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Small theatre companies and ticket pricing
posted by Cheshire on Wed, Jan 9, 2008
in Theatre Issues
In the Marin Independent-Journal, Charles Brousse discusses theatre ticket pricing in the Bay Area: what the current climate is, how high prices are justified by the big companies, and how to get the most theatre bang for your buck. His main point, however, is about smaller companies and how they're faring -- and the news is not good.
He notes that the Theatre Communications Group, a national organization of theatre companies, reports that larger theatres have seen a slight audience increase in recent years, while smaller companies have seen a decline. Even so, companies across the spectrum have seen revenue increases, which he laments (rightly so) as a result of smaller companies having to raise ticket prices.
Brousse then goes on to highlight the Ross Valley Players, a company that has been able to keep their ticket prices affordable, he writes, at the low, low price of -- wait for it -- $20. Now, this is not meant as a slight to RVP, but when did $20 start counting as a low ticket price for small theatre?
Well, in Ross, CA, perhaps it does. With a median household income of $102,593 (compare with Berkeley's figure of $51,256), $20 must seem awfully small.
Not to us: at Impact, our top ticket price is $15 and has been that way for more than five years. Students, seniors, and Theatre Bay Area members pay $10, and rush tickets are pay-what-you-wish on Thursdays (Marin Theatre Company also has pay-what-you-wish nights, as Brousse mentions).
The important question, however, is this: how does a company come by its low prices? Is it discounting high regular prices, or is it committed to low prices from the start? Brousse notes that larger theatres justify their high prices by comparing them to other forms of entertainment such as eating out, going to the symphony, traveling, and shopping.
Impact also does that sort of comparison, but our reference point is the price of going to a movie or seeing a band in a club. That's what we're all about: appealing directly to people who, if they weren't coming to see a show at La Val's, would be more likely to be at the movies than the symphony. Impact isn't discount theatre; it's great theatre at affordable prices.
Brousse suggests that readers make use of half-off services such as the TIX booth or Goldstar. Impact has hardly ever employed such services -- our prices are already less than half what other companies charge, and if we offered our tickets at half-price, they'd be $7.50. There's no way we could survive on that.
Unfortunately, some companies (especially those in the hot zone within walking distance of Union Square) do depend on the traffic those services provide -- and I know at least two companies that felt they had to raise their prices so that the 50 percent wouldn't hurt as much.
I don't think all discounts are bad. Impact does it too -- we have special prices for students, seniors, and TBA members. But those are targeted at people who have lower incomes than most. I fully support targeted discounts like that, and practically every company I know does it.
As a final thought, I wonder whether our low ticket prices actually work against us sometimes. People like low prices, of course, but they also perceive that higher prices come with higher value. (I know I fall victim to that kind of thinking sometimes.) Like I said earlier, Impact isn't discount theatre; it's just great theatre at a low price. But for some people who don't come to Impact, I wonder whether they would if our prices were higher.
But we're keeping 'em low as long as we can.