The Producer's Perspective: Broadway continues to do big business and is only trending up, but there’s a segment of ticket sales that has largely been ignored. Pre-sales are guaranteed money in the bank (music to any Producer’s ear), but what if I told you there was another segment of the market that rakes in over $100 million annually for producers? I’m talking about same-day ticket sales at TKTS.
4 comments:
This is a brilliant business PR article about Broadway Crew, which works with the Broadway productions to sell more same day discount tickets, if I understood correctly. Getting a pattern to predict ticket purchase must be a really complicated and unpredictable game. I can never tell what makes me actually to go and buy a ticket. Recently I saw a beautiful production photo of the musical The Bridges of Madison County in Seoul and made my mom go get tickets right away. Last March I got a flier for the musical Chicago walking down the street in New York City, saw 30% off deal, and gave it to my parents which led to actual ticket purchase. But also, I didn’t get the Hamilton ticket even though it was offered at an affordable group rate. So it’s not surprising that there is a company that specializes in getting the potential customers to actually purchase the tickets.
Though I understand why this seem like an appeal way of advertising, part of me thinks this is sleazy. The customer thinks this person is coming to them to help them choose the best show, but they are actually a representative for the show. Even if the Broadway crew person is representing multiple shows and genuinely tries to find the best one from the one they are paid to represents, they might not give the client the best show recommendation. This article says that people don’t want a hard sell, but that's what the Broadway crew seems to do. This does seem like a powerful tool, but I’m still unsure of its use. That being said, I didn’t realize that so much of the ticket sales came from same day tickets. 12% of tickets is a big part of the market and I understand the need to promote to it, but I’m still unsure of the method.
I only went to see shows on Broadway once, but when I did I went to the booth the get discounted same day tickets. I remember there being people with flyers for various shows and talking to me about one production or another telling me why I might want to decide to see it. I was coming in set on exactly which shows I wanted to see, but if I wasn’t as sure I might have been swayed. It didn’t surprise me they had people advertising in the line, what better place to advertise than in a line where people are planning to spend money on your product but have no necessarily decided if they will buy your product or a competitor's product. I think it is sort of similar to how packaging on products in a store is really an advertisement. With people trying to target ads more and more, you wouldn’t want to waste having an opportunity to advertise directly to people most likely to buy what you are selling.
There is no question that a night out on Broadway is going to cost you a pretty penny, but there are systems in place, such as TKTS, that try and make that night out just a little cheaper. This article seems to be talking about how same-day ticket sales are not advertised enough to the general public, but I must disagree. Given, I have only been to Manhattan two times in my life and seen shows on Broadway just once, but I have seen the TKTS line in Times Square. The grind for cheap Broadway tickets is an industry that is very much alive and well. I think the main problem that this article missed is the way in acquiring those tickets. You can spend your entire morning and afternoon waiting in line at TKTS with no guarantee that you are going to be able to see the show you really want to, and if you do, you will most likely be sitting in the back row struggling to even see which character is on stage.
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