But it’s on broadway? Isn’t theater, by definition, a somewhat bourgeois form of entertainment? Maybe it didn’t used to be, but hasn’t it become that in recent years (meaning like, over the course of the 20th century, not like the past decade of whatever)?[quote=“Brainspore, post:20, topic:83395”]
Why should money always be the sole deciding factor for who “wants it more?”
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Truth!
It’s his platform, his artistic space, and his intention for how the work was meant to be viewed. I believe that as an artist he has the right to challenge the conventional understanding of theatre being an inaccessible space, especially when he’s helming the most popular musical we’ve seen for years.
I think that’s one of the perceptions many creatives are actively trying to tear down, but it’s kind of difficult when scalpers and bots make it impossible for the masses to give it a go.
Certainly the organizers of Burning Man didn’t conceive of the gathering as a bourgeois event.
Either I am not being clear or you misunderstand. My suggestion was to build in a contingent price for a ticket purchaser – say $100 if you use it personally, $1,000 if someone else does (just to throw out some numbers) – whether it’s pay $1000 and get back $900, or pay $100 and get penalized $900 is of no economic consequence.
By having a $1,000 non-use price (the price I’m responsible for if the ticket is invalidly* transferred), the ability of the scalper to make much of a margin is pretty small because if I just sell the ticket, I have to make sure I get all of that contingent liability back. So the scalpers, who have to price in to their model a certain number of tickets they’ll end up eating, are going to be very cautious about buying it (and you, who stand to make very little as the original ticket buyer, are less likely to buy a ticket unless you are sure you are going to use it).
I’m all for Hamilton’s folks deciding how to price their tickets and arranging their affairs to make it accessible. I’m just saying you need to build in some other means than good intentions to see it happen.
Even with a giant refundable deposit like this it’s really not doing anything to make tickets affordable by the masses.
Why not? I am assuming “$100” (which is all you’d pay under my model) is a fair price for the masses to go see a Broadway show. I have absolutely no idea what something like that costs. Even if the numbers are $25 and $250, I think my suggestion is workable.
It’d be much easier to put names on the tickets and check those names at the door, like plane tickets.
If you can’t resell a ticket because it has your name on it, that’ll kill the resale market.
The problem is that it’s a sufficient hassle to check ID at the door that they don’t think it’s worth doing.
I see at least three problems with that approach:
My comment wasn’t about his artistic intent, though - it’s a separate issue. His work is clearly resonating with some people and I think that’s great.
I was more talking about the medium itself. Who goes to see stage plays generally speaking and who goes to see broadway plays as a matter of course? I don’t think it SHOULD be an inaccessibly space and I think it’s great that he’s working to broaden who sees plays. But I think it has historically been an inaccessible space and expecting that to change over night, especially when his work as gotten so much attention, it’s… I’m not sure how to put it really. I think that it’s a medium that in general has a limited audience in our society.
I think that’s fair enough. Is it just about the scalpers, though? The popularity of the show itself might be driving inaccessibility, in addition to where the play is being performed. So, if broadway is proving inaccessibly, how can that be surmounted… Plus, who is going to see the play in the first place and who wants to see the play in the first place?
When you charge for anything and increase the price over time, I don’t think it’s hard to see what will happen over the long term. If might not have been planned as a bourgeois event, but it was certainly in some sense, an event for a specific group of people… how ever you want to define that. Now it tends to be an event that draws people who can afford the time to go… that’s not everyone in our society.
That’s an awful lot of money for some, though.
All you’d end up paying. You still need $1000 for the deposit. Even if the charge is pre-authorised, you’d still need access to that line of credit. Now I could probably get together a hundred bucks, given enough time. But a thousand as credit would be problematic and as a straight deposit would be impossible.
Be nice to have that sort of cash floating around though.
Maybe so. I’m a huge fan, but still can’t get a decent seat no matter what. I’m simply not well connected enough.
And that’s true for an awful lot of people who might like to see the play. And I’m sure that was true of other hit plays in their prime (Phantom of the Opera, Spam-a-lot, or… what was the one the South Park guys did? I can’t remember the name - Book of Mormon!?). I think they all became somewhat more accessibly once they went on tour, yeah? But what about people who want to see this version, with this cast. By the time they decide to take it on tour or stage it somewhere other than NYC, it won’t be quite the same (even if it’s still great). It’s some weird set of questions about access and authenticity, I think…
It’s an access problem
Then there’s the problem of gifting/selling at cost. A friend was going to see Peter Murphy but then realised they’d be out of the country so gave the ticket to me - would have been a complete waste if it was only able to be used by them.
Similarly, I see a lot of events where people have bought an extra ticket for a spouse/friend who end up not being able to attend, so they sell it on at cost. Selling at face value due to circumstance really shouldn’t get caught up in a dragnet intended for SOBs.
I agree, and that’s also not scalping.
Nine Inch Nails has been doing that, albeit only for a certain portion of the tickets. You have to sign up on their web site (doesn’t cost anything); this gets you early access to tickets, and purchases are limited (sometimes 2, sometimes 4 tickets). The tickets have your name on them, so anybody going with you to the show needs to be with you in line. There’s a separate entrance at the show, and you get early entry (no big deal if you have seats, but really cool if you’re on the floor). Not sure how well this would translate to a Broadway show, though.
This type of reporting makes me disappointed in BB. Accio journalism.
Once you’ve sat in a massive stadium with 20,000 people drunkenly screaming along to “Karma Police”, you appreciate what an amazing experience it is listening to Radiohead in the privacy of your own home…
So would say you are… oh wait, that’s exactly what you said.
Scalpers are human parasites, like letting agents. I don’t have any solid ideas for dealing with them outside of heavy handed vigilantes putting the boots to them, medium style.
Also here’s Face Bones with a guide to ticking scalping;
