HELLO, DOLLY Tickets Have Broadway Prices Reaching a Record $998

By: Oct. 08, 2017
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Hello, Dolly has been lauded as the must-see of the season, and theatre goers are scrambling to grab a seat before Tony-winning star Bette Midler leads her last parade across the Shubert's passerelle. In a recent article, The New York Times reported that ticket prices have soared past previous records with front row seats hitting a premium cost of $998 ($1,009 with fees).

Broadway prices have been steadily rising over the years with average prices going from $109 last season to $116 this season. Shocking prices, however, have been seen continually with prices reaching up to $550 at the box office. Hamilton previously sold tickets at $998 for the holiday periods of Thanksgiving and Christmas in 2016. Tickets for the upcoming concert run Springsteen on Broadway are reaching prices of $875.

Broadway grosses, meanwhile, are hardly struggling. This week the total grosses reached just over $23 million with 84.10% of total tickets sold.

Shows do make an effort to make lower priced tickets available with rush, lottery, and standing room policies, which rarely pass $50. Nearly every Broadway show offers discount tickets through TKTS or TodayTix, and organizations offer enrollment plans for discounts such as Roundabout's HIPTIX program, but it's worth noting that these options often leave audience members feeling like riffraff in the last row of the theatre.

Efforts are increasing to police resale to a greater extent, but it continues to be an issue. Bots are common practice, essentially a computer hack that connects resellers to ticketing websites and automatically purchases as many high-demand tickets as possible almost instantly. These tickets are then sold at mark-ups of as much as 1,000%. The practice is illegal under New York law, and for a while the fines resellers faced were nothing compared to their revenue. In a positive turn, an additional law was recently passed that criminalizes the use of bots and could land repeat offenders in jail.

To read more, visit The New York Times here.

Photo Credit: Julieta Cervantes


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