About a month ago, I posted (here) about how box offices aren’t open during and after performances:
Presumably we are all 100% behind the artistic product we put into this
world, so logic would dictate that the time patrons would be most
willing to buy additional tickets would be directly following a
performance they’ve just enjoyed. With that in mind, why aren’t box
offices open after 8pm? They close when the performance starts, so love
your experience or not, you’re not buying another ticket after the show
unless you go home to your computer. And even when box offices do stay
open – and I’ve personally never seen one – where are the incentives to
purchase more tickets or a even a subscription at that time?
It seems the folks at Carnegie Hall had a similar and simultaneous idea. At the recent Edgar Meyer/Bela Fleck/Zakir Hussein concert in Zankel Hall, I was thrilled to find the following insert in my program:
I asked, and they couldn’t tell me how many today-only subscriptions they sold at intermission and after the concert (understandable), but the table in the lobby looked busy.
I went to The Whitney (where I interned many long years ago) on Friday to see the Jenny Holzer exhibit. The Whitney is pay-what-you-want on Fridays, so I paid $10 each for myself and my friend because I had a $20 in my wallet (admission is usually $15 per person). According to my ticket, one can put that price of admission toward a membership, which I think is a great idea.
My only complaint is that the kind lad at the admissions desk didn’t tell me that; I had to notice it on the ticket. Hard-sells can be annoying, but in this case it might have been nice to mention. If you like what you see, you know you can put this ticket toward a membership, right?
Could this work for subscriptions? Again, it would involve having box offices open after performances, but if I buy a single ticket, can I put it toward a subscription in that same section? That way, one $100 ticket couldn’t cover, say, half of a subscription in less expensive seats.
I think there’s a way to inform patrons without hard-selling, like in the case of the Whitney. I hate how sometimes reminders about buying tickets can turn into an all-or-nothing situation from a marketing perspective.