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Is the new musical buyer different than the new play buyer?

1/14/2015

Posted by Brian Mahoney, Vice President – Ticket Sales

Is there a Broadway audience that sees new plays and new musicals, or is the new musical buyer different than the new play buyer?

While the fall season was good for many of the 11 commercial shows that opened, it was not good to all shows. It has been suggested by some that the Broadway audience was no longer supporting new musicals. For those who think the sky is falling (and those who just like information) we did a little research.

We looked at the sales on Telecharge (through Nov. 30) for the shows that opened this fall (apologies to the producers of The Last Ship, On the Town and Honeymoon in Vegas but of course we could not include your sales in the Telecharge analysis). There were 9 shows we could look at, 8 plays and one musical. What did we find?

Musical buyers see plays. Even early adopters of musicals see plays.
- 70% of the people who bought tickets to one of the 8 plays and who had purchased from us before had two or more musicals in their purchase history. 44% had two or more musicals in their purchase history in the last 24 months, 31% had two more musicals in their history in the last year.
- 41% of the people who bought tickets to one of the 8 plays and who had purchased from us before had purchased a musical as an early adopter (before opening). 19% of the sales were to people who had purchased two or more musicals as early adopters in their history in the last year.
New shows do have some new (never purchased a Broadway show from us before) customers
- New shows have new customers but not in the same percentages as for established shows. While our new customer percentage is normally in the high 30s, for the plays this fall it was 28%.
Not everyone sees more than one new show in the fall.
- 17% of the buyers through Telecharge saw more than one show; 2% saw 4 or more shows.
- Those numbers could be interpreted as impressive when you consider this analysis only looked at sales for new shows that opened this fall and only shows handled by Telecharge. Some of those theatre goers could have bought another show at the box office or TKTS. Maybe some are avid Broadway fans who might have also seen one of the shows not sold by Telecharge: On the Town, Honeymoon in Vegas or Last Ship, or a show at LCT, MTC or the Roundabout. There will be customers who saw a show in the fall and will see a show, maybe two, in the spring. It is possible that some of these new show customers also saw a show this fall that opened in a prior season. Attendees from out of town may have only had time to see one show on their visit; most of these new shows saw more than 40% of their sales from an out of town audience with some over 50%. But yes, 83% of those who bought tickets on Telecharge for a new show only bought tickets for one new show.

Perhaps the Broadway audience for new shows spread their interest across all 11 shows with some garnering a bigger piece of the pie than others. Many musical buyers saw a play – maybe more than 1; some saw shows with stars and some saw shows without. This fall Broadway had plays that sold like musicals.

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What information do potential ticket buyers want to know?

1/14/2015

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Posted by Brian Mahoney, Vice President – Ticket Sales

At Lake Wobegon, all the women are strong, all the men are good-looking, and all the children are above average.   Looking at advertising for Broadway shows, most of which use quotes, all of the shows are good if not great.   So why isn’t every show full every night?   Every show that has opened tells the potential audience they are great by using reviews.   Is that enough?   Are we telling customers what they need to decide whether to see a show?

In a survey of Telecharge customers we asked “Do you feel that advertising for shows provides enough information?”    The good news is the majority of customers said advertising for shows did provide information; however, close to 40% said it did not.    Interestingly enough, only 48% of New York City respondents said yes whereas 59% of out of town customers said so.   One could theorize the out of town customers find out about shows by visiting theatre and show websites with lots of information whereas New Yorkers see advertising that is short on information they require.   Or perhaps New Yorkers are just more demanding and harder to please?

When asked what piece of other information they wanted to see, most people said they wanted to see a description of what the show is about.    In fact almost twice as many customers said a description of what the show is about is more important than quotes from reviews.

The actual percentages (people could check more than one answer)

63% said theatre advertising provided enough information
31% said they wanted to know what the show was about
28% wanted information on prices
22% the performance schedule
17% quotes from reviews.

Need more information? We also asked “when deciding what show to see do you look for information on the story line of the show (description of what the show is about)?” 70% said yes.

We asked “How important is the story line in helping you decide whether to see a show?” More than 85% said yes.

How many only care if the show is good? 13%. So much for the Lake Wobegon effect.

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