Ticket prices - need info on the history of tix prices- Page 2

[Mr Roxy]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 10:30pm

Not everyone will pay any price for a theater ticket.

[rayoflight104]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 10:44pm

so what factors influence that not everyone will pay anything for a ticket?

- personal income (what income bracket you fall into?)
- information the person has about a show and determines if it's worth it or not?

what else?

[p.s.]

Posted: 2/19/08 at 11:26pm

Are there any good news articles or analysis that has been done on broadway show ticket prices? I'm trying to research the history of the price of admission to shows...

A lot of information within Broadway Grosses. If you want detail you can select by week back to 1984, sort by column heading (This Week Gross, Average Ticket, etc.), and be as selective as you wish.

You may consider, for example, extracting the top five grossing shows and averaging those each week.

Very quickly, it appears that current prices average about $70, while 1984 prices averaged $30.


p.s. Some of the math is missing from the older data, so you may need to do your own division of Gross / Seats Sold to get Average Ticket.

[winston89]

Posted: 2/20/08 at 12:13am

Rayoflight,

I think that the thing that factors into the most of not everyone willing to pay top dollar for a ticket is this. That you can find a discount code if you know where to look for it. That is the key phrase here. Because your average tourist doesn't know where to go for the discount codes. So, they assume that the telecharge/ticketmaster offering for 100 bucks for a ticket is the only way to get good seats.

Also, many tourists are in the mindset that yes, Broadway is expensive. But, they never really know how expensive it is. So, when they are going to their hotel ticket desk to get tickets for a show. They don't really wine and moan so much when they hear that they have to pay an arm and a leg for a ticket.

[george95]

Posted: 2/20/08 at 12:30am

Unfortunately, the grosses datebase was not always as detailed as it is today. It does go back to 1984, but it does not tell you things like percentage of seats sold, etc until about the eraly 90's. I guess they just didn't keep records on that stuff until then.