Monday, October 13, 2008
Trouble waiting in the wings on Broadway?
Newsday.com: "In other words, in the midst of this scary economy, at least the surface appears to be holding in the theater. Most subscriptions for nonprofit theaters were bought before the market free-fall. Even the Metropolitan Opera began the season with a bigger advance sale than last year."
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13 comments:
It's a scary time for all the little theaters as well. B-way's of course going to be affected but it won't die. Little guys are sweating bullets about loosing funding to continue on their marry way. The wells everywhere are starting to dry up.
Broadway will not feel the repercussions of the crash for a while if they feel it at all. People buy their tickets months in advance so when the crash came around it wasn't going to really stop them from going. But in the months to come Broadway could start feeling the shock. People won't want to travel or buy those really expensive tickets. We'll have to wait and see.
It is just a hard time for everyone, like everyone. no matter how big your theater is or your cast is, it is just a difficult time after the Wall Street started crashing. people no longer want to travel all the way to new york to watch a show. we just need to strive through this difficult times together wisely.
This is such an od feeling after reading this article... I think the most desturbing thing about it, is the fact Broadway is well over the amount they were making last year and people are still going strong with seeing plays... and there are children starving in third world countries? Its because I feel that the economy needs to do something with itself and I am the number one supporter for theatre and expression through art, but at things like this you have to step back and look at the big picture and Broadway doesnt have a sufficient amount of space in that big picture.. We will see what happens.
The people who would buy a subscription to a season tend to be the more wealthy members of society. Although they have certainly been hurt by the economic issues, they still have enough money to be able to afford going to the theatre. Theatre is still seen by a relatively small percentage of the country, and I don't think the economy will cause it to lose its niche.
This is the opposite of what I expected, but now that I think of it, it make sense that people would buy their tickets well in advance. Like others have said, B'Way will not feel the repercussions of the economy for a while. Even smaller theaters are not having as big of a problem as I thought they would. My theater at home has had more subscription sales this year than even before.
The thing that interests me is the "government supported theater artists". This is kind of a strange thought and I don't know whether our society today would support such a move on the part of the government.
I'm fascinated by the history of the arts during the Depression. It's important for the government to recognize our industry during crisis because we remain as some of the top tourist attractions in city and to keep tourism up we need to continue the arts on all levels, especially something as iconic as Broadway. In addition, I think theatres are smart about staying on guard even though their revenue is up. Like they said "I feel poorer that last week," which I'm sure most of America is feeling and eventually their fear will turn to action, which could be cutting budgets back which could affect our audience numbers.
I think that people in theater tend to forget that at base value they're artists, and bad economic times affect artists in weird ways. I don't think that this will have an imediate effect on theaters, I'd like to think that everyone got their season tickets sold by this point after all. What I'd worry about would be the costs that some theaters might cut back on. Stuff like wood and electricity are pretty big expenditures, this might encourage a lot of theaters to be a little more efficient in some regards.
I think that what we will see is not necessarilly a decrease in overall ticket sales but perhaps a decrease in the lower price tickets. For the most part the really expensive seats will continue to sell because those that sit there have the money, and the want to continue to see the shows. However, I think we might see balconies and obstructed views to not sell as much as they currently do. Namely because often these seats are occupied by those who might not otherwise go see shows because they are too expensive.
I keep on reading articles about the effects of the economy on the world of theatre, but I agree with what Paige is saying. Perhaps we might be going through a tough time, but I am optimistic that things will be better later on down the road.
It is definitely a scary thing that is going on in our economy, but I don't think that it will be affecting the theaters for a long time. Like Kelli said, people do buy their tickets way in advance, so the theaters will still be making money for at least a little while longer. Theaters may not be feeling anything major right now, but repercussions will rise up slowly.
I doubt that Broadway will suffer too much from this. Its important to remember that after 9/11, theatre veritably boomed with shows like Mamma Mia and the Producer's gaining huge reclaim andf patronage. During these times, people turn to theater for what it can give them in its most basic sense: escape.
It is definitely a tense time for the theater industry and everyone one dependent or relatively connected. the hit on our economy was an unexpected blow and i don't want to make any uninformed presumptions so i guess all there is to do is wait and see. I don't think its a reason to panic and incur any undue stress, it's best just to wait and see in my opinion.
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