Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Theater What if We Give It Away?
Posted by Brendan Kiley on Wed, Dec 31, 2008 at 3:50 PM
Taproot is doing what many other theaters should be doing—selling its entire season for $20.
SEATTLE — December 30, 2008 — Taproot Theatre Company is kicking off its 33rd season with a 2-day walk-up sale this January 2 and 3, when its entire available inventory of Wednesday and Thursday night performances during the 2009 season are available for the special sale price of $20 (excludes preview and pay-what-you-can performances). Tickets are available in person at Taproot Theatre’s box office at 204 N. 85th St. in Seattle from noon to 5 p.m. on January 2 and 3; phone orders will not be accepted. All sales are final and any future exchanges include a $5 fee per ticket. This offer is not valid with any other discounts.Taproot Theatre’s 2009 season features Elyzabeth Gregory Wilder’s critically-acclaimed Gee’s Bend; Tuesdays With Morrie, a play by Jeffrey Hatcher and Mitch Albom, based on Albom’s bestselling book; Around the World in 80 Days by Mark Brown, based on Jules Verne’s classic novel; Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming, written by Connie Ray and conceived by Alan Bailey with musical arrangements by Mike Craver; and Enchanted April, Matthew Barber’s adaptation of Elizabeth von Arnim’s 1922 novel. More details, including dates, are available online at www.taproottheatre.org.
It's standard curtain-speech boilerplate: "The price of your seat only covers a small fraction of the production." The big money comes from grants and donations, just the way advertising, not subscriptions, pay for newspapers.
And, like newspapers, theaters everywhere should be lowering the barrier to entry, since traditional ticket sales are grinding down to a nub.
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or better yet, hire Old Country Buffet to turn this place into a dinner theatre for the clientale they're evidently trying to cater towards...and the main reason why theatre is dying, the advancing age of the average theater goer and the idiotic relunctance of theaters to try and lure in younger audiences by staging works that would appeal to said younger audiences...Change "Tuesdays with Morrie" to "Tuesdays with Wonky McValtrex" and they might have a winner and a younger fan base...
imperfect timing, like interrupting your holiday to save a few dollars on the unknown show
this is smart marketing? but then, I go to these free with a writer buddy ... press comp is the way to drive down the ticket price
Most of the fringe already has pay-what-you-can Monday and Thursday shows. So I don't know that this plan really offers anything new. The plays Annex does are not chosen with any season theme - we gave up on season ticket sales a while ago.
I have no idea how the math pencils out for the big houses; from what I gather - it doesn't.
ACT is a bright point: Dietz and Central Heating and The Adding Machine - all doing well.
Price isn't the problem here, it's the productions! People pay a good deal more to see the touring productions at the Paramount or the Ring. Why? Because they know it's going to be an experience or it's something they've been waiting to see since they can't fly to NYC to catch the show on Broadway.
Tuesdays with Morrie? Hell, Albom was the worst thing about the Detroit Free Press.
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This appears to be more of an attempt to "fill the gaps" with single-ticket pre-sales, which in-and-of-itself is a pretty smart move, since it does so early in the season, thus creating a bit more stability in terms of cash-flow, as well as generating revenue for future productions well before they go up, rather than just before they open, or while they're already running.
For the casual ticket-purchaser, who have been slowly supplanting subscribers for the past decade, it's definitely a bargain at roughly 30% off the subscription price, but it's also not like this is going to be a season-long promotion; with only a two-day window to decide, patrons are going to be obligated to lock-in their choices now, rather than having the flexibility of waiting to hear about the quality of the productions before making the decision about whether to purchase or not - which of course, is precisely what happens with subscribers as well.
Again, not saying it's a BAD strategy; quite the opposite in fact. But, people should be aware there's also a bigger picture scenario at-play here than simply providing cheap(er) ticket prices as an enticement to audience members.
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