Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Really Useful Group has published its annual accounts for the year ended 30 June 2024.
Really Useful is the main trading company of the Really Useful Group Investment Limited group, which is owned by Lord Lloyd Webber.
The company controls and monetises the rights to Lloyd Webber’s musicals, marketing them through shows, recordings, music publishing, merchandising, consumer products, TV, and film.
The group’s turnover decreased in the current year by 9% to £34.3m, from a total of £37.9m in 2023.
However, profit after tax was up, increasing to £5.6m, from a 2023 profit of £1.4m; although pre-tax profit dipped, from £10.2m to £4.6m.
During the period, the group also repaid its bank borrowings in full, marking an important financial milestone.
Reasons for the decrease in turnover and pre-tax profit included Lloyd Webber’s The Phantom of the Opera closing on Broadway in April 2023, reducing subsequent royalties. Phantom in New York enjoyed a big box-office bounce in its final months, with audiences keen to see the show on Broadway for a final time. Much of that bounce was recognised in the current year, helping them offset the turnover dip.
While turnover was down 9%, audience attendance and box office takings fell more sharply, reflecting the extraordinary final months of Phantom on Broadway in the prior year.
2024 attendance dropped 18% to 3.78 million (2023: 4.63 million), and box office takings were down 27% to £222.5 million (2023: £304.7 million). The figures do not include China.
Their long-running productions of The Phantom of the Opera in London, Starlight Express in Bochum and Cats in Japan all added to the year’s success, plus The Wizard of Oz at the London Palladium and on tour, Jamie Lloyd’s blockbuster production of Sunset Boulevard in London, and Jesus Christ Superstar in the US, Japan, Netherlands and internationally.
Other productions that contributed to the profit increase included The Phantom of the Opera productions in Vienna, South Korea and Spain, and the first ever Mandarin production of Phantom, which played to audiences in nine cities in China.
Also, in June 2024 Starlight Express opened at the Troubadour Theatre in London and is still going strong, recently extending to March 2026. Other current productions contributing to profits included a reimagined version of Cats, The Jellicle Ball, which opened in New York to critical acclaim.
Cats The Jellicle Ball is currently teasing forthcoming news on social media, with rumours of a further New York run for the show. Lloyd Webber has also talked about a new immersive theatre production of Phantom potentially running in New York. Sunset Boulevard is ending its Broadway run starring Nicole Scherzinger on 13 July.
Current and upcoming productions include The Palladium production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, currently touring the UK and Ireland; a new multi-year North American tour of The Phantom of the Opera beginning in November 2025; and Jamie Lloyd’s much-anticipated new production of Evita coming to the London Palladium from 14 June starring Rachel Zegler as Eva Perón.
Further ahead, Lloyd Webber is working with Jamie Lloyd on new musical The Illusionist.
The Really Useful Group has been actively scaling up over the past 18 months, hiring new CEO James McKnight in December 2023. The company recently appointed a new Chief Operating Officer, Louise Hughes.
Other recent high-profile hires include Libby Grant as Chief Commercial Officer and Alex Parker as Musical Director.
Recent new initiatives for the company include the launch of Box Five, a new digital home for Andrew Lloyd Webber fans.
Alongside Really Useful Group, Andrew Lloyd Webber also owns West End theatre chain LW Theatres, which runs the London Palladium, Theatre Royal Drury Lane, Cambridge, His Majesty’s, Gillian Lynne and Adelphi Theatres.
Book tickets to The Phantom of the Opera in London
Book tickets to Evita in London
Book tickets to Starlight Express in London
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