We’ve all seen those MasterCard “Priceless” commercials right?
What about theatre?
Many theatres in the Boston area have instituted a “Pay What You Can” model for a limited number of performances. Most of the time I’ve heard these programs referred to as a “gimmick” to fill seats rather than responding to the criticisms that theatre is only for the affluent. While a staff member at theatres in Boston, I would see these free ticket offers and would know what it meant: The theatre needed an audience. These offers are distributed with the intent to pad the audience, making the theater not feel so empty for everybody involved—the performers and audience. It’s especially important for comedies where smaller audiences may not be as bold to laugh-out-loud which, of course, energizes and invigorates the performers.
Instead of free tickets or the traditional models, the Boston Court Theatre in Pasadena has been doing something different—a “Pay What It’s Worth” performance. However, according to a LATimes.com blog post, they found they were losing money.
Boston Court’s “Pay What It’s Worth” performance worked like this: When entering the theater, audience members were given an empty envelope. Upon their exit, they would give the envelope to a staff member with what they believed to be what the performance they had just attended was worth.
This program’s structure allowed the company to track their average yield per seat. They could find out if the program was successful in being economically viable for the theatre and if it was bringing in a new, more economically diverse audience. I suspect the goals of the program were filling the theatre for lightly sold performances while, at the same time, making a ticket to the performance available to the widest economic demographic as possible.
The program appears have been fairly successful for a while. However, the yield per seat did not differ much from the “Pay What You Can” programs they had in the past. But, what is significant (and they are talking about it publicly) is that the Boston Court started seeing more and more envelopes return empty. And, this started happening before the economic downturn last fall. As a result, the Boston Court eliminated the program, replacing it with a $5 ticket.
Had the program run its course and patrons started taking for granted that they could attend a performance for next to nothing if they so desired? In the Boston Court’s program, there was a certain level of anonymity in returning an empty envelope because the patron didn’t have to look the artists in the eyes and let them know they weren’t valuing the production financially.
Are we seeing a level of income elasticity? If a theatre patron is making money, do they attribute a higher value to the experience than when they aren’t thus increasing the demand? Is it a matter of the prioritization of leisure activities?
Or, did this foreshadow that when the economy starts to go bad, people value theatre less?
Very interesting article, thanks!
I’m wondering if they changed this program to $5 ticket how much an average viewer put to the envelope after the performance. Like $1? Lol
In addition to my previous comment I just thought about an idea.
What if save $5 tickets but give the empty envelopes to the audience members before the each performance with the text: “Actors at this performance work only for tips”.:) So it’s like the restaurant model but for the theatre. I think it might work. And total gross will be visible larger.
Sergey, Thanks for the comment!
As far as I know the $5 ticket price was instead of having a contribution in an envelope. I believe it was designed to both take the pressure off the patron—they didn’t have to feel any guilt of not contributing any money or very little.
You have me thinking. I’ve had colleagues in fundraising and development who often have said that some arts organizations are afraid to ask for money. What if the organization makes it obvious that a $5 cost per ticket doesn’t cover expenses? Perhaps, a hybrid ($5 ticket and an empty envelope with some fundraising or educational information about how non-profit theatre is funded), will increase the overall yield.
It also could serve the purpose of seeding the audience for more substantial gifts in the future.
Thanks for the comments!
Nick
Did the Boston Court’s “Pay What It’s Worth” program only accept cash? Could someone mail in the envelope later? I never carry around a lot of cash so even if I thought something was worth $100, I wouldn’t have it in my wallet. Granted, someone might not mail in the envelope — but I wonder how much cash most people carry with them.
Sooz, thanks for the comment and a good question.
I believe in the blog post they mention accepting checks but there wasn’t anything about if they were cash-only. Many Boston theatres are cash only for student rush or special discount programs, though. Some have even structured the price to be at $20 because that’s an easy and reasonable bill for a patron to obtain out of an ATM. I’ll see if there is any more information online about the Boston Court program.
Nick
Thanks for promoting this discussion. I can answer a couple of the questions from the comments:
1) Previous to instituting the $5 day, our “Pay What It’s Worth” day was averaging below $5 per envelope. The show always filled up (99 seats) but we would inevitably find many empty envelopes. Some people did pay $10 or $20. One person gave us an Amex gift card they claimed had $5 remaining on it, but it had nothing left. We decided to settle on a pricepoint low enough to allow a broad demographic of patrons to attend. So far so good. We sold out even quicker than normal on that day.
2) The “Pay What It’s Worth” day was always marketed as “cash/check only.” And there were signs in the lobby as well as a box office attendant letting all the patrons know we only accept cash and checks. And we pointed them to the several ATM’s within two blocks of the theater. The empty envelopes were due to people placing no value on the art rather than people not having cash or a checkbook with them. Additionally we do have envelopes available in the lobby (prepaid postage) for patrons to mail us later with a donation. They are infrequently used.