Strategies

Come Back, Little Audience Member

How two theatres are selling tickets and attracting repeat customers

by Eliza Bent

The Challenge: The early-20th-century Futurists esteemed technology, speed and war-but they had some wacky ideas involving theatre tickets, too. One of their tactics was to create duplicates-that is, two tickets for the same seat-to antagonize audiences. Antagonize?! You gasp. Why on earth would they do that?! These days, when attracting audiences is a monumental challenge for many theatres, advocating antagonism is hardly a viable marketing ploy. So while the Futurist movement has waned, the art of ticket-selling continues to demand ingenuity. It seems some theatres will stop at nothing to reel in "young audiences." (A flexible term: What was once the under-25 crowd has become the under-30s and is creeping upward.) With animated e-mail blasts, YouTube promotional pleas and blogs, theatres hope to snatch up younger seat-takers while praying they pay for tickets. How do you do that and obey a codified subscription rubric? The simple answer is: You don't.

Two theatres, the Neo-Futurists of Chicago (no connection to its namesake predecessors) and Sledgehammer Theatre in San Diego, Calif., have developed similar innovative approaches to wooing customers-systems that don't involve duplicating tickets. Rather, these theatres attract duplicate viewers by selling them a single ticket and welcoming them back for repeat viewings of the show.

"We wanted to uphold our 20-year-old mission of producing 'headslappingly affordable' theatre," says Neo-Futurists founding director Greg Allen. Many theatres price their tickets too high and then complain about not seeing young people in their seats, he adds, noting that Neo-Futurist audiences are mostly in their early twenties. Meanwhile, Sledgehammer wanted to steer clear of the fixed-season model. "We wanted a flexible arrangement," board president Eric Bernhard explains. "Also, a lot of the work we were doing was complex, so we wanted to encourage our core audience to see shows again."

The Plan: The Neo-Futurists launched "Pay Once, Return as Often as You Like"-a policy that works just like it sounds-with its production Mr. Fluxus in late 2007, which Allen describes as "an evolving environmental exhibit/interactive installation. It made sense that people would want to see the show again. And it was in keeping with the Fluxus spirit of art being non-consumable. We have a history of interesting admission schemes-you might even say that's one of our selling points." For example, the company's long-running Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind has always charged random admission: Originally the entry fee was $1 multiplied by the roll of a single six-sided die. (Today it's $7 plus the roll in Chicago, and $10 plus the roll in New York.) "I've talked to people who don't recognize the title, or even the subtitle, but have heard of 'the show where you roll the dice to get in,'" Allen jokes. "It makes the admission fun."

Fun was also a key factor for Sledgehammer. "The theatre we were making was edgy and political-not living-room theatre," says Bernhard. "We wanted our audience members to feel like they were co-conspirators in this crime we were committing against traditional theatre." These "Repeat Offender" comeback kids-er, patrons-pay $49.98 and see any (and every) play in the season as many times as they like.

Key Players: Allen looks to Chicago neighbor Theater Oobleck, which has a pay-what-you-can policy. "Pay Once," however, was an organic notion that fit the style of the Neo-Futurists. For Sledgehammer, a change in space prompted a change in ticket sales. "It made sense for us to move toward a subscription model, but it had to be our way," Bernhard says.

What Worked: "I think the surprise was how many people were happy to pay anyway" when they came back to a show, Allen says. Plus, those who return often feel compelled to buy concessions made by the Neo-Futurists during performances (these include hair painting, finger boxes and sawed eggshells). Bernhard and his Sledgehammer colleagues are getting smarter, more informed viewers. "We started sending out information about the shows so that our audiences could prepare. We want our audiences to be equipped and understand references that might otherwise be obscure. We want them to enjoy the shows and talk about them with friends." And let's not forget: it's always more fun for audiences and performers when there's a full house.

What didn't: Even in laid-back California, people have busy schedules, which presents an ongoing challenge for Sledgehammer. "With a regular subscription you know that on, say, March 23 you'll be at the theatre for the opening performance. With our model you don't necessarily have to go. It's not as tangible, so we follow up with a lot of e-mails," Bernhard comments. The bumps in the road for the Neo-Futurists regarding "Pay Once" have been few. "Nothing significant, other than some fear from our development director," quips Allen. "There's often the fear of people taking advantage of such schemes, but if you make it fun and are down-to-earth in your performance aesthetic, the theatre is humanized and not viewed as an institution. It's very similar to nonviolence training-you put a personal face on people and they won't be victimized."

What's Next: Sledgehammer looks to reexamine its "Repeat Offender" branding. "We'd like to refresh it," says Bernhard, "especially for people who have been 'Repeat Offenders' from the start; it doesn't have the same brashness it once did." Also on the horizon is social-networking-as-marketing. Like many theatres, Sledgehammer has joined MySpace and started a blog. "We've also started hitting the clubs," Bernhard says, "giving out 'club cards' to twentysomethings to let them know what we're up to." Those in the Windy City have education on the brain. Perhaps a pay-once Neo-Futurists class is in the works?

Strategies is a column featuring initiatives relating to theatre finance, marketing, fundraising, education, audience development, governance, architecture and artistry. Send your strategies of note to at@tcg.org, with "strategies" in the subject line.