Wednesday, October 12, 2011

New Pricing Initiatives

For the 2011-12 season, 42nd Street Moon introduces a new pricing initiative:

1) A 10% early bird discount
The good news first! We are offering an Early Bird discount for every show this season (find the code online, on the postcard, and emails we send out). The discount will generally end two weeks before the first preview. This discount will be valid for EVERY performance, including Sunday matinees! Watch for your emails and postcards for the special code you’ll need!
2) A Slight increase in single ticket costs

Single Tickets will be increasing by one or two dollars. 

Why?
Those of you who have been with 42nd Street Moon since before 2008 know how much we’ve changed our productions. We have gone from actors holding scripts, no props, limited sets, and minimal costumes, to fully produced intimate productions. We have also increased the number of professional actors in each show, and we are proud to provide these Equity Actors with raises each year!

Tickets sales cover 50% of our costs; the balance comes from patrons like you in the form of donations. And, while we have increased the number of donors in our patronage over the years (for which we are deeply grateful), production costs continue to climb. The resulting shortage requires us to raise single ticket prices.

3) No more discount outlets!

As many of you probably noticed last year, we drastically reduced the number of tickets we sold on discount websites. This season we will no longer be using discount outlets at all.

Why?
We want our patrons that follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and read our emails to receive the best offers directly through us, saving both 42nd Street Moon and our patrons additional outside vendor fees. If you haven’t joined us on Facebook or followed us on Twitter, now is the time. Don’t forget to read all your emails from us, many will offer special time-sensitive discounts!

4) Dynamic Pricing

First, dynamic pricing will not affect Subscribers at all! Subscribers are still entitled to buy extra single tickets at the regular subscription rate. So for the best locked in rate and to get the same seats show after show, season after season, call us at (415) 255-8207 [Tue-Fri 12pm-5pm] and purchase a subscription!

For single ticket buyers unfamiliar with dynamic pricing, it is the common sense principle of supply and demand. Don’t worry, unlike super-sized ticket vendors we won’t raise our prices by several hundred percent. In fact, we guarantee not to raise ticket prices more than 15% of the original ticket price. If you make a habit of purchasing your tickets early you’ll reap the rewards of dynamic pricing. While others are paying a lot more for their tickets, you can feel confident that you got the best price available. Save yourself time and money by going directly to our website from now on, and buy early!! To see the range of our single ticket prices please click here (the lowest price is the initial ticket price).

So, how does it work? If a show starts to sell out, and you wait until the last minute, you may see an increase of from $2.00 - $6.00 over last year’s prices. There will be a small increase when our website states that tickets are “limited” and another small increase when the website states tickets are “very limited.” However, the vast majority of you who purchase tickets early – especially those of you who beat the Early Bird deadlines - will see no change at all or even a slight decrease in single ticket costs over last year.


We would like to hear from you.  Please share your thoughts about these new policies in the comments section. If you have specific questions, please leave them below or call us at (415) 255-8207.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

giving an early bird discount is a good idea - but you might want to be careful about "dynamic pricing"; it is very unpopular with hotel and airline customers - and if the theater community gets the impression you are raising tickets prices on unsold tickets (as opposed to lowering them by selling unsold tickets through the discount outlets) you might have more empty seats than you would like.

Anonymous said...

How nice to be rewarded for making plans ahead of time! For my friends and me, that's our style!

(If we didn't live in San Jose, and if we weren't all of retirement age, we would come to more shows there than we do already.)

Ken Levin said...

Just to clarify, the price is raised based on demand, not how close the performance is (like hotel and airlines do). In many cases you will be able to pay the same price right up until the day of the performance, but for performances like our Sunday matinee that routinely sell out, or almost sell out, you may have to pay extra if you wait.

Many performing art companies in the bay area are introducing dynamic pricing, they are just not being as transparent about the practice as we want to be.