I love theater. Once you’re done gasping from the shock that yet another gay man loves Broadway, let me tell you why tickets are so expensive.

TheaterIn all honesty, I’m not even sure I found the definitive answer. Research for this post felt more like I was digging for hidden information that could put the globe at risk — ‘œreason for Broadway ticket prices’ was impossible to find! Alas, my determination landed me upon this two-part article that helps to explain why Zac and I each paid $70 for our mezzanine tickets to Avenue Q last week.

According to VJ at TalkinBroadway.com, Theatre Management and Production in America by Stephen Langley is the bible of theatrical production and management. Here Langley identifies typical capitalist motives for seat pricing: producers want to charge the most the market will bear. Additionally, prices are ‘œoften based more on intuition than on economic logic.’

Sounds like show business is like every business. But what influences a producer’s intuition? Thankfully VJ got the scoop from a big-time producer who agreed to speak under the condition of anonymity, or pseudonym to be exact. The discussion with ‘œMax Bialystock’ (ha!) proved to be quite revealing. Here are Max’s highlights.

On why you’d see $80 seats for a musical and $60 for a play (back in 1999):

‘œConsidering the cost and risks of mounting a project these days, prices should be double that, in some cases triple. $250 for an Orchestra seat to a hot musical isn’t that much. Scalpers get that all the time – and more.’

Why not then charge $250 for orchestra seats on regular basis?

‘œMaybe I don’t want to be the first to do it – bad public relations. It’ll get there soon enough. Somebody goes to $85 top this fall, somebody else goes to $90 top in the spring, sooner or later it’ll happen before anyone notices.’

Other than bad public relations, why not charge more?

‘œOkay, the real reason? The unions. You jump prices too high too fast and you’re going to have every union screaming bloody murder for a bigger slice of the pie. You’d end up losing money. You got to ease the prices up gradually, so you stay ahead of the contract negotiations every couple of years.’

On why inexpensive seats aren’t provided on a more regular basis:

‘œCheap seats don’t sell’¦. I can’t remember how many different schemes, how many times we’ve tried to set aside blocks of seats – some darn good seats, too – for students and all that. Well, you know what? Unless you’ve got a SRO [standing room only] show on your hands that everybody wants to see right now, you never sell them! You stand there at the back of the theatre night after night and look at rows of empty seats and you wonder where are all those people who are screaming that tickets are too expensive. You know why they don’t sell’¦?

‘œBecause if you price Orchestra or Mezzanine seats real cheap, people think there is something wrong with them. They don’t buy them. That’s why now I scale all the Orchestra and most of the Mezzanine seats at top price. If you do that, you sell them in a heartbeat.’

What about people who can’t afford Broadway shows?

‘œThat’s what the TKTS Booth [half-price tickets on day of show] is for. Or, they can use those damned discount code things the accountants want you to use instead of the old ‘˜twofers,’ so they can target them for promotions.’

What about out-of-towners who want to buy affordable tickets ahead of time for a specific show, not for whatever show has seats left at the TKTS Booth?

‘œThen they pay full price. You can’t have it both ways.’

On why weekday shows aren’t cheaper:

‘œThe number of tickets I sell doesn’t go up early in the week if I reduce the price. If I do that I sell the same number of seats and make less money. All you get is a lot of complaints about the more expensive tickets on the weekends. Nobody is grateful that you tried. Nobody says ‘˜thank you.”

Bottom line justification for ticket prices (in 1999):

‘œBecause, bottom line, I really can’t afford to produce the shows I produce for anything less than that. Regardless of what everybody thinks, shows don’t run forever. You’re damn lucky to get five or six months out of a play, and maybe a year to eighteen months out of a musical. I have to price the seats so that at 50% capacity I can meet payroll and expenses – crack the nut, as they say – and if I can get 70% capacity recoup or payback the original investment. Right now an $80 top price just about does that.’

It would be interesting to read what other Broadway producers have to say about ticket pricing, but I have a feeling ‘œMax’ represents the group astonishingly well. I’d like to know if ticket pricing has changed much since 1999. I think all you’d hear is that you just have to suck it up that Broadway isn’t cheap, and prices will only get higher.

What do you think? Do you believe you get what you pay for when it comes to theater tickets, or is Broadway one giant racket? You tell me.