So, next August I’m heading over the pond to the States for a Big Vacation. Mostly down in New Orleans, Memphis and Nashville - for the total eclipse, I might add - but bouncing off of NYC as that’s the most sensible itinerary from Edinburgh. And besides, I like New York.
So, I thought I’d book in advance and take in a show. What the actual fuck are those ticket prices about? In the UK I consider £80 pricey, but worth it for a top show.
I looked at Groundhog Day. $219. Yikes. Then I thought I’d see about this Hamilton that there’s been so much fuss about. $750 for regular seats, direct from the theatre. Not scalpers, not a resell site - regular seats direct from the theatre. $750.
How do they justify that? How do people afford it? Is this the norm now? What kind of profit margin is this show making, for heavens sake? Genuinely curious.
How do they justify it? Supply and demand? How do people afford it? They are either really rich, consider seeing a show on Broadway a once in a lifetime experience or something in between those two.
How much profit Hamilton is making I do not know, but a lot of shows never make it to Broadway and they cost money to create and develop.
Note: Go to the TKTS booth in Times Square to get discounts on shows. You can get half price tickets there (though not to all shows – it changes every day).
Hint: If you want to see a play instead of a musical, take the line on the far left. That’s for plays only and it’ll take you about 10 minutes instead of 45.
Some shows also have cheap tickets if you show up at the theater on the day of the show (the Music Box Theater seems to do this every day). Most involve a lottery, though, so you may not be able to get anything that way.
A show like Hamilton sells out every night. They have no incentive to drop ticket prices (and you won’t find them at the TKTS booth).
I’ve actually been thinking about flying to London to see Hamilton when it opens there, because it’ll be years before it hits Nashville and it’s prohibitively expensive in the US.
In the case of Hamilton, they’ve said that they’re basing the ticket prices off what the secondary market demands. If seats are moving for $650 on StubHub then they’re going to charge $650 and keep that money for the people in the show rather than making StubHub rich off service fees. They also offer a lottery for $10 tickets and a bunch of tickets for charity & education so they’re not really being mercenary so much as just getting what they feel they’re due.
They’ve also said that they’re basing their show duration on the Wicked model (i.e. “Stay until you stop profitably selling seats”) rather than Book of Mormon model ("have a strict end date and make the show a ‘see it now or miss it’ event) so eventually ticket prices should drop and most people get a chance to see it. Maybe they won’t see it until Fall 2019 but the chance should be there.
You know, that actually makes a lot of sense. Both aspects of your post. I guess I’ll just leave Hamilton until the furore dies down, or it opens in London.
My previous New York trips I went to the South Street Seaport TKTS and got cheap tickets for Curtains (with David Hyde Pierce), and Avenue Q, both of which I enjoyed very much. Perhaps I will take the same approach.
Regarding Hamilton: if you plan to see it in a city where it hasn’t started playing yet, you better try to get tickets as soon as they go on sale. Here in San Francisco, the entire five month run sold out in less than two days.
To the OP: Don’t compare Hamilton prices to other Broadway shows. The demand for Hamilton is on another level.
It really is as good as everyone says! I finally saw it two weeks ago and loved every single moment. (Though I would never pay the premium prices for anything. I bought my ticket for $139.) The show **is **the album, if you like the album you’ll like the show, and if you don’t like the music you won’t. I definitely would recommend listening to it first, especially if you’re going to be shelling out big bucks. It probably would be cheaper for you to see it when it opens in London.
Book of Mormon is an open-ended run same as Wicked, Hamilton, etc. It’s never had an end date.
Right – they actually missed out on a lot of potential revenue during the early months because it took them a while to really grasp that what they had was The Thing That Ate Broadway and accordingly adopt the match-the-resale-market strategy.
Most musicals run until they stop being profitable (especially musicals). When they stop making money, they set an end date; it gooses the sales as people rush to take it in. If the original cast starts to leave, they just recast the roles. It’s been that was as least as far back ad Hello, Dolly in the 60s.
The only things with end dates are plays where a big name movie or TV actor is headlining. The star is what brings the audience in, and if he or she has other commitments, they’ll set it up as a limited run.
I know that. That’s why I don’t understand what was meant by “Book of Mormon model” since Book of Mormon does not *have *an end date. It has been a top seller ever since it began.
I waited three years to see The Book Of Mormon because the absolute cheapest (worst) seats available were going for $275. When I was finally able to get some mid-range seats for 125 we went. And I’ll tell you that I’m a guy who really likes musicals, but if I had paid $275 each for four bad seats to this show, I would have been pretty pissed.
NY theater ticket prices are fucking nuts. I took my daughter to see Strauss’s SALOME at the Metropolitan Opera two weeks ago, and paid $130 each for two tickets in the Grand Tier, way the hell over on the side.
My son is in Prague at the moment, and wanted to take his girlfriend to see Janacek’s THE CUNNING LITTLE VIXEN. He asked me how much he should spend…the good Orchestra seats were SO EXPENSIVE…about $35 each.
I said yeah, buy Orchestra.
Live theater in New York will be dead in a generation if we continue to freeze out the non-rich.
Which AFAICT is also about the price in Prague of a nice three-course restaurant dinner for two. With wine.
:dubious: I mean, I think you have to factor in basic COL differences rather than comparing ticket prices straight up. IME, in Manhattan a nice three-course restaurant dinner for two with wine will also cost you more like $130 than $35.
