Ladies and Gentleman....Taye Diggs is your next Hedwig — Page 22

""The only explanation I have for myself right now is that Darren's fans bought more regular priced tickets in advance but therefore his same day sales were weaker."
Based on the day I attended, you're missing a word here that explains more. It should read:
"Darren's fans' parents bought more regular priced tickets in advance"
"

Doesn't matter who pays and I know plenty of people who paid their own tickets but thanks for your input, I guess.

Updated On: 8/3/15 at 10:02 PM

Most of Darren's fans fall within the 18-25-year-old demographic... plenty old enough to buy their own ticket. Not that it means anything if people's parents bought them, though. A seat sold is still a seat sold.

I think part of the reason, though, that Darren sold a fair number of advance tickets is because a lot of his fanbase is international and not based in NY (I have no idea if this is also true of Taye's fans). Given that that is the case it makes sense that people would purchase their tickets beforehand so as to guarantee a seat. If you're coming into town to see a specific show then you're not going to want to leave it to chance.

"Not that it means anything if people's parents bought them, though. A seat sold is still a seat sold. "

Well, people advancing a theory as to why people bought in advance versus on that day would take into account that the parents are more likely to not do lottery or TKTS, and just purchase in advance. And I am only basing that on the family in front of me saying their daughter was the reason they were there, and I had the same situation behind me, where the daughter was the one who wanted to go, so the family all showed up.

It feels like things are getting off-base here with most of the discussion being about Darren Criss's ticket sales and rankings of various people who have played Hedwig. Both discussions started out at least tangentially related to Taye's Hedwig but the conversations have evolved fairly significantly since. Maybe there are other threads where these conversations could be taking place? Just a thought.

I am not sure word of mouth works this fast. If Taye's capacity should fall steadily over his run then one could speculate that word of mouth is not doing him any favors but right now it's too early to tell, I think.

Especially with tourists. If hardcore Hedheads who are active online or have friends who already went hear of feedback of the latest Hedwig then they are more likely to wait. Don't think the majority of tourists does that sort of research?

This is the Taye Diggs thread.

"I don't really know that negative word of mouth would be a factor for Taye at this stage in the game (if there even is that much negative talk surrounding him - sure, there has been some here and on other social media sites, but I don't think the overall impression of him is that he's some great flop).

But people who have heard he needs time to get into the role have decided to wait it out a bit and give him time, and those tuned-in Hed-heads are likely the people who would start generating the positive word of mouth if he were amazing in the role, etc. So, it isn't necessarily that word is spreading that he isn't up to it as much as people aren't hearing that they have to go see Taye from anyone...

But people who have heard he needs time to get into the role have decided to wait it out a bit and give him time, and those tuned-in Hed-heads are likely the people who would start generating the positive word of mouth if he were amazing in the role, etc. So, it isn't necessarily that word is spreading that he isn't up to it as much as people aren't hearing that they have to go see Taye from anyone..."

That might explain low advance sales moving forward, for sure. But as I said further in my post, even in his first week out to bat he made most of his sales the day of. So there is clearly something else at play (though of course there's probably more than one reason - I just don't think word of mouth is that big of an issue at this point).

Okay. So I just looked at the telecharge website for the coming week, and some things just aren't adding up to me.

Either Taye just had a really low week last week, or there's something fishy going on. Taye is selling a lot of seats in the middle sections of all three levels, which you would think are the most expensive seats. If you add that to the side seats that are likely going on TKTS, with his capacity, you would think that he needs to be selling more.

Is there something missing? Does he have a lot of comps for PR?

Yeah, Telecharge is messy like that. Sometimes there are random spikes where 50 seats disappear but then 10 minutes later they're back. Or seats get released later on, even happens a few days before the actual performance.

Or Hedwig holds back some tickets for some reason but then that reason falls away and they put them back into the ticket pool.

There are also things like TodayTix where you can get tickets for a cheaper price ahead of time. So not every unavailable seat on Telecharge now is a seat that was sold for full price.

"Well that's annoying. I usually just bought mine and never checked again."

Always keep checking back. I have Telecharge upgrade me whenever better seats emerge.

I'm hoping they raise prices to what they were when Darren was in and see how they do then. That would make not only full price tickets more, but TKTS seats more as well.

I don't track this closely, but I just checked and I paid the same to see Taye as I did Darren, and that was toward the end of Darren's run. Both were $89 seats, which ended up at like $101.25 after fees and whatnot.

That would lead me to think the base price is the same ($144), the discounted rate is the same, and the only new factor is more people are getting TKTS/TodayTix that day to bring the average down?

Updated On: 8/4/15 at 11:57 PM

rack this closely, but I just checked and I paid the same to see Taye as I did Darren, and that was toward the end of Darren's run. Both were $89 seats, which ended up at like $101.25 after fees and whatnot.
That would lead me to think the base price is the same ($144), the discounted rate is the same, and the only new factor is more people are getting TKTS/TodayTix that day to bring the average down?"

I might be wrong, but I think some of Taye's seats are running ~$50 less. I know Darren's premium seats were $250 ($350 some nights...who in their right mind...?) and Taye's are $200. I paid $152 for my seats to Darren and paid $139 for Taye. Not a huge difference, but it adds up.

Has anyone other than Neil sold premium seats? Also from what I've seen they aren't even great seats...

Maybe if they do away with them it would be better. They are destined to become lottery seats.

Updated On: 8/4/15 at 12:16 AM