Junhong Fei

AI Karosas, Kevin Kozak

RPTM 370

Feb 4th

The Current Issue with Ticketing

To begin with, I would like to discuss theatre-related production ticket price. For theatre

production, the tickets would usually vary according to the day, how long the show has been put

on, and its popularity. However, a good show could be popular for decades even centuries, like

Hamlet, Macbeth, etc. The tickets are, as to me a student, pretty unaffordable. The standard ticket

for a musical usually range from 69 dollars to 200 dollars, premium tickets could range from 300

dollars to 700 dollars. Some theatre offers student tickets but usually, it’s university production or

you have to go to their retail window to ask for information. With a student discount, you can

watch ‘legally blonde’ for just 25 dollars at Penn State Playhouse theatre. That’s nice to the

customers but it has the university’s sponsor. A very notable thing is that our Playhouse theatre is

only for the school production, which means it’s not open to student clubs. To me, this policy is

really annoying because I’m in the Chinese Theatre and Movie Society and we could only perform

in Heritage Hall or Flex Theatre, none of them is traditional theatre and do not offer a great stage

for the performer. So, if I’m the manager of Playhouse theatre, I would raise our ticket to 35 dollars

to increase the income of our show, so that I could afford to rent the theatre to student clubs under

a limited time. Except for the tickets for students, I also want to talk about the Broadway tickets. I

believe that we could say Broadway has the best theatre in the world and the best theatre production

in the world. Billions of people dream of coming to Broadway to see the show themselves and

millions of people dream of going to Broadway’s stage. However, the price of going to Broadway
is very high. I want to take the popular play ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ as an example.

Last August I want to reserve two tickets for ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ for my Christmas

break. I thought that would be pretty cheap since I’m booking the tickets four months ahead of

time. However, the price really shocked me. The play has two parts, each part is at least 199 dollars.

199 dollars for the farthest seat from the stage, and if you want to watch the whole play, it’s going

to be 400 dollars. I wonder if that’s because of the holiday that affected it, and I checked for normal

time it’s even more expensive. It’s almost impossible to book a ticket for this play within one

month. Definitely it’s the popularity made this price so high since there are so many harry potter

fans in the world and they are all coming to Broadway to see the magic on the stage. But is there

a way for low-income people or students to watch this play? If I’m the manager, I will add the

option for student tickets, but for the first two months these tickets are only available to New

York’s Universities. After two months it will open to all schools. This is because I want to control

the traffic flow, after all we don’t want that there’re no available seats left for every show day. I’ll

also build cooperative relationship with nearby hotels, to offer them special tickets for their

customers. For local New Yorkers, I would use points system that is if you are our member and

always watch shows, you could use points to offset the price for the tickets.

Sports event’s tickets are very different. I checked the latest New York Knicks game, it’s

only 49 dollars. However, the sports event’s tickets can vary hugely. When it comes to some

important game, like if Knicks made it into the playoff, the price’s going to change hugely. Also,

when it comes to some special event, like Super Bowl, NBA Championship, or like Kobe Brant’s

last game, the price is going to increase significantly. For these events, I’m very sure I won’t have

any chance to attend, I would rather choose to watch the game in a sports bar or at home with my

friends. But some sports events don’t even need admission fee, like Penn State soccer game. Jeffery
field is different with Pegula Arena, Beaver Stadium, and BJC, it’s the only field that you don’t

need to pay to get in. Yet Jeffery field is also the worst among these four. So, if I’m the manager,

I would not ask for the entrance fee, but I’ll ask for a membership fee for premium seats and

opportunity to get involved in the open training session. I would also set fundraise box to get

money from the public, for the future renovation for Jeffery field.