How to Fix the Broadway Model

[macbeth]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 12:52pm

There's been a lot in other threads, and news stories lately about all of the challenges facing Broadway shows, but not a lot of ideas for solutions. 

I think the problem is that there's a lot of problems, but would start by a concerted effort to clean up Times Square and the theatre district again, along with a PR campaign to try and get the suburban and local audience back. I was there yesterday and it's the smallest line I've ever seen at TKTS. 

I also think the lack of people in offices has cut down on people seeing theatre after work, so would also like to see more weeknight discounts and partnerships with the MTA, restaurants, etc, to make it easy, afforadable and accessible and not just for those savvy enough to find Broadway Week or the other random discount. 

What else? 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 12:58pm

macbeth said: "I was there yesterday and it's the smallest line I've ever seen at TKTS."

It was 28 degrees yesterday and a weekday in January.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 1:08pm

Stop tolerating the harmful practice of premium pricing. Kick up a stink about it. Go on strike as an audience member.

No matter how much you want to see Merrily, do NOT pay $500. Encourage big name stars to not allow their celebrity to be exploited like this.

It stops people, ordinary Joe Soaps, from attending and makes theatre for the elite only.  Or else a once-a-year thing even for middle income earners.

[binau]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 1:11pm

Maybe this is 'out there' but is there any way to make Broadway theatres commercially viable if they are located further away from Manhattan? (e.g. Queens). I'm guessing one way to substantially lower costs is to find a way to lower 'RENT'.

 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 1:20pm

My "if I were mayor," pie in the sky, multibillion dollar proposal would be closing off car traffic for large swaths of 31st to 50th Streets, between 6th 8th Aves (perhaps there's an underpass or overpass situation to compensate). More green space and foot paths. Get rid of the majority of LED screens. Establish a tax credit or something to lure in non-chain businesses. Limit street vendors, flyering teams, & buskers. Do something about homelessness citywide.

This is why I have no intentions of ever running for public office.

As for Broadway, I'd be all for a sliding scale on everything from rent to wages to number of performances a week, so a risky show that only grosses $400K a week could have a better shot at succeeding (with everyone making just a little less money, and as a result being able to have a larger diversity of ticket price). These one-size-fits-all contracts are killing Broadway. Even if it takes a couple months of strikes to achieve those things, that might be a net positive in the longterm. At the current pace, Broadway will eat itself alive.

Initiatives, generally, don't move the needle unless they're in a hyperconcentrated period of time (Broadway Week, Restaurant Week). Change needs to come from the inside out.

Updated On: 1/17/24 at 01:20 PM

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 1:28pm

“These one-size-fits-all contracts are killing Broadway.”

This is the one Broadway fans need to accept. There’s no way around it. 

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 2:40pm

macbeth said: I think the problem is that there's a lot of problems, but would start by a concerted effort to clean up Times Square and the theatre district again, along with a PR campaign to try and get the suburban and local audience back. I was there yesterday and it's the smallest line I've ever seen at TKTS.

I also think the lack of people in offices has cut down on people seeing theatre after work, so would also like to see more weeknight discounts...

 

Both of those sound like good ideas to me.

The Times Square Alliance (formerly the Times Square BID which was instrumental in the renovation and gentrification of the area in the 1990's and which receives, I believe, around 12 million in nyc taxes each year for security, sanitation and event planning for Times Square) is trying to expand its jurisdiction in the area. 

As to the obsolescence (made possible by online work and shopping) of office space, this is a global Western problem that will probably take a generation to solve.

 

Updated On: 1/17/24 at 02:40 PM

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 2:41pm

This might be answering a slightly different problem, but I remember there was talk before on whether the Tonys should include off Broadway productions.  I would assume that part of the reason so many shows try to make it to Broadway is because then they get a shot at the Tony (and a televised performance) that they wouldn't otherwise, even if the size of the Broadway house swallows them up a bit.  To add on to that, maybe there also just needs to be more smaller/mid-size theaters, since it seems like the biggest ones can't really sustain a long run unless the show has already been around for a while (ie Wicked and Lion King).

As for the financial model of Broadway, I wonder if a "season pass" kind of deal could be worth it.  I know TodayTix is doing one for the West End, but their pricing honestly seems way higher than it would be to just get tickets regularly.  Maybe something where people pay a "buy in" fee and then get access to cheaper seats in preferable locations (maybe side orchestra/side front mezz, or center orchestra for a higher tier if they still want center orchestra for premium pricing), a similar model to some off Broadway nonprofits.  I suppose theoretically the Shuberts could do this since they own so many of the theaters on Broadway, but ideally this would be available for all Broadway shows.

Speaking of, Telecharge is just a terrible experience for consumers, both before and after the redesign in different ways.  And a lot of people are still paying astronomical fees by booking through Broaway.com, so the impression of ticket prices may be higher than it is.  While it's true that shows like Merrily have very few options for cheap tickets, it's not true across the board, but the main shows that people hear about are Merrily with the $300+ ticket prices, so I don't think they realize that tickets can be found for <$70 for many shows (the number of people praising How to Dance in Ohio for their $50 ticket initiative I think is proof of that).

For all the criticism that Ken Davenport gets, I think he does have some interesting ideas as far as marketing/getting word out about a show (whether or not it bears fruit can kind of be seen by the grosses) so I do appreciate him trying things.  One thing I saw was him organizing bus trips for people in Jersey who wanted to see A Beautiful Noise but either didn't want to plan logistics or didn't have other people to go with, and I'm curious about how the response to that was from people who went on one of them, and if it really did make them more likely to get a ticket for something else in the future.

[RWPrincess]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 2:47pm

One of the best things that can help get more suburban folks in is to fix the LIRR schedule. Opening the $11B Grand Central Terminal last year basically cut service to Penn Station in half instead of adding Grand Central as incremental service, If they reroute trains after 8pm from Grand Central to Penn, that will give riders multiple options per hour to get home after a show. The same thing needs to happen on weekends. They also need to dispatch longer trains, especially in the hour after shows let out. Right now service is mostly hourly with poor waiting facilities in the terminal, I wish shows would stop advertising at LIRR stations until the schedule is fixed. Maybe the lack of ad revenue will finally force the MTA/LIRR to do something. Politcians and media only speak up when it comes to commuters but there is an entire subset of people who travel off-peak and that would include the theater crowd, 

[RippedMan]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 2:52pm

Honestly they shot themselves in the foot by bulldozing all those intimate theaters to the make the atrocious Marquee. Same with the Gershwin. Seems like all the new builds are big theaters when we really need more Music Box type theaters. 

At the end of the day though, theater is a luxury. So I don't think you can really mess with the pricing. If people are wiling to pay for it, they will pay for it. I won't pay $500 to see Merrily but plenty of people are. That said, I saw the Boop premiere here in Chicago for $25. So there are affordable seats and options.

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:01pm

Theatre is NOT a luxury.

Theatre is art.

Art is a necessity.

[BroadwayNYC2]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:09pm

Here we go.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:13pm

Re: Tonys for Off-Broadway Shows

Adding off-Broadway to the Tonys will be a non-starter as long as the Broadway League and Off-Broadway League are two separate organizations. There would also have to be a line drawn (aka gatekeeping) of what qualified as Off-B and awards eligible, because it would, conservatively, triple the number of eligible productions per year and the 800 voters have a hard enough time getting to the ~45 new Broadway productions. As far as a Tony as a marketing tool, the vast majority of Off-B shows are not running at the time of the Tonys because they are limited nonprofit runs.

If something like the Drama Desks could ever scale up and get a broadcast/streaming partner, maybe there's a world where that works as a supplement to the Tonys. Easier said than done.

 

Re: Season Pass

A "season pass" would not do much business beyond the people who already see a vast majority of shows. Appealing to diehard fans is not a priority: any show, hit or flop, is going to have those people who see it a handful of times at rush/TDF prices. It would have to be in the $2,000 to $4,000 range to be even remotely worthwhile (and would require a lot of administrative overhead and a guaranteed buy-in from every production).

Something like MUBI GO could work in theory, though I imagine TodayTix or ShowScore or another organization has done a feasibility study and that's why we haven't seen it.

I've often wondered if it could work for an individual show to sell an "annual pass." For like $450 you could get 1 ticket to see it per month for a year; you have to buy in before the end of previews, and obviously it's a risk for the buyer if the show doesn't run a full year, and a risk for the producer if the show's a runaway hit. That comes out to $37 per ticket –– about the cost of a rush ticket. But like above, I bet someone has run a study and axed the idea, and it really only caters to diehards.

The initiatives that could gain traction in the upper offices of Broadway are the ones that move mass volumes of tickets at $75+ (ideally $100+) for shows doing middling to poor business.

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:24pm

Jay Lerner-Z said: "Theatre is NOT a luxury.

Theatre is art.

Art is a necessity."


That's true, in the same way that food is a necessity: you're not going to get an exquisite cut of filet mignon in a top restaurant for $15. Art may be a necessity but Broadway is not a necessity. There are innumerable ways for people to see & participate in other community, educational, and professional works of performance art for cheap or free.

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:26pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: "I've often wondered if it could work for an individual show to sell an "annual pass." For like $450 you could get 1 ticket to see it per month for a year; you have to buy in before the end of previews, and obviously it's a risk for the buyer if the show doesn't run a full year, and a risk for the producer if the show's a runaway hit. That comes out to $37 per ticket –– about the cost of a rush ticket. But like above, I bet someone has run a study and axed the idea, and it really only caters to diehards."

Good points made here, though I think it's maybe overestimating the draw of a show to assume someone would want to see it every month of a year (of course there are diehards out there that would do that, but probably not enough to interest the producers).  Here Lies Love did try something like that (and was probably in the position to be able to do it given the immersive nature) with their 4 ticket packs which I think made sense, and I would've considered it except you could still get a $35 rush ticket an hour before the show at the time.  That's why I suggested the season pass, because I think the number of people who would want to see multiple Broadway shows a year would probably be larger than those that would see the same show multiple times a year (I wonder if maybe Broadway Roulette could do a multi-show package where they sell 6 shows at a time or so for different dates within a year, all guaranteed to be different shows).

[EDSOSLO858]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:30pm

I don’t have a clear answer to this conflict, but what I will say is that substantial change to the model is necessary and it needs to be figured out in the coming seasons. 

[ErmengardeStopSniveling]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:39pm

chrishuyen, out of curiosity how much was the HLL four-pack? Google is failing me!

My hunch is that would be not unlike like selling Memberships to a theatre that guarantee you the first crack at buying tickets, at a slightly cheaper (but not cheapest) price, in an effort to fill the house & reward loyalty. It's great for the buyer if you have a hot title and tight inventory; it does nothing for shows with limited interest, as I'm sure our friends at LCT and The Public will attest

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:44pm

Not all Broadway shows equate to an exquisite cut of filet mignon. Some are more like paying $300 for a Big Mac.

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 3:56pm

For the HLL package: it's weird that it's not posted anywhere in the press releases, but I want to say that when I looked into it, it averaged around $60 or $70 a ticket.  Certainly on the "cheap" side of Broadway tickets, but still nothing compared to the rush price.  The other thing with it was I think they could all be used on the same day, so if you had a group of 4 people, you could take advantage of it to see the show together.

[James885]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 4:02pm

ErmengardeStopSniveling said: These one-size-fits-all contracts are killing Broadway. Even if it takes a couple months of strikes to achieve those things, that might be a net positive in the longterm. At the current pace, Broadway will eat itself alive.
 

Although I think the challenges Broadway faces are multi-faceted, this is a big one. It seems like at some point in the near-ish future sh*t is going to hit the fan and Broadway is going to have to reckon with the fact that its business model is broken and is no longer viable moving forward - much like how the entertainment industry is weathering a reckoning over the broken economics of streaming. 

I'm not sure what the solution is, but it will probably mean some short-term pain (again, similar to last year's twin strikes in TV/Film) in order to ensure a solution that will benefit Broadway in the long term.

 

Updated On: 1/17/24 at 04:02 PM

[Fosse76]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 4:06pm

Jay Lerner-Z said: "Not all Broadway shows equate to an exquisite cut of filet mignon. Some are more like paying $300 for a Big Mac."

Every new show comes out of the gate pricing their show like they are the new Hamilton. So sales aren't that strong. Then they release discounts on the already too high prices, which are still too high. Then they quietly lower prices for the bad seats, but leave the good ones at still too high a price. Rinse and repeat.

And usually for a show that isn't that great, telling a story no one cares about. Audiences don't want to be brow-beaten with messages. They want to be entertained. And not for $100 in the rear balcony, where they'd need the Hubble Telescope to see the action on the stage.

[hearthemsing22]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 4:11pm

My dear sweet child.

 

It will take YEARS to fix this. Or to make any changes. It doesn't happen overnight. Broadway isn't going anywhere. There will always be shows drawing people in. And there will always be people willing to pay what you believe are outrageous prices-which I agree, they are, but people will pay them. Don't deny that there are discounts that shows advertise as well. That information comes up usually either when a show is announced, or a few weeks before opening, or something. 

[Kad]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 4:19pm

Re: Tony Awards for Off-Broadway-

I was a Lortel voter for 2 nonconsecutive seasons prior to Covid- both times, there were approximately 100 eligible productions to be seen in a season, most of which were clustered into the busy fall and spring. There is no way many voters would commit to seeing both a full off-Broadway season and a full Broadway season- you're talking a truly huge number of productions to schedule. You can try to whittle it down to only include certain off-Broadway productions, but how do you make that distinction?

 

Broadway's problem is not a problem that can be solved by Broadway alone. It's dependent on a host of city, state, national, and cultural issues and trends- theatres across the country are struggling in various ways. And Broadway is the only major entertainment industry I can think of that is geographically locked- you have to come to NYC to see a Broadway show (tours are irrelevant to this discussion). TV, film, and music have no such problem- they have multiple large production hubs throughout the country and their products are consumable from anywhere. This means, for instance, that young people cannot be drivers of the industry the way they are for other forms of entertainment, particularly music- they lack the means. 

[Jay Lerner-Z]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 4:32pm

Could you make the distinction by categorising the awards, with a different set of voters for each? Revival/ new, play/musical etc.

Have a small panel of judges decide the nominations, with the wider vote base only seeing the shortlist. Also no comps to voters, the REAL audience most likely makes up the cost.

[kidmanboy]

Posted: 1/17/24 at 4:32pm

RWPrincess said: "One of the best things that can help get more suburban folks in is to fix the LIRR schedule. Opening the $11B Grand Central Terminal last year basically cut service to Penn Station in half instead of adding Grand Central as incremental service, If they reroute trains after 8pm from Grand Central to Penn, that will give riders multiple options per hour to get home after a show. The same thing needs to happen on weekends. They also need to dispatch longer trains, especially in the hour after shows let out. Right now service is mostly hourly with poor waiting facilities in the terminal, I wish shows would stop advertising at LIRR stations until the schedule is fixed. Maybe the lack of ad revenue will finally force the MTA/LIRR to do something. Politcians and media only speak up when it comes to commuters but there is an entire subset of people who travel off-peak and that would include the theater crowd,"

I keep hearing this complaint from Long Islanders I know as well.  Most Broadway theaters are literally the exact walking distance from Grand Central as they are from Penn.  Some (Hudson, Belasco) are even closer to Grand Central.