A Little More Follow-Up On Ticket Prices

The Dallas Morning News published an article by music critic Scott Cantrell, easily one of the journalists that makes it onto my shortlist of good critics, which examines some of the Dallas Symphony’s 05-06 ticket sales…

Scott’s piece serves as a good chaser to the recent discussion here from 6/1 and 6/8 . The article reports that although the Dallas Symphony ended up with a cumulative increase in attendance, ticket sales to masterworks concerts fell 6 percent.

Scott’s piece also serves to inspire a number of good questions:

Did Dallas’ new Impromptu ticket program have any influence on the drop in classical sales and the increase in attendance at pops and special events?

Was the shift in attendance due to series programming, scheduling, or pricing?

Perhaps most importantly, will the DSO management attempt to track these issues in order to better refine their offerings and boost attendance for each concert series?

Of course, one of the more intriguing aspects surrounding many of these questions is timing. Since most organizations have much of the new season’s programming established before the current season is complete, is it possible to implement any lessons learned from the above questions with any effectiveness?