Regardless of your view on whether or not the average ticket price at professional US orchestras is an accurate representation of the overall experience’s value or is artificially inflated to help pad earned income shortfalls (or a little of Column A and a little of Column B), Joe Patti presented a fascinating point of view on all of this at Butts In The Seats in a post from 1/18/2012. Whether intended or not, Patti presents a potentially useful option to help groups take a permanent step back from current pricing levels without looking like they’ve been gouging ticket buyers all along.
Ticket Prices
Increase Your Subscriber base by 50% In One Day
That’s precisely what the Joffrey Ballet accomplished through a Groupon “deal of the day” offer in the Chicago area. Details are available in the 9/3/2010 edition of the Chicago Tribune in a blog post by Chris Jones but in a nutshell, Joffrey leveraged Groupon’s popularity (as a Chicagoland resident, I can say it’s great) but there are a few other items worth noting…
Good News On Ticket Subsidies
Thanks to reader Jon Hardie for pointing out an article by David Abel in the 8/28/2010 edition of the Boston Globe I would have otherwise missed which reports on the Highland Street Foundation’s work at subsidizing ticket prices at several Boston area cultural institutions. Regular readers know how strongly I feel about the connection between subsidized ticket prices and the overall health of performing arts…
Michael Kaiser Couldn’t Be More Right
I have to fess up and admit that I haven’t been keeping up with Michael Kaiser’s blog at Huffington Post even though I know it would be for the best. But that’s been turning around as I’ve been wading through Michael’s archives and one item that caught my attention was a post from 1/4/2010 titled Why Ticket Prices Must Change. Regular readers are already aware that this has been an ongoing topic at Adaptistration for years now and Michael’s outlook mirrors nearly everything covered here in all that time…
A Useful Look At Access and Affordability
The 2/2/2009 edition of the New Yorker published an intriguing article by Alex Ross who took it upon himself to find out how much live classical music he could consume in New York City on a budget of $100. As it turns out, it was quite a bit thanks in part to some fantastic free offerings throughout the city. On the other hand, the majority of Americans don’t live in a metropolitan area that offers as much variety as NYC, but Ross’ article serves as an enormously useful launching point for this discussion…