Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board: Ticket Sales SCARED

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Majicwrench
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Joined: 2/07/07
Location: United States
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Posts: 178

Posted: 6/11/11 at 4:31pm

I agree, new theatre, half full...not bad. Word of mouth will help, it will only get better.

Ticket prices can be a big turn off too, hope they are reasonable.

Sound like you are trying, and doing a lot of things right. Keep the faith.

PS I would bet A LOT of us have done shows where we would have THRILLED to have a half full house.

Edited by Majicwrench - 6/11/11 at 4:32pm

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jayzehr
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Joined: 8/11/05
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Posts: 537

Posted: 6/12/11 at 4:15pm

Originally posted by Majicwrench

PS I would bet A LOT of us have done shows where we would have THRILLED to have a half full house.

In our circumstances in the theater we're renting half full is a big success financially and otherwise. It would be nice to have a 120 seat place
that would sell out.

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Rorgg
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Joined: 2/10/09
Location: United States
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Posts: 151

Posted: 6/15/11 at 5:34pm

My company is planning on expanding to a musical for our 3rd show. In our preliminary numbers-crunch, we're looking to set it so 26% capacity will be break-even (129 seat house). NEEDING anything more would set us up for some potentially large issues.

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Legacy Theater
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Joined: 4/26/11
Location: United States
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Posts: 37

Posted: 6/24/11 at 12:20am

Hi Everyone,

Your feedback has been amazing and I thank you so much for your thoughts and responses.

Well, our first show is over *breath sigh of relief here!!!
As you read before, we sold out half of our seating for our first weekend. We are using a church sanctuary that say 128. We sold about 1/4 on opening night, over half on the next night.

AND GUESS WHAT? Because of the show and the amazing reviews, we SOLD OUT our last weekend. Not only that, but I oversold. We ended up selling 136 tickets on our last two nights and folks were asking for another weekend.

It really was amazing and I am proud of the work we did. Onto the next show, a musical revue that will feature shows from the 50s and 60s.

Thanks again for your ideas. They have been awesome!!!

Erika Hose
President Legacy Theater Company

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colugino
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Joined: 6/30/09
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Posts: 55

Posted: 6/20/12 at 10:52pm

My theatre company goes through this every show. We have learned not to worry about it so much because in the end, it is what it is. We started out doing multi-week runs (3 and 4 weeks). What we found was that we get the same number of people just more spread out (I mean, if there is only 80 gallons of water in your tank, you can't expect 85 gallons to come out, right?) and we were spending more money on lighting and sound rentals.

We stopped doing multi-weeks and have started doing one - two week runs and no longer. Most of our sales are comprised of the following:

- Online the last week before open

- Walk-ins (our biggest chunk of sales)

- Shows after opening due to hype about the show & repeat patrons (second biggest chunk of sales)

For our door people, we have tried everything to get people to buy tickets in advance and nothing has worked. We charge $5 more at the door, we offer discounts for "Buy a return ticket before you leave this performance & get a % off," "Buy ticket online & get free drink / snack at concessions..." People still pay at the door (which is fine because we make more money that way! LOL).

And granted, some shows we have taken a major hit. For example, we just closed "The Producers," which we thought would do amazing and we barely broke even. One show we had one patron in the audience.

Bottom line for our company is that we are doing the shows for the youth that participate and in the end, they enjoy it and as long as we aren't going completely broke, we keep floating along. Now don't get me wrong, we are definitely always looking for ways to bring in money and patrons!

Getting in a panic is only going to stress you out. If the show ended up not getting the audience / money, figure out what went wrong and try not to make the same mistake. Luckily for our company we have a lot of brutally honest people that come to our shows that we talk to and find out what we could have done better.

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vickifrank
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Joined: 9/21/07
Location: United States
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Posts: 332

Posted: 7/05/12 at 12:01pm

Originally posted by colugino

My theatre company goes through this every show. We have learned not to worry about it so much because in the end, it is what it is. We started out doing multi-week runs (3 and 4 weeks). What we found was that we get the same number of people just more spread out (I mean, if there is only 80 gallons of water in your tank, you can't expect 85 gallons to come out, right?) and we were spending more money on lighting and sound rentals.

I think your numbers are telling something about your marketing. Since you get the same amount whether you do 2 weekends or 3-4 weekends, you can guess the following: 1.)you have saturated the market that you are reaching. 2.) you aren't getting many people coming back.

That means you need to find some new markets. Maybe you've relied on radio and you need to try reaching the folks who read the paper. You need to 'train' you audience to think about coming back.

Here are a few ideas:

1.) Print on your ticket or your program, a coupon for 2 tickets for the price of one for this show. The pitch is "to come back and share your fun with a friend" Notice this is 3 tickets sold for the price of 2...and the audience is fuller...and the audience talks up the show.

2.) Pick the guy who has a bit of comic timing (ie that guy who works in the theatre that always seems to make things fun) and have him come out before the show and announce the promo listed as idea one, and also pitch season tickets. This guy makes it fun, and sets the audience up for a fun show.

3.) If your likely audience is older (or younger) then offer a 'deal' to the nursing homes (or schools).

4.) Make some sort of contest that the MC in #2 announces. What ever the contest is, make sure that the prize is some comp tickets to the last show (or the next show). Also be sure that to win the audience member has to DO something--sign the back of the ticket, drop it in a jar when leaving, or mail it in. The more they do the more they are deciding they are fans of your theatre. (Publisher's Clearinghouse does this for the same reason).

_____________

http://www.studio-productions-inc.com
1-800-359-2964

The theater scrim people

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Money Talk
Community Theater Green Room Discussion Board :Theater Administration :Money Talk

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