year.
As a result, we lost 300 million euros in sales.
WORLD:
And what do you mean by the aforementioned expense of five million euros a month?
Neuss:
We try to keep our costs down.
After the long-awaited start, we want to repay our debts quickly.
We are currently able to reduce personnel costs by around 80 percent with the short-time allowance.
The five million euros mentioned include rents, taxes and energy costs, for example.
Half of our eight en-suite theaters are owned by us, the other half is rented.
What matters to me is what our artists are going through right now.
It is a total disaster for them that they are not doing what they can.
Your talent lies idle.
They need togetherness, they need the audience.
This situation is absolutely unnatural for them and all of us.
display
WELT:
You have just stated that 100 administrative employees will lose their jobs.
Will there be redundancies?
Neuss:
We will have to part with a third of our administrative staff.
We have to achieve permanently lower administrative costs.
And yes, there will be dismissals in addition to the pension or fluctuation.
But we are only at the beginning of the negotiation of a social plan.
For me personally, this is one of the toughest tasks in my professional life.
WORLD:
Didn't you also have to reimburse thousands of tickets that were already booked and paid for for shows this year?
Neuss:
Our guests are our greatest blessing!
We had to repay less than five percent of the approximately 600,000 tickets already booked.
Around 95 percent of customers use the voucher rule or simply wait and postpone their booking into the future.
After all, the tickets are valid forever.
WORLD:
How high does the capacity have to be so that a theater can reopen?
Neuss:
That cannot be measured with a single number, because every show has a different profitability.
The houses are of different sizes, in the Operettenhaus in Hamburg we play in front of 1,400 spectators, on the Elbe in "The Lion King" in front of 2030 guests and in Berlin in the Bluemax Theater in front of 650 visitors.
In some theaters we need a presence close to full capacity in order to be able to work economically.
The lower limits are between 50 percent and 80 percent, depending on the show and location.
We set ourselves clear guidelines for a new show.
Put simply, every musical, whether in-house development or licensing, must be able to make a profit after a year of playing time.
WORLD:
After the restart there will certainly be restrictions due to the corona pandemic.
What are you expecting?
display
Neuss:
We need about eight weeks in advance and then we'll reopen one theater after the other.
If distances are required, we would put together so-called booking groups and leave a space in between.
On average, 2.8 people book a musical visit together with us, we call this booking group.
WORLD:
Can you imagine that fever measurements at the entrance or even proof of vaccination will become mandatory?
Neuss:
I don't think so, fever measurements would only be of little significance.
I also cannot imagine compulsory vaccinations for going to the theater.
Of course, our actors will do corona rapid tests as soon as rehearsals and operations start again.
I very much hope that this will be the case in the spring.
In May we want to celebrate the first performance of the musical “Wicked” in the Neue Flora in Hamburg.
WORLD:
How will things continue afterwards as before?
Neuss: A
lot will be different.
I expect a surge in innovation.
This concerns digitization and the question of how customers buy their tickets and how we use customer contacts.
The direct contact will be much stronger, our guests will find out more in advance.
You may find memorabilia like a coffee mug for a musical or a T-shirt from the Internet.
The classic advance booking office will lose its importance.
Even with the musicals themselves, so much will change that we only experience every 20 years.
The creatives will fuel the genre with new materials and ideas.
WORLD:
And what will happen to the previously planned new musical theaters at Stage?
Neuss:
We're sticking to our plans, we want to continue growing, especially in Hamburg.
We want to play another major in-house development worldwide by 2025.
We are also currently developing a new format.
In life theater we want to break the boundaries of the usual and show musicals in a completely different way.
WORLD:
Could Stage also be a musical about the pandemic?
Neuss:
No, I don't think so.
That would be a documentary and that is not a format for a musical theater.
We want to celebrate life in a musical.