Friday, January 01, 2010
The Lure of Star Power
Arts Marketing: "I just finished reading Playbill.com's Top Theatre Stories of the Year. The leading story discusses how stars sell tickets, and in a year with a down economy, it seems that the only thing that sells tickets are the stars. From this little story it seems clear that if you don't have an A-list star in your show, don't even try a Broadway transfer."
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3 comments:
I found the point about building up an appetite for stars withing our audience to be interesting. It does seem true, that if you bring in big names for a few productions, people will want to hold out until a star returns. I think some regional theaters have handled this issues but using "local" stars. It seems like some "stars" are made that way because the have performed over and over with that same company...so much so that theaters are able to bill them as "Featuring!" or "Staring!" because people are use to seeing their faces. But when trying to transfer to B-way, that wont work, and the theater then has to find a new star to use.....most likely for more money
It is some what of a shame that people will only go see a show if there is a star in it and if there is not a star in it the show they won’t even show up and not go to the show that they have tickets for. Also I like how they sad that if a theater has had stares for the last few years and then dose not have them for a year or two and then the theater has a hared time getting people to come and see there shows until they have a star. So I hop that the public will go and see shows no mater what people are in them. But I am sheer that this will continue for a long time.
I'm curious to see what will break the cycle of revivals and star power. I know that the economy is having a huge impact and that most places are playing it safe. But in terms of content, they're playing it safe and just digging themselves a bigger whole to climb out of later on. I feel like once you can't provide a star or people are sick of revivals, you're probably going to have a difficult time winning back your audience.
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