The Royal Albert Hall: a Victorian institution fit for the 21st century
The way the charity was set up is up is being unfairly challenged, believes Jon Moynihan
With the discussion of how to finance a (welcome) new Rattle Hall at the Barbican, arts funding is again in the news. Four major music venues in London already receive £80 million a year between them from the Arts Council. Will that sum now have to increase for a fifth? Not if the new Rattle Hall adopts the approach and success of the Royal Albert Hall (RAH), the world’s most successful concert venue. With nearly 400 shows a year on its main stage, more than 40 of them for various charities, the RAH hosts audiences from all parts of society. Shows range from ballet to brass bands, Cirque to Clapton, Proms to pop.
Time and again, our patrons tell us their evening was one of the most enjoyable of their life. Visitor satisfaction levels at the RAH are at an all-time high; we spend about half a million pounds a year on musical education for London schoolchildren and other outreach activities; other performance stages are being developed within the RAH to offer further diversity of performances.
We’re a charity. Our charitable mission dates back to our royal charter of the 1860s – which also created a structure of governance which is certainly idiosyncratic. Different does not mean wrong: indeed, the unique way in which the RAH is run is directly responsible for its unparalleled success. We first opened our doors in 1871. The magnificent venue was funded by the private purchase of seats. The builder got 400, the banker got 12, seats in full or part payment. Society flocked to buy the others. The remaining (currently some four-fifths) of seats in the RAH then became what is now the charity. Seatholders acted as financial providers of last resort, keeping the hall open when it made a loss (which was the case for the majority of its first 100 years). Seatholders serve on the council as trustees of the charity – without that, of course, they couldn’t agree to be the financial backstop. This setup guided the RAH on a 145-year course of growth and success.
A commercial element to the RAH’s arrangements was, according to the authoritative Survey of London, specifically approved of by Queen Victoria as in line with Prince Albert’s principles. The prospectus actually stated “it is hoped it will prove a remunerative investment”. The injection of a commercial view into the governance of the hall is, we believe, what keeps the RAH so popular, so well maintained, so busy all the year round, and enables us, bluntly, to avoid losing money every year and having to call upon the Arts Council (aka the public purse). The RAH now generates an operating surplus each year, allowing it continually to upgrade its capabilities and its iconic 19th-century building.
The relationship between private seatholders (or members) and the hall is symbiotic and essential: if the hall loses money, the members pay. If the hall makes money, the profit goes 100 per cent back to the charity, to develop the RAH further. Members voluntarily exclude themselves from, currently, around 140 of the very best shows each year, to help the charity prosper. Members have a deep affection for the RAH and are proud of its success and the shows we host. Astonishingly, this national treasure is now under pressure, in what would seem like regrettable regulatory overreach, from the very body that should be applauding its success – the Charity Commission. The commission has been bringing to account those charities who, lacking the integrity expected from the third sector, have preyed on the vulnerable. I, as do all, applaud that. The commission’s apparent concern with the RAH is that members, particularly those on council, can sell tickets for the seats they own, on occasion selling them
above the promoter’s price – and that this “conflicts” them. The original deal gave members “unfettered access” to their seats.
Seatholders can give their tickets away, donate them to a charity (both of which we very often do), send them back to the RAH, or sell them for whatever price they like (the RAH can’t dictate that price). Whichever they choose, the RAH – the charity – neither gains nor loses. It’s anyway not in a position to forbid the exercise of a legally conferred right – without which the RAH would not have been built. Unless Parliament were to change the law, this will continue to be the case.
It has been suggested unfairly that council members might be using their position to maximise their returns from their seats: in fact, the large majority of seatholder council members own very few seats, so have little such pecuniary motive (I share ownership of a five-seat box with an old friend, and make no money from it). No council member is paid a penny in remuneration or expense. It has been suggested that the Charity Commission imposed a deadline on the Royal Albert Hall; that
if it had not taken certain steps by now, it would launch a formal inquiry. The commission has confirmed to us that there was no ultimatum. It’s hard to see how an inquiry could be justified when we continue to operate properly, lawfully, constitutionally and of course successfully, and when the commission has explicitly told us it sees no evidence of wrongdoing. The commission has, it is true, written to us about “perception”. We who are on the council know, and are proud of, the good we do, and our predecessors have done, for almost 150 years. All our evidence is that the predominant public “perception” of the RAH is of a great institution, doing great work.
We love the RAH and are passionate for its success. To help the hall grow and flourish, concessions that members annually renew add up to a transfer, from us to the RAH, of some £5 million a year – approximately equal to the size of the hall’s annual surplus. These voluntary agreements are threatened, should the Charity Commission manage to weaken the original founding bond between member and hall – replacing us council members, as they threaten to, with quangocrats. All this, because of an apparent dogmatic preoccupation with the notional and unevidenced possibility that the members’ commercial capabilities somehow damage (in fact, they assist) the charity. If they succeed, all that will be left of the members’ relationship with the RAH will be the short-term commercial, leading to the loss of both the energy and the financial benefit that members bring to the charity (and, necessarily, the loss of financial provision of last resort). Why would this be thought to be a good idea, just to satisfy some currently politically correct, one-dimensional view of how a charity should be organised?
After the scandals of recent years, it is right to say that there are charities that need the public’s trust restored in them. The Royal Albert Hall is not one of them. For us, the hall represents not just the past, but a possible viable future, for gloriously successful funding of UK arts venues.