Sunday, March 24, 2013
The Canaries in the Coal Mine
Psychic Infection: What of the Fabulous Invalid? Broadway as a whole, after decades of mistaken calls of its imminent demise, continues to roll along, posting impressive yearly grosses. But if the industry's foundation was ever on uncertain shifting sands, it is now. Most of the gains in dollars are not coming from increased attendance, but from higher prices. How long can this trend continue? The answer is unknowable, but it can't go on forever. Ask the Yankees or the Met Opera. Is that a fat lady I hear singing?
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3 comments:
I agree with this article that producers and the people who govern Broadway need to do something. Maybe if the US economy comes back strong in the next few years then maybe a $200 dollars ticket (or More) will be ok. But that just seems like so much money, I am just overwhelmed with the price of tickets. Hopefully something can happen in a positive direction before something terrible happens and more and more theatre continue to go dark. I believe there will always be Broadway shows but how many is the question. Also will there be smaller theatre, or will there be off broadway. Who knows?
The general gist of live entertainment has been a lack of attendance, and then an increase of prices, then a farther lack of attendance due to the increase. It's a terrible cycle, and it has to end somewhere. It also creates a standard that it's okay for all facets of live entertainment to be expensive. If they wanted a higher attendance, and then a later increase in profit from that, it would be in the Broadway producers, sports mangers, and Met management to lower the prices and take a small hit. These companies should have a money cushion built up so that in the time period while waiting for attendance to increase due to lower prices, they can still maintain their current level of expenses. Or, maybe, these shows need to learn to make cuts in scenery or lighting or sound. The rest of the entertainment industry takes cuts, and in hard economic times, it's not unreasonable for large figureheads in the industry to make cuts as well. Maybe ten years ago it would have been unheard of, but I wouldn't hold anything against them. SInce the economy has gone down, the mindset about budgetary cuts has changed some, and people are more willing to go with saving money and making do with what exists than getting the latest technology constantly.
I really think this article makes a good point about ticket prices. When I was growing up going to see a show was always a once a year privilege, that that wasn't even a show in New York, these were shows in chicago. Even when I went to london last summer, I was only able to see two shows and I had to buy my tickets through their version of tkts. As a theater student I don't think I could ever afford full price tickets which is a shame because in theater school we are constantly reminded to go out and see shows. I don't think theater should be considered a luxury, especially in hard finical times like these. There needs to be a way to make theater more affordable so that it's not just something that you go to see once a year if you're lucky.
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