New data shows the nation’s market for musicals, concerts and other types of performing arts has grown around 30 percent in the past two years.
 
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism announced on Friday that the size of the market last year had surged roughly 30 percent from 2010 and was valued at around 713 billion won.
 
The ministry estimated that sales reaped by facilities that stage such performances amounted to 377 billion won while sales earned by firms that organized the performances stood at nearly 336 billion won.
 
The ministry attributed the growth in the market to strong sales recorded by large theaters that exclusively stage musicals that actively began business from the latter half of 2011.
 
The ministry also estimated that some 43-thousand performances took place last year and that such events drew roughly 35 million people. Both the number of events and number of audience members rose around 20 percent from 2011.
 
The number of people who went to see musicals in particular was the highest at around eleven-and-a-half million last year.