Venues have adjusted their subscription formula, offering customers the option to subscribe to only some of the shows offered during the season – rather than all.
Posted at 7:00 am.
What more and more people are doing by partially subscribing to one or more places. So, depending on your budget, you can subscribe to two, three or four performances, for example, but if you cannot show up on the evening of the performance in question, it is still difficult to reschedule in many places. Many people ask themselves: What is the benefit of being a subscriber, apart from the slight discount you get when you buy multiple shows?
To compensate for the decline in subscriptions and the changing behavior of viewers, Normand Verdon suggests that the theater management adapt to this clientele: “I work in an atypical area. I never know my schedule more than a month in advance. So imagine a year from now… Am I the only one who can’t book appointments in advance? […] Why not reserve lots of seats (e.g. 10 or 20%) that we will put on sale 24 or 48 hours before the event? And not to mention the thousands of tourists who were able to get good last minute tickets. Another suggestion: why not offer unsold tickets with good discounts on the day of the shows? As always in New York. »
The reaction of two theater directors
As Catherine Vidal mentioned, the Quat’Sous started selling its unsold tickets an hour before performances, but the small theater on Avenue des Pins (finally renovated!) understands the reader’s reaction. “A subscription is a contract between a theater and a viewer who agrees to take the artistic risk with us, so we have to understand everything. We have to relax our date change policy, but at the same time we have to ask ourselves: until when can they change the date, because we have to sell them our tickets…”
Claude Poissant believes that while there are many more people buying their tickets at the last minute, there are still some who are looking for an intimate connection with a theater. “Studying public behavior is a real challenge right now,” he says. We are in a new era so we have to adapt and there is no recipe for success. You also have to be careful, he warns, a half-full room is not a failure. Of course, filling the space can be a goal, but that is not our primary task. First and foremost, we offer a space for creativity and reflection. »