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Soundstage occupancy in Los Angeles, which was in the 90% percentile from 2016-2022, fell to 63% in 2024.
FilmLA‘s Sound Stage Production Report worked with 17 studios in the Greater Los Angeles area to source the data. The report includes detailed sound stage occupancy and stage and backlot filming data for all of 2023, new sound stage occupancy data for all of 2024, and a comparison of available stage space in Greater Los Angeles and major competing markets in 2025 and five years earlier.
Over the last year and a half, local film and TV production in the state has been on a steady decline. In January, FilmLA reported how permit applications had plummeted due to the L.A. Fires, but the city remained open for business. This comes after a challenging two years due to the reduction in global content production and the double industry strikes of 2023.
In 2023, a total of 1,225 projects filmed in the 477 stages included in FilmLA’s analysis. These projectsgenerated 8,671 SSD – fewer than were recorded in any studied period except 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic halted all production for a time.
Episodic television series accounted for only 20 percent of all production happening on certified stages and backlots in L.A. These particularly high-value, job producing forms of production comprised 30 percent of all stage-based filming in previous years.
“It’s important to note that stage occupancy and stage utilization are not exactly the same,” noted FilmLA spokesperson Philip Sokoloski. “A set on a stage can only create jobs when it is under construction or in use. Television budgets have increased, but episode counts have declined and there can be long delays between seasons. To see the real loss of work opportunity in this data, you have to focus on Stage Shoot Days.”
The United Kingdom, New York, Georgia and Ontario, Canada, have all more than doubled their stage-based production capacity over the last five years. Los Angeles, with an estimated 8.0 million square feet of stage production space and 13 planned and proposed studio projects in the pipeline, maintains an important infrastructure advantage. But with fewer film, television and commercial projects in production makes it harder to fill studio vacancies.
“The jurisdictions that perform well from here on out – the ones with sustainably high levels of sound stage occupancy and job creation – will be those invested in film project attraction at the country, state and regional level,” Sokoloski predicted. “We’re supportive of state leaders’ interest in expanding California’s film incentive program, and we’re engaged in ongoing conversation with City and County partners about ways to improve the local filming environment.”
California legislators are in the process of making changes to the program to limit the exodus of production to other states and countries. Last Fall, Gov. Gavin Newsom proposed increasing the current cap on the program from $330 million to $750 million, and since then, a pair of bills, SB630 (Allen) and AB1138 (Zbur, Bryan) were introduced to explore additional program changes.
If those efforts to stay in L.A. are successful, California’s Film & Television Tax Credit Program is set to become one of the largest incentive programs in the country, second only to Georgia’s, which has no spending cap. This is certain to provide economic advantages and relief to the state’s struggling entertainment workforce, which employs 618,000 individuals across several different professions, contributing $115 billion annually to the area’s economy.
