Theatre has a huge economic impact in this country – it is worth £2.6bn annually. This is a conservative figure. It does not include, for instance, the impact of individual touring theatre companies or non building-based theatre activity.
There are 541 theatres that are considered to make up the building-base of UK theatre.1 Data for this study were collected from 308 (259 from outside London and 49 West End theatres). These include commercially-run theatres, venues run by local authorities and subsidised theatres.