Could Broadway survive if all shows just theoretically dropped prices?- Page 2

[UWS10023]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 3:27pm

It feels like Broadway shows are priced as an event which has changed the theatre going experience. 

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 3:37pm

dramamama611 said: "GiantsInTheSky2 said: "Lumiere2 said: "Let me propose another solution:

What if there was a standard practice where all tickets on Broadway (yes, all) became $40 starting 40 minutes to the start of a performance? Similar to a rush line, but with added rules:

• One per person
• Cash only (to expedite sales)
• No negotiation on seating location - you get what you get, take it or leave it
• Once you buy your ticket, you must go directly into the theatre and take your seat

No exceptions to the above rules. It's similar to TDF and TKTS programs, but it's less cost prohibitive and it's the most efficient and direct way to fill seats and get more money into the pockets of shows.

Take a look at Chicago, for example. They had 2,700 unsold tickets last week. They've recouped; breaking even is a win for them. Could you imagine if they flipped those into $40 tickets minutes to curtain and brought in another $108,000 last week? That fills the seats with people who you never would have got in the door in the first place while adding $100K to your weekly gross."

I think this is a great idea - imperfect, yes, but like you said - you can either make an additional $100k or sit on empty seats (which also impacts the overall performance and sometimes moral of the house). Something like this may not completely change the landscape, but it could definitely help push us further along. A lot of things in this business need to change, and it’ll only happen if small adjustments are made along the way…"

This would make a LOT of ticket buyers simply wait for the line...having even fewer buyers of full price tickets. You are also assuming that every theater would suddenly be selling out but at a quarter of the price. They won't."

I agree-those lines would be a NIGHTMARE. That simply would not work. 

[Sutton Ross]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 3:51pm

UWS10023 said: "It feels like Broadway shows are priced as an event which has changed the theatre going experience."

Absolutely agree, great comment. 

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 4:17pm

If it's not an event, what would you categorize it as? 

[Fan123]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 4:30pm

I'm just curious if anyone knows if something like this has been tried anywhere, though I have no idea how it would play out: what if, for certain seats, the buyer could set a buying price for "last dibs" rights to a ticket, ie, "I'm betting that you - the production - won't be able to sell the ticket for more than this price by [whatever deadline - say 24 hours before curtain]." If the production is able to sell the ticket for more money via whatever means before that deadline, the buyer misses out on the ticket and gets a refund (perhaps minus a service fee).  If the production cannot find a buyer for a higher price by the deadline, the buyer gets the ticket for their set price. Productions could set various caveats - a minimum 'betting' price which might be varied day to day, only selected seats being subject to this offer, etc. It sounds as though productions are already, through business necessity, effectively playing chicken with buyers over when to offer a lower ticket price vs leave a seat unsold, so how might it work out to get buyers more consciously involved with the game. Might be great, might be terrible, I don't know.

[joevitus]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 4:31pm

UWS10023 said: "It feels like Broadway shows are priced as an event which has changed the theatre going experience."

I mean, it is an event, and when was going to a Broadway show not one?

I do agree that for, oh, half a century, a wider and wider disperity has come into existence between ticket prices and the average person's income, and as a result of that, a Broadway show is more likely to become a once-in-a-lifetime experience for most. This is probably what leads to all the standing ovations. It's funny to think back to when, according to those who were there, it was rare for Merman or Martin or Verdon to get a standing ovation. Part of the change was the emergence of the Big Lady Show, which turned the star into practically a deity whom the audience must worship, but it was also just the result of people only seeing maybe one show in their life and wanting to feel like they'd seen the greatest performance ever. 

But even when there was less disparity between prices and average incomes, and people in New York were likely to catch several shows a year, seeing a Broadway show was still considered an event. It was the top commercial theatrical entertainment in the country, and each performance is both unique and impossible to recapture. That all went into making it an event. 

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 4:46pm

This is always my question when people say "lower ticket prices! make theater more affordable!" Okay, but how exactly? What way could you come up with that people have not already tried? 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 5:32pm

Also need to remember:

there are plenty of shows with low ticket prices that STILL don’t sell every discount ticket. Cheaper tickets does not mean greater interest.

There will always be some shows out there (as a frequent attendee) where I say “I can’t be bothered to pay any price for this but will happily see it free.”

[JasonC3]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 6:23pm

hearthemsing22 said: "This is always my question when people say "lower ticket prices! make theater more affordable!" Okay, but how exactly? What way could you come up with that people have not already tried?"

I'm pretty sure people are trying to suggest exactly some of those ideas in this thread. 

[veronicamae]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 10:43pm

Wick3 said: "I hope producers of hits like Hamilton, Wicked, Lion King, and even Phantom are hopefully reinvesting their profits for new Broadway works. Even if those new works fail, they still get income from those other long-running hits every single week."

David Stone, who produces Wicked is producing both Topdog/Underdog and Kimberly Akimbo (and produced Next to Normal and The Boys in the Band and War Paint and If/Then and Spelling Bee). Disney is always developing new stage adaptations. Has Hamilton's Jeffrey Seller produced anything new? A quick search shows me he's opening additional productions of Hamilton and doing some directing.

So - the juggernaut producers are thankfully re-investing - with mixed outcomes.

[VintageSnarker]

Posted: 11/2/22 at 11:32pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Also need to remember:

there are plenty of shows with low ticket prices that STILL don’t sell every discount ticket. Cheaper tickets does not mean greater interest.

There will always be some shows out there (as a frequent attendee) where I say “I can’t be bothered to pay any price for this but will happily see it free.”"

I do think ticket prices need to be lower across the board (there's no math where inflation and salaries justify all these prices) but ticket prices are not the only factor in filling seats. I don't know where they stumbled, but I feel like the recent productions of Caroline, or Change and for colored girls... should have been able to sell more tickets. On the other hand, with covid, there are papering shows I can't even be bothered to leave the house to see. 

[HogansHero]

Posted: 11/3/22 at 8:33am

VintageSnarker said: "ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "Also need to remember:

there are plenty of shows with low ticket prices that STILL don’t sell every discount ticket. Cheaper tickets does not mean greater interest.

There will always be some shows out there (as a frequent attendee) where I say “I can’t be bothered to pay any price for this but will happily see it free.”"

I do think ticket prices need to be lower across the board (there's no math where inflation and salaries justify all these prices) but ticket prices are not the only factor in filling seats. I don't know where they stumbled, but I feel like the recent productions of Caroline, or Change and for colored girls... should have been able to sell more tickets. On the other hand, with covid, there are papering shows I can't even be bothered to leave the house to see."

Ermengarde hits on a key truth and Snarker underscores it. Both eschew the overly-simplistic explanations of some here. Selling tickets is a complicated calculus and pricing is obviously a factor, but a clear-headed analysis demonstrates how important (especially) marketing is, and most essentially, whether people want to see the show. These latter two factors dictate a lot. It's clear that people will pay dearly to see what they want to see (and that there is no rational reason to reduce the cost of these very well-sold tickets), and equally clear people will not pay to see shows they don't want to see, at any price. In between, yes there are pricing miscalculations, but I would rank them third in the overall scheme of things. There are at least 5 shows right now that I would call must sees or at least should sees that have average prices under $100, some of them substantially under. Folks shouldn't complain until they have seen those. Are those the most keenly sought after shows? No, but is it reasonable to expect low prices for those?

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 11/3/22 at 10:38am

Yes and to Hogan’s point — there are certain titles right now (and in the past) where you could comp every seat and STILL not fill the house. It’s a matter of interest, and developing a sellable marketing strategy. Or what some marketers would call “knowing versus caring.”

There are tons of discounts for Broadway’s best-quality shows if you know where to look. Not Music Man and Hamilton and Lion King, but wonderful shows that deserve to be seen and ultimately won’t make a dime.

As anyone who’s ever worked on marketing a Broadway show will tell you, it’s deeply frustrating when you can’t engage enough people to sustainably buy tickets to your show. 

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 11/3/22 at 10:42am

It's also not just theater-the cost of living has gone up. So we can't say yes just drop Broadway prices and all will be well and it will thrive. There will always be people willing to pay top dollar to see shows. If they want to drop prices, it will take a long time since they're also coming back from a pandemic. 

[joevitus]

Posted: 11/3/22 at 11:49am

Just anecdotal, but I used to know a New York actor who moved to the city around the early 1960's and spent most of his young and poorly employed days seeing every Broadway show he could, and in the 00's when I knew him, he'd talk about the fact that he could no longer afford to see a lot of shows because it had gotten so expensive. He said  he rarely saw anything anymore unless he had friends in the cast who gave him tickets. The last time I talked to him was before the lotteries became a thing, so maybe he's seeing more shows now, but still, to me that shows the argument "Broadway has always been expensive, current inflation just makes the old ticket prices seem really cheap" doesn't fully stand up.

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 11/3/22 at 2:30pm

joevitus said: "Just anecdotal, but I used to know a New York actor who moved to the city around the early 1960's and spent most of his young and poorly employed days seeing every Broadway show he could, and in the 00's when I knew him, he'd talk about the fact that he could no longer afford to see a lot of shows because it had gotten so expensive. He said he rarely saw anything anymore unless he had friends in the cast who gave him tickets. The last time I talked to him was before the lotteries became a thing, so maybe he's seeing more shows now, but still, to me that shows the argument "Broadway has always been expensive, current inflation just makes the old ticket prices seem really cheap" doesn't fully stand up."

So what are you saying-that for shows, they should just always keep ticket prices the same? From the '60s to now? With the running costs for shows, with many different factors, that shows would be able to have those prices? I'm not saying that's what you're saying-I'm asking if that's what you're essentially implying. That ticket prices could just never change? That is not realistic at ALL if that is what you're implying. No price could ever stay the same for anything. That's just life, from theater to travel to books to movie tickets to theater to concerts-things are expensive. And I think with the accessibility people have to technology, they expect things to be lower in cost and always accessible. That's just not how it can be. No one has figured that out