$132.50.........Stop the insanity — Page 2

Wah Wah Wahhh.

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I have personally (meaning out of MY pocket, not a gift to me) only paid full price for a Broadway show once. It was to SOUTH PACIFIC. Every other time, I have used a discount, TKTS, TDF, rush, or lotto. I fully understand that it is a hard game that producers are playing nowadays. They have to charge as much as a spectacle like WICKED in order to make money even if the show is a hard sell. Sometimes, it pays off (NEXT TO NORMAL) and sometimes... not so much (THE NEIL SIMON PLAYS). The best anyone can hope for when your standard for ticket prices is so high is some good reviews, good word of mouth, or both.

My issue with the ticket prices and everyone's argument here is not about my dislike of having to pay that much because I'm not a hypocrite. I know I don't. The issue is that when the ticket prices are that high, they're harder to afford. Audiences then buy less of them and the producers need to turn to other means of getting their tickets out there: TDF, TKTS, and discounts. Then they're earning less money. Even if the advance gets better with the discounted tickets, you're still selling discounted tickets and you're earning less. You remove the discounts and sales suffer all over again.

I'm not saying ticket prices should go back to being $30, but lower like $100 for shows like LA CAGE that are tough sells or won't be as appealing to tourists. People like all of us who shop for discounts at any cost would obviously still be rewarded, but at least then we'd see better numbers for these shows.

Yes top prices are 132.50 or whatever, but just about 99% of the time, whether you are a student, senior, or just smart you can get tickets for $25-50 bucks, same seats. In NYC, it's TKTS, and discount codes and internet searches and general/student rushes/lotteries, etc.

Stephanie,

When you are out in the real world paying money for your own apartment, food, everything then come back and participate in this converstation.

No, you cannot get tickets for $25-50. Look at the discount codes. They are generally for orchestra, and they are $50+. Same thing with tickets at TKTS. I am most familiar with these, because they are the main ways I can see shows, since I am neither a student nor eligible for TDF.

Most rush is for students.

TDF isn't available for everyone. I wish I could join.

Updated On: 1/16/10 at 10:19 AM

Not to mention that student rush and other discount prices are going up too...I couldn't believe that White Christmas was charging $41.50 for college student rush.

Updated On: 1/16/10 at 12:13 PM

let me add that I've been out of the parent's nest for about a year and a half, about half of that in Chicago (the first year in Orlando, Fl) and I've seen about 20 shows on my own, only paying full price once as an anniversary present to see the press opening night of Addam's Family. Other than that it's $10 here, $25 there...yes it's a large part of my small income gone but that's what I choose to spend my money on. I sacrifice in other spots.

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"Broadway is a bargain"? are you out of your mind? The ticket prices for Broadway and New York theater across the board--especially Broadway--are out of control..including student rush. It's very strange to me to think that it's "fine" that theaters are charging so much for the theatre. Sure, it may be fine with you--already established theatre fans, or working people who make enough money to afford theatre--but even $50+ that most theatre charge for their cheap seats is far too much to make any average young person or non-theatre goer want to take a risk on a medium they don't usually see...ESPECIALLY if they can see a movie fr almost a fifth of the price. I went to NYU for THEATER and it was damn near impossible to convince any of them to spend $25-$35 dollars they would have to spend on theatre tickets instead of movie tickets. And these are supposed to be our future theater actors!

Honestly, I spent four months living in London and saw FORTY shows, and the most ever paid for a ticket was 20 pounds (Full. Price.). That was a top price level ticket for a production at the Young Vic. Even IF the pound was worth twice as much as the dollar (which it was not...it was practically even with it while I was there), that works out to $40 for a full -price, top-notch ticket to the equivalent of a major off-broadway venue in this city. But what do our major off-Broadway venues charge? Often $50, $60 for non-subscribers. That's a HUGE difference.

But that was a rare situation indeed. I saw at least a dozen shows for FIVE pounds at places like The Globe, The National Theater. I saw Dame Judi Dench from the back of the orchestra for TEN POUNDS (the top ticket price for that west end prodction? Thirty pounds); I saw Ian McKellan and Patrick Stewart in Waiting for Godot for 17 pounds; I saw EVERY Royal Shakespeare Company show for five pounds; I saw shows at The Royal Court and The Bush Theatre for FREE because countless top-notch theaters offered FREE tickets to people under 26. I'd say eighty percent of my tickets cost me no more than ten pounds, only ONCE did I break twenty, and often these prices were NOT discounts because I was a student, but simply ticket prices offered for MAJOR shows (and some of the best theater I've seen in my life).

I came back to New York and have been able to afford seeing next to NOTHING since. To me, even student tickets in this city seem unbelievable in comparison; often they go on sale, incidentally, when many students are in school; or so few are offered that they're hard to get your hands on. And what about people of all ages who aren't students? Do we really have no interest in making theater a financially feasible thing for THEM to see? I'm sorry, but the ticket pricing in this city is absurd, and I don't think it's a coincidence that London's theatre scene is significantly more lively and rich than ours AND they have the cheaper tickets...

Well, first of all...I think it is an apples to apples comparison. Like I said, I paid twenty pounds for a best-in-house price level seat at the Young Vic. No concession. EVEN if you doubled that, it's forty US Dollars (and the pound was NOT near even close to twice the dollar while I was there), and a lot fo not-for-profit theatres (LIKE I said), will charge upwards of $50 for their regular priced tickets.

But if that doesn't suit your fancy, I saw A Little Night Music (the production that is currently on broadway) ON the West End for 17 pounds. How much can I pay to see it on Broadway? $57.

But I'm not after a "perfect comparison." My point is...theatre is more accessible there AND it is better. Whereas we have $25 student "discount" tickets, that have 25-30 pound full price tickets. Or, even in larger shows, sixty pound full price tickets. Our "bad" seats almost cost that much (and I say all this factoring in the difference between the dollar and the pound when i was there). Not-for-profits have $15 tickets for student, their subsidized theatres have free tickets for people under 26, 5 pound tickets for those who aren't lucky enough to get them in time, and often a sizable amount of 10 pound tickets available for ANYONE to buy. And all of these things are significantly easier to get your hands on because they can be booked over the phone, online, or at the box office in advance.

Is it huge part of this problem government funding? Yes. While their National Theatre gets twenty million pounds a year, our Public Theatre gets $40,000. This, to me, is a problem. Its a pretty blatant reflection of the way their society values their theatre and the way ours does. They view it as something that is for the people; something the people are entitled to; something the people need and will benefit from. We view it as a luxury--an exclusive club for existing fans, a perk of living in New York and having enough money to afford theatre. But if theatre is not something that is accessible to everyone, the audiences are small, the shows are made to MAKE money rather than to entertain and enrich, and the result is a lifeless theatre scene that costs three times as much for its audience members than a flourishing one across the pond. And then what of our future audiences? How do you get people who DON'T follow theatre to spend $30, $40, $50 on "cheap" seats when in their minds Avatar in 3D will be way more worth it for less than half the price?

Updated On: 1/17/10 at 01:38 PM

You almost won me over, until the end.

Firstly, the production of ALNM that you saw in the West End was a transfer of the production from the Menier Chocolate Factory so it's another non-profit example. Also, it was announced as a limited season in the West End -- something which is pretty unique to the economics of London theatre (a commercially-viable limited run of a transfer of a musical). Also, that's only one example of the 40 shows you mentioned you saw.

That said, though, the place where you really lose me is in your last paragraph.

While their National Theatre gets twenty million pounds a year, our Public Theatre gets $40,000. This, to me, is a problem. Its a pretty blatant reflection of the way their society values their theatre and the way ours does. They view it as something that is for the people; something the people are entitled to; something the people need and will benefit from. We view it as a luxury--an exclusive club for existing fans, a perk of living in New York and having enough money to afford theatre.

Do you honestly think THAT'S why there is a fraction of the government funds allocated for the arts in the US vs in the UK? Or conversely, do you think the love of theatre across the UK is first and foremost a function of ticket prices in the West End?

You acknowledge that there is a severe lack of government funding for the arts but your solution for that is to lower Broadway ticket prices to somehow fix that while simultaneously weakening the viability of the shows themselves???

If anything, your argument supports increased funding in arts education and increases in funding towards regional and local theatres so that people across the country begin to make theatre a more significant part of their lives. It supports non-profit arts centers and producing organizations in New York and across the country trying to create more programs like the National 10GBP program with the help of government, corporate or private sponsorship. All of those things will build future audiences.

But if the primary way that people make theatre a more important part of their lives is by specifically by seeing Broadway shows, then I guess you need to be lobbying the airlines and hotel industries to lower their prices too, no? After all, the vast majority of people in this country DON'T get to visit New York with any frequency, if at all. If you want to change the culture of the country as a whole as it relates to live theatre (which is what would likely need to happen to ultimately see any change in attitude by the Federal government), there are any number of better places to start than with lowering Broadway ticket prices because such a change would only affect of the tiniest fraction of the people whose attitudes you are seeking to change. Looking, however, to the commercial Broadway theatre industry -- a business first, whether you like it or not -- to lower its ticket prices and weaken its financial viability in so doing, as a means of influencing the national culture is at best naive and at worst, ass backwards.

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Also keep in mind when I was in London the pound V dollar was double, in other words, 20 pounds was forty dollars etc etc.

So yes, if you paid forty pounds for a ticket in London, then I can understand how it would relate to being eighty dollars and that price being an acceptable to fund a full price production.

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Broadway has always been expensive because it is the best and it is live. In 1932, at the height of the depression, tickets to the revival of "Showboat" staring the original cast AND Paul Robeson were priced at 1.25 to 7.00. To a common man in New York in 1932, that was the equivalent of one day to one week's wages (or one week's rent) or 28 five-course meals at Horn and Hardart's automat (look that one up, they were COOL) for the price of a top seat. Considering a Big Mac Meal costs about 7.00 at McDonalds nowadays, 28 would by 196.00.

Things never change. The decimal point just hkeeps moving.

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I'm sorry, but anyone who can sit here defending a ticket price of $132.50 in this economy is either a producer, an investor, sick in the head, or all three.

And by the way, the horrendous BYE BYE BIRDIE has a top price of $146.50 for "Prime Orchestra", whatever the hell that is, and $136.50 for just plain old regular orchestra.

"Stop the insanity" is putting it mildly.

and to the poster above comparing west end shows to NYC, most West End productions I've seen of musicals have nowhere near the depth of talent of their Broadway counterparts. And those 30 pound ticket prices are subsidized by a portion of a 50% tax on income compared to your tax rate which is at most 33%. Not to turn this into a discussion about taxation, but that money doesn't appear out of thin air and a lot of people who want nothing to do with the arts end up contributing to your lower ticket price.

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