| re: Doesn't Merrily have $39 rush/lottery tickets? | |
| Posted by: AlanScott 07:11 pm EDT 05/18/24 | |
| In reply to: Doesn't Merrily have $39 rush/lottery tickets? - MockingbirdGirl 03:21 pm EDT 05/18/24 | |
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| As a young person going to New York theatre in the 1970s, I sometimes bought rush tickets, but at the time most Broadway shows didn't have rush tickets. It was mostly Off-Broadway shows that had rush tickets. Some theatres companies, including the Repertory Theatre of Lincoln, Circle in the Square, Circle Rep and then Lincoln Center when Papp took over, had lower-priced student subscriptions, and I took advantage of those. But I did love going to closing performances of shows that I especially liked, and those were affordable. And I liked sitting in the orchestra, or the first rows of the front mezzanine. They probably weren't affordable to all. As a kid in a middle-class family, and someone who worked in the summers from a fairly young age and was able to save money for the rest of the year, they were affordable to me. And truly they were pretty affordable. There was also the TKTS booth and twofers were still easy to find for most Broadway shows that were running down at the box office. And with even the highest-priced tickets in those days so much less expensive than the highest-priced tickets these days even when adjusted for inflation, it was so easy to buy tickets in advance, knowing when you would go and where you would sit. If someone wants to go to the closing performance of this Merrily and can't afford full-priced tickets, then the person is dependent on the lottery, and there are going to be a lot of people trying to win the lottery that day. And even on other days, if there is a lot of demand for a show, you are not all that likely to get tickets. And then it's all last-minute. Even for young people, it's probably nice to know in advance when you're going. Kids in school may not be able to check in at exactly the right time to confirm their tickets if they win them. Lots of teachers rightly don't want students looking at their phones during class. As I've rarely done lotteries, I'm not sure how often you have to quickly confirm the tickets if you do win. And, of course, rush and lottery tickets are often not great seats. I realize, of course, that beggars can't be choosers, but as a young person, this generally wasn't a problem for me as even orchestra seats were so inexpensive, relatively speaking. Especially since matinee tickets were generally notably less expensive than evening tickets. I do think it's good that the productions rather than scalpers more often get the extra money nowadays for tickets to in-demand shows, but it has made things impossible for many other theatregoers, not just young people. And before on-demand pricing for theatre started, ticket prices had already far exceeded inflation. Also, for those who don't mind sitting way upstairs, ticket prices often used to be truly inexpensive. That changed in the 1980s when the least expensive seats started to cost a much higher percentage of the price of the most expensive seats. In the 1970s and 1980s — even in the 1960s, when we were not even teenagers — my sister and I used to sometimes buy theatre tickets for our parents as presents for anniversaries and birthdays. And we would get them orchestra seats. In the 1970s, when we were a bit older, we would sometimes get them tickets for three different shows. How many young people can do that nowadays, even if they're working part-time? Probably very, very few. It is true that there are still bargain-priced tickets to be found for some theatre companies and for what still exists of Off-Off-Broadway (a small fraction of the numbers of Off-Off productions that were always playing in the 1960s at least through the 1980s), but generally speaking — and I imagine you would agree — theatre was so much more affordable. If people already complained in the 1960s and 1970s that theatre had become so much more expensive, relatively speaking, than in, say, the 1940s, that is nothing compared with the increase in prices now. Sorry to have gone on so long. |
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| Previous: | Doesn't Merrily have $39 rush/lottery tickets? - MockingbirdGirl 03:21 pm EDT 05/18/24 |
| Next: | re: Doesn't Merrily have $39 rush/lottery tickets? - Chazwaza 09:43 pm EDT 05/18/24 |
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