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

[HedwigInch]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:02pm

""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

[Auggie27]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:04pm

I'm an outlier, I thought Cerveris was stunning. Scary, other-worldly, in the final moments literally like a alien without identifiable gender, yet sexual, charismatic. Scary good.  Others disagree. I saw the performance sitting behind Pete Townsend, who went as nuts as I.  

[Sami7]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:07pm

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. 

[skies]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:09pm

It boils down to what is the break even cost.  Is it less than 350K, more than 350K, 375K or 400K.

Plus if the theatre has another production waiting in the wings.

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:12pm

"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.

[mariel9]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:21pm

Not an outlier at all to consider Cerveris a stunning Hedwig. My impression has always been that people who saw the off Broadway Hedwigs often found him second only to JCM. Not sure where you got the idea you're an outlier unless it's the rankings here, which are mostly of Broadway Hedwigs, not off Broadway.

[SingMeToSleep]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:28pm

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.

[AppleSunday]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:30pm

I wonder how expectations vs. actuality are coming into play? Darren and Taye really went through compleatly opposit flips. People were negative about Darren and positive about Taye after their castings were announced and then Darren was much better than his detractors thought he'd be while Taye failed to perform up to the level that people thought they'd get from him.

How many sales did Darren gain by word of mouth going from skeptical to won over, and how many people decided to just get an on the day deal after hearing that Taye wasn't performing as expected?

Personally, I was a fan of Darren as a performer from what I'd seen of him but iffy about him as Hedwig. I figured he'd be good if he was taking it on, but then he blew me away and I bought two more tickets and planed two more trips into the city. I've always been ambivalent about Taye but the idea of him as Hedwig excited and intrigued me. From what I've heard, the only way I'd see him would be for $30 or less and only after hearing about him making a lot of changes. Expectations vs. actuality. 

Updated On: 8/3/15 at 10:30 PM

[HedwigInch]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:41pm

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? 

[Sami7]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:42pm

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). It /is/ only the second week after all, and Taye's advance sales weren't very good even in his very first week, when there were no reviews to be had. (Though I do agree that it's possible that word of mouth affected Darren's sales positively near the end of his run.)

[skies]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:48pm

This is the Taye Diggs thread.  

[ethan231h]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 10:50pm

The theatre yesterday seemed pretty full, but earlier during the week they had a lot of tickets still available so clearly a lot of people are doing tkts, etc.

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:01pm

"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...

[Phan2]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:06pm

It is still early on Taye's run.   I would think as he gets more comfortable, we will hear more and more positive reviews like Ethan231h's review, and thus hopefully more people will be buying the advance tickets to see him sooner, rather than waiting for later in his run.   (Thanks for posting your comments, Ethan.)   

The average ticket price did increase over his first week, so that's a positive.  I would imagine that they would not want to reduce the discounts too significantly over a short period of time; slowly seems to be the safer route. 

Perhaps they should try to do more PR with the media, some talk shows and more interviews with online sites? 

Updated On: 8/3/15 at 11:06 PM

[Sami7]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:19pm

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).

[AppleSunday]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:28pm

Have the pamphlet/flyer people who work the tkts line stepped up their game? They might be selling Taye in Hedwig extra hard to all the people who get in line undecided. And if Hedwig tickets are going for less than others, people might end up buying them not just because Hedwig is their first choice but also because it was somewhere on their list and they were priced out of other shows.

[ChildofEarth]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:38pm

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?

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:42pm

Hedwig has never been very transparent with its ticketing. It is very rare when you see all the available seats in advance. When I bought my Taye ticket for next week, fourth row side orchestra aisle was my best option. A week later, half the front row, and big chunks of the second row were available (probably a trigger where demand would have made them premiums had passed, etc.), so I had Telecharge move me to front row (since I never sat in front row before). But their ticket availability has always been very fluid and unpredictable, ever since NPH.

[HedwigInch]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:49pm

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.

[ChildofEarth]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:51pm

"Hedwig has never been very transparent with its ticketing. It is very rare when you see all the available seats in advance. When I bought my Taye ticket for next week, fourth row side orchestra aisle was my best option. A week later, half the front row, and big chunks of the second row were available (probably a trigger where demand would have made them premiums had passed, etc.), so I had Telecharge move me to front row (since I never sat in front row before). But their ticket availability has always been very fluid and unpredictable, ever since NPH."

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

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.

 

[haterobics]

Posted: 8/3/15 at 11:57pm

"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

[HedwigInch]

Posted: 8/4/15 at 12:05am

"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."

From what I remember the orchestra prices are the same. There was a change to the back mezz seats, for Taye they're all $49 a piece but for Darren it was either $69 or $74 (depended on the night, Tuesdays, Fidays and Saturay evening it was the more expensive price).

Someone else noticed a change in the balcony. The cheapest mezz seat was the most expensive balcony seat during Darren's run (so either 69 or 74) but now it's not, it's a little bit cheaper, not a lot. Now it's $64. I don't remember paying attention to the balcony prices so can't guarantee this info is correct.

So these changes don't look that big to me but apparently they make a difference of 29k potential gross. 

 

Updated On: 8/4/15 at 12:05 AM

[ChildofEarth]

Posted: 8/4/15 at 12:07am

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.

 

[HedwigInch]

Posted: 8/4/15 at 12:14am

I am pretty sure I also saw $200 premium seats during Darren's run here and there but definitely also $250 and $350 (mostly during his opening and closing nights) ones.

Also there are $250 premium seats for Taye, this Friday's show for instance still has a few premium seats left and they're $250.

Updated On: 8/4/15 at 12:14 AM

[ChildofEarth]

Posted: 8/4/15 at 12:16am

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