Ooooo! I am excited to share this article with you!  Here’s what happened when we asked audiences to set their own ticket prices…

ARC is a theatre company that only produces new work. They were having the challenge of building audiences since people were afraid to invest their time and money into seeing something that they may not like. The fear of losing their money was a big barrier for them. Also, the set ticket prices may be a reason that deterred people with set budgets.

So, they decided to do a six-month trial with a Pay What You Decide system. The audience would be allowed to pay at the end of the show.  Here are the results:

Audience numbers are up by 58% on the same period last year and income is up by 82%, increasing our average ticket yield by 15% – all way beyond our expectations.

Even more satisfying is the 15.6% of audiences attending theatre at ARC for the first time, compared with 10.8% last year. Ten percent of ARC’s theatre audiences had never booked tickets for our shows, compared to 5.9% in the previous period. ARC is located in one of the 0.1% most deprived wards in England, so we are also pleased to have increased the number of customers from our surrounding postcode area.

They do realize that this program may not be suitable for all arts organizations…

PWYD might not be the right model for every venue, in fact, I am sure it isn’t, but it has demonstrated how important it is to take risks if you want to change things. And if we are expecting audiences to take chances, then I believe it is only fair that we take some, too.

This risk of PWYD paid off for them. I believe the main reason it did is that they sat down and figured out the biggest barriers to attendance, and then they took a risk and created a new program to deal with the barriers.

We can all do this.  As I mentioned before, figure out the particular barriers (ask your audiences), and then create and implement programs that will do something about these barriers. You can make the changes, and you will have to take some risks.

It’s worth it though to find out what works (and what doesn’t work). Right?

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,
Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza
Chief Audience Builder, ADS