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Pricing isn’t just a box office task. It's one of the most strategic levers arts organizations have. Yet too often, pricing is treated as an emotional, reactive decision; or worse, an afterthought.
In this episode, we unpack why the sector has fallen behind inflation, why the fear of raising prices lingers, and how strategic pricing can reshape both revenue resilience and accessibility. From pandemic-era hesitancy to the misconception that lowering price drives demand, we explore why pricing belongs at the leadership table and what it looks like when data (not gut instinct) drives decisions.
This is a call for leaders to move beyond set-it-and-forget-it pricing and instead adopt a discipline of monitoring, testing, and adapting. When pricing is managed strategically, organizations don’t just cover costs; they build relationships and grow loyalty and sustainable income.
Key takeaways you can act on:
- Pricing is leadership work: The most important financial lever shouldn’t be left to siloed decision-making.
- Fear is costing you revenue: Incremental price adjustments prevent the “catch-up sting” of years of inaction.
- Demand drives price (not the other way around): Price changes don’t create demand; they should respond to it. When seats aren’t selling, the challenge is awareness and value perception, not the cost of the ticket.
- Accessibility and revenue can coexist: Strategic scaling allows organizations to expand affordable access while strengthening income.
- Dynamic pricing is about nuance: It means responding to demand in both directions: raising or lowering when data shows it matters.
- Stop measuring success by sellouts: Optimize per-ticket revenue and define success by patron behavior, not full houses.
For more insights, past episodes, and to sign up for our newsletter, visit trgarts.com/leadingtheway
Contact Info:
Email letstalk@trgarts.com
Contact Info:
Email letstalk@trgarts.com
Creators and Guests
What is Leading the Way with Jill S. Robinson?
Leading the Way with Jill S. Robinson is a journey into the international arts and culture industry. Join Jill, a driving force in the sector who has counseled arts leaders for more than three decades, for conversations with some of the most insightful and daring minds leading the way to a resilient 21st century.
The 21st century has kept us in a cycle
of crisis and recovery without stability.
One crisis is inflation, and our revenue
growth is not keeping
pace with expense growth.
So what does this mean for pricing?
Welcome to Leading the Way.
OK, folks, so price and inflation.
What's happened?
How have we not kept pace
as a sector with inflation?
Why is the delta now so big?
What's happened?
Think about all the things that we were
adapting to during that
pandemic period and the fear,
once people were stopped going or their
participation declined so
largely, that the fear of price
increase is keeping them
at bay or keeping them back.
I'm confident that's a big part of it.
I think you're right.
Well, and discomfort around how we
changed our products
during that time, the experience
changed for audience members.
We were socially distanced.
We were digital.
We were outside.
Being able to equate a pricing strategy
to the experiences that
we had been selling for
years and years and years into this new
space was really difficult.
And then we're switching back and we're
trying to adjust for fear
about people having hesitancy
in returning to live performance on top
of this cost of living
and inflationary setting.
I wonder when I think about examples when
we talk about price,
where that sits strategically
in an organization, how that is monitored
and measured and is
part of a strategy, who
are those decisions left with?
And should it be an
organization-wide strategy?
What does strategic pricing, what should
it actually look like?
Because I think if it was part of our
regular strategic review,
would that not get to our
attention sooner or would we make
decisions differently?
I don't know if I've told
either of you this story.
Years ago, I was doing a getting to know
you session that we
call a preview day with a
major symphony orchestra.
And the board chair, board member was at
this day and he was the
former CEO of Alcon, the
contact lens company.
Right.
He was the CEO and he said, "I would not
let pricing decisions
be made at Alcon without
them being reviewed on my desk because
the impact of pricing
had such a big impact on
our bottom line."
So it just occurred to me when you asked
that question that way.
And what we see is that those pricing
decisions are made by
everyone from a box office person
to a marketing manager in
his, their own, her space.
Programming people, right?
For sure.
Programming folks, for sure.
Artistic interview.
Well, sometimes it's dictated to.
Sometimes it's dictated.
Exactly.
Yeah, exactly.
Is it ever made strategically?
What I notice is maybe it's the most...
It might be the most
emotional decision organizations make.
Yes, yeah.
Outside of picking product, picking shows
that's going to go on their stage.
It's interesting that the thing that is
actually the most important
to understand data, internal
data, external data
around is the thing is price.
And it's often the things organizations
approach with the most
gut instinct, with the most
emotion as opposed to data.
Is pricing elevated to the
CEO or senior leadership?
This is a strategically important enough
decision for our
enterprise that we are going
to vet how these decisions are made.
I don't know that I've walked into an
organization where, let's just call it
the senior leadership
team, has said, "This is so important.
We need to understand the..."
If it did, then would we be in the place
that we're at now that
we are behind inflation?
Yeah.
Maybe not.
And that's a fair question.
I think oftentimes, to the extent there's
oversight from a
leadership team, it's more
about governance,
oversight, approval, sign off, right?
Less about, "Show me what the prices
you've chosen may be
explained to me why."
And just to make sure that I'm across
that as the leader so
that I can approve it and
say that I've seen it
in front of the board.
But not, "What is the pricing strategy?
What is this pricing strategy?"
Not justify the decisions you've made to
price certain product at certain numbers.
What is the strategy
that we are deploying here?
Can you articulate that?
So, what are we talking about when we
talk about strategy?
Like let's name it.
I think often the biggest topic that
comes up is accessible pricing.
How is our pricing strategy accessible?
And I wonder how the desire to...
The right desire to be accessible has
caught us up in some of
these decisions about how...
Well, it certainly has.
I mean, the pandemic created a fear that
people wouldn't get off their couches.
We also, because of social reckoning,
wanted to be accessible.
And there's also...
I heard with such frequency, there is no
way my customers will
pay that inflationary cost.
Yes, we are burdened with it.
There is no way they will pay that price.
So there's
accessibility in the mix, right?
There's cost coverage in the mix.
There's market
competitive factors in the mix.
What else is in the mix?
Deal structures.
Deal structures.
Past history.
It isn't just the pandemic.
It isn't just a cost of living crisis,
both in the United
States and Canada and the UK
and Europe.
We were not great about raising prices or
adapting prices to meet
the types of conditions
you describe.
It's inflation, whether it's market
competition, whether it's accessibility,
really understanding
what is accessible.
We weren't great as a sector before the
pandemic in a lot of ways.
And so, yes, it's made it harder and the
extraordinary
circumstances we find ourselves in.
Organizations are catching up.
We have seen pretty significant increases
in average ticket price, not at the rates
that have fully caught us up.
We're closing the gap.
And as inflation levels off in the world
for now, or at least
the rate of growth of
inflation levels off, organizations are
getting plain catch up, right?
But the thing we always talk about in
terms of playing catch up
with clients is if you're
doing it in small steps at a time, it
doesn't hurt as much.
If you wait out of fear,
"Oh, I can't raise my prices.
My market will not pay this price.
I know we cannot go above this price."
The longer we wait, the more it's going
to sting when we
finally have to swallow the
pill and elevate prices to just meet
where our business expenses are going.
You did a study when I was with you in
the UK, but it was
across the pond, both sides,
that TRG clients had grown prices more
than the broader field.
And my memory is that you
said that did not affect volume.
Right.
So...
And that's often the fear, right?
Yeah, right.
That's the fear.
And so this gets to a whole other really
interesting psychological
dynamic, an emotional dynamic
that we have had in the sector for a long
time, which puts
price in demand in direct
connection to each other in a way that
puts price as the driver
for demand, not the other
way around.
So the fear is often whatever I do to
price, that will then
have an impact on demand.
Uh-oh, prices are going up,
so demand's going to drop.
That's the fear of the units.
Uh-oh, demand is low on a show, so I
better lower prices in
order to stimulate demand,
right?
Unfortunately, in general, that's not how
it works, and that's not where we've seen
organizations be successful.
This is such an important point for
people to hear, though.
How do we know it doesn't work?
I mean, there will be people listening to
this that will say,
"This is all very well,
but I have a show right now that's not
selling, and there's
pressure to reduce prices from
all sorts of angles."
What would you say to those folks that
would maybe reframe how
we think about price in
those lower demand situations?
So I would say, look, price
sensitivity does exist, right?
It is possible for
prices to get too high.
There are price points that the market
just won't bear or enough
of the market won't bear,
so I don't want to make it
sound like it's impossible.
But we've got to look for it with a lot
more nuance and a lot
more specificity than just
going, "Oh, that show's not selling, so
therefore it must be price."
There are things we can look for.
We can look for the absorption of price
points that are at the
lower end of your scale.
What does absorption mean?
How many seats are sold, right?
Are those seats selling?
Are those seats at your
lowest prices still available?
If you're in a show that is low demand
and you can look at
your hall and you can look
at your seats and go,
"Oh, that's interesting.
I have low price seats on sale and
they're not selling."
So how is it price?
Why would we need to lower it further?
Where the issue may
be there is in demand.
It may be in awareness, right?
It just may be in other factors.
Now, sure, all of your lowest price seats
are gone, let's say.
Let's say you're only left with your top
price, and you've
noticed units in sales start to
level off as you've contracted down to
just having one price point available.
Okay, interesting.
Maybe price is playing a role here in
terms of driving volume,
but then you've got questions
to ask to say what adjustments to price
would be what to make.
Did my spending stop?
Is there a correlation there?
Absolutely.
If the spending is still going and
velocity or the speed with
which sales are happening
flattens, then you might say, "Huh,
dynamic pricing can also
mean I'm going to take a
buck or five off of that price."
That's right.
That's right.
Allowing dynamic pricing to just lean
into the word dynamic and
just note that it changes
and just to be able to say, "Okay, let me
bring the price down
and see if that stimulates
demand.
If I create more inventory at some lower
prices, does that help stimulate demand?
Are there messages, marketing messages in
particular that I can
do to build awareness
that I still have $10 seats available?"
If you've got $10 seats going unsold,
you're going to have a
hard time convincing me that
price is a reason that show isn't
selling, but are we
communicating proactively enough
about the more affordably priced seats
that we actually have?
Those are the questions.
Listen to all that, right?
I think sometimes marketing leaders or
leaders in any post feel
like pricing is a set it,
forget it, or a set it, and then I'm
stuck, or a set it, and then I'm worried.
I don't know, but this is something that
has to be monitored all
the time and variables
that have to really be
studied and looked after.
Well, let's talk about the
other end of the spectrum then.
That's when a show isn't selling.
What about are we focusing a lot on
volume in those lower
demand situations where actually
should we be, question, focusing more on
the opportunity to
maximize revenue, ticket revenues,
and perhaps even in a situation we're
obsessed with whether
we're going to sell out or not,
but actually should we always be focusing
on maximizing per ticket revenue?
How would that fit in your strategy if
you were setting a
pricing strategy in your own
arts organization?
One of the challenges we have
in the sector,
period, this was true before
the pandemic, is this desire to measure
our success by
percentage of capacity sold.
How close am I to a sellout?
Am I pretty enough?
Do you like me?
And that is a false narrative.
We have to establish demand levels for
different programs and
people, the people who will be
attending them, because for some events,
our active patrons,
subscribers, donors, multi-buyers
our core audience will be the, or it
could be a different
audience, but small in our
market and we need to be okay with that.
And that is demand of a different sort.
I remember, and then I'm going to hand
the baton to the person
who does it every day.
I remember working with a major dance
company in Canada and they knew that.
And that 2,200 seat venue was scaled for
about 800 seats and
dynamic pricing up was done
as demand filled into that 800 seat
footprint because we knew
what demand would feel like
on that orchestra floor and we knew what
the definition of success was.
That I think is part of this answer.
I think so.
I think you can optimize average ticket
price and per capita
revenue in all levels of demand.
In a low level scenario that we were
describing just before, and
I've seen this many times,
we have more difficult to sell product.
We have lower price seats not selling,
but the seats that are
selling in this lower demand
product are often the highest price
seats, the most in demand seats.
We run out of the highest price seats in
some cases in these lower demand settings
and all we have left
are the low price seats.
In which case, managing inventory
strategically like the dance
company in Canada can allow
us to create more inventory at price
points of the people who
are interested in the show
are willing to pay.
So we can still optimize revenue in low
demand as long as we are
okay with defining success
for this particular type of product in a
slightly different way
than maybe we do in others.
But yeah, when we're in high demand, we
oftentimes take for granted
that that's that high demand
show that, "Oh good, I don't have to
worry about that show.
I don't have to think
about optimizing price."
It becomes the set it and forget it where
actually we leave
money on the table by not
looking for an optimizing price on the
remaining inventory that we've got.
Maybe that's about going up and maybe
that's about going down,
but it is about finding
an equilibrium that allows you to get the
most money per seat
that keeps volume going.
That does require data, trial and error,
and some willingness to experiment as you
go.
Exactly.
What about the idea that in all demand
situations there needs to be
a price for everyone, right?
If we really want to balance
accessibility along with
maximizing ticket revenue, how
really can we do that?
Because it feels like that's a question
that is never answered.
I need to be accessible.
And actually, when you look at this is
where the data often
doesn't tell the story that
we want it to.
Because new audiences typically have a
higher average ticket
price than any other segment.
And that's not just about the seats that
are available on the
plan or when they book.
It's about the choice that they're making
when they book and the decision about the
value that they put on that experience.
And also the perception that anyone
that's coming that's never
been to the theater before
or the venue or event, whatever it may
be, will only enter
on a low ticket price.
Or that particular segment of the market
would only sustain this particular price.
How can we really grapple this so that
the rightful obsession
around accessibility is
there and yet it doesn't hinkers up in
our strategy at maximizing revenue too?
This is one of the things I'm most
passionate about in our
work because I spent 15 years
working in arts organizations before
coming to work at TRG.
And of course, I completely understand
the passion with which
our colleagues have about
making sure that as many people as
possible, regardless of
their economic circumstances,
have access to the amazing things that
we're putting on our
stages and our galleries and
our walls.
And yet, one of the things that we get a
bit of a reputation for
is like, "Oh, it's TRG.
That's the dynamic pricing people.
That's TRG.
They're the price increase people.
They're just going to put up all the
prices and only focus on the top price.
And that's all TRG really cares about."
And one of the things that I have loved
most about the work that
we do with organizations
has been those moments where in every
case I can think of, we
have created low price
opportunities more than we have created
high price opportunities.
Oftentimes there's
math behind this, right?
Of course, that allows us to say, "Look,
if you can push the
top end of your scale up
with the right number of seats, not for
everybody in your market,
but for enough people in your
market, what that actually does by
putting a wedge between
your top end and the low end
of your price table, you can actually
create more
affordability at the bottom to create
price points that you didn't have before,
to introduce
inventory that is in desirable
parts of the theater at
prices you didn't have before.
Or if you did have those prices before,
they were very limited to
thin slices of our community,
right?
Only youth, only people under 30, only
people over 65, only
people who meet these criteria
are allowed access to these price points.
Where we take an approach that actually
says, "We want to create
affordability for everyone."
All the time.
All the time.
And market it.
Every show, market it, message it, make
it clear, build awareness about it.
But the reality about where those seats
are, and I think this is
again one of the things
that's often a challenge for
us, we scale houses differently.
And there's a reason for that.
We're going to talk about demand and
another conversation.
But often where those seats are placed,
they don't sell because
they're at a lower price.
And often you look back at the data and
say, "Look, actually
before, before, maybe in a
performance you were selling 15, 20 seats
at this price, and those
people were sat typically
at the very back of the house, fine."
Or at the rear of the balcony.
Yeah.
But fine wherever they were, but there
wasn't a volume of those selling.
And so moving them strategically into a
place that is visible,
but hard to sell, because
there are spots in every house, more
volume of seats are
being sold at those prices.
And so arguably that is having the effect
that now that price point
is being used strategically
and being utilized.
They were hard to sell
because they were expensive.
And when the prices changed, and they're
typically up close, and the
price value equation really
changes when that kind of shift is made.
So I'm emphasizing your point.
But it's not like they were
hard to sell when they were $99.
And they weren't selling
them all in the back before.
You had all of this
inventory, it wasn't being utilized.
Now we can help you find the right number
of seats you need at a
price point like that.
We can put it in the
right part of the theater.
And the conversations I have with my
clients all the time is
if that entry level price,
if those seats aren't
selling, we're not doing our job.
They have to sell.
They have to sell every time 100%.
Or you can't tell me that there's price
accessibility problems or
there's price sensitivity.
If we aren't selling every one of those
seats all the time,
they're not doing their job.
So how do we fix that?
Does that mean we've got too many of them
now and we need to adjust it?
Is the price too high on those?
And let's bring them down if we actually
need to make sure that
those seats, that we find
the affordability level that allows for
those seats to be full all the time.
Because otherwise they're not doing the
job that we're tasking them with.
We've talked a lot about job descriptions
and job descriptions
for programming, yes.
But there's job descriptions for our
inventory as well, right?
And so thinking about the job description
of that most price
accessible inventory, if
it's not full, it's failing.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
So how high is too high?
How do we decide?
You know what Rick Lester would say?
The seat, the prices, what
you can get for the seat.
You put that chair up and say, "The right
price is the one you can get."
So I don't know that we have an answer
except that demand informs that answer.
I don't think there is too high.
I don't think it's true.
I think that there's even a case where
there, and this would
be, this is difficult.
I've had these
conversations with clients.
And this is uncomfortable and difficult.
But in the big strategic scheme,
sometimes in some
settings, it is better to let those
last 10 seats go unsold at a particular
high price that you're in
very high demand, calling
that show a sellout and letting it be.
Oh, yeah, entirely.
And then just discounting those at the
last minute to make
sure that they're full.
So I would push back and say, "Sure, if
we're earlier in the
sales cycle, if we've got more
than 10, we have to find the price that's
going to allow us to move the seats, but
too high?"
And if it goes too high, we can see it in
the data and scale it back.
But if velocity continues, at this point,
though, it's really
back in the early days,
that's exactly what we'd do.
We'd let there be unsold
seats and say, "It's sold out.
It's done."
So if velocity is continuing, and my
price is $250, and I
bump it to $255 and velocity
continues, then for the organization and
for its mission and
intention and the other
things that can't yield that price, it is
our obligation to maximize that revenue.
This is where I have the most heated
discussions sometimes with
clients and with the sector.
And it's really hard because we will want
to apply moral and
ethical arguments to pricing
decisions, which I understand and we try
to incorporate, as we
were talking before, across
the entire price table and across the
entire hall and all of the inventory.
But when we talk about the moral and
ethical obligations we
have to drive the most revenue
to support our mission, to achieve our
aims in the community.
If we actually are so lucky to have a
show that has that level of
demand, that is commanding
that level of price, there is a moral and
ethical obligation
for the organization to
generate as much revenue as possible to
feed and fuel its
mission going forward on the
back of that.
And this is a hard conversation.
And this is a hard question.
And it should not be.
It should not be.
Because there are plenty of avenues and
channels for people to
access inventory and events.
And when we have gala's and special
events, we don't think twice about it.
That's demand of a different kind, but we
don't think twice about it.
I'm really curious about this gut
clenched, we are a
nonprofit and so we can't.
But we do.
I think it's the thing also that we all
are able to have an opinion on.
Because it's something, it's like
everybody's a marketer, right?
Because we are all impacted by price
every day in our lives.
And we all have different levels of
elasticity in what we're
willing to pay for things.
And different values
and all of the things.
And there are different strategic
approaches to prices that other
consulting companies
take to price too.
And that's okay, we
all want the same thing.
There's just a
different approach to doing it.
And I think maybe that sometimes the
tension there is there
are lots of opinions.
And so I wonder what you'd recommend.
Is this about picking a strategy for your
organization and sticking with it?
How maybe can some of
that tension be taken out?
I don't know if it's about picking a
strategy and sticking with it.
I think it's about, it's a
culture question I think.
Having a conversation that says, where do
we stand on this issue of pricing?
I almost said board level.
Boards members will predictably almost
always push back on higher prices.
Because they are humans and they often
put their consumer hat on first.
So I'm always advising clients to be very
careful to make
decisions at the administrative
level around pricing.
But within that administration, let's
talk about the culture
that we've got around price.
And let's set a culture
about what our comfort is.
If you decide that you want to grow
consumer individual based
income, then you've got to
think really hard about your
responsibility to leverage
the events that have demand in
your marketplace.
That's the most robust
conversation you can have.
I think it's similar.
I think it's values or philosophy, but
shared across an organization.
And the things to look out for in our
perspective would be this
projection feeling that you
described.
I couldn't pay that.
I would never pay to see that show.
I wouldn't come here.
Focus group of one.
We've got to look out for that.
We've got to look out for artificial
numbers, just numbers
set, which I've encountered a
number of times with leaders in
organizations saying, "We are
not going to charge more than
this.
We just aren't."
Unless, let's unpack that.
Let's really understand what the
implications are of that, if
that's going to be a value,
if that's going to be
something that we stand on.
And I also think we have to stop being
the martyrs and working
from a place of fear that
says, "Well, even if everything around us
suggests that there is
demand and prices will
go up, that we couldn't possibly."
Oh, but we couldn't possibly operate the
way that other businesses
need to operate to generate
revenue.
We'll delay raising prices.
We won't keep pace with inflation because
somehow we can try to
immune ourselves from
these external factors, even though cost
of plywood, cost of
people, cost of everything
else that goes into putting what we put
on stage goes up, we try
to ignore and disconnect
the connection between
the revenue and the expense.
And the truth is that if we don't get
this income this way, we have
to get it philanthropically.
So let's talk about that.
How has inflation had an impact on
philanthropic giving?
There was a change through
the pandemic and through COVID.
There are other ways, membership that
people can give through Roundup
donations, all different
ways.
Is inflation impacting?
That should we be paying the same
attention strategically to
the decisions that we make
around our giving levels or our gala's
and how they're valued
in this inflation moment?
Yes, Stephen.
Yes.
It's really complicated, isn't it?
Because I don't know, in my lifetime,
there's never been a more complicated
time for philanthropy.
Generational transfer of wealth, just to
start with something
that isn't political.
It's just people are aging and the wealth
is going to younger
generations who have a
different perspective on the ROI of their
giving and on where they
want to have an impact.
And then you have the current
time that we've been through.
The pandemic elevated the
need in social services.
We were the focus for the first year,
2020, 2021, but then things changed.
And the current political environment and
the uncertainty
always affects philanthropy
more than it does ticket buying, where
sessionary periods have
always indicated that.
So do we price our way to that?
I don't know that
it's about price, right?
But I do think it is about it's related
to a lot of the things we
were just talking about.
We bring the same fears, we bring the
same hesitation, we bring
the same projection about
asking for philanthropic contributions by
and large that we do
to pricing our tickets
and our events.
The average gift size
has not increased at all.
Before inflation, the average gift size
has not increased since pre-COVID.
And in some sectors, it has declined.
Multiply that by a factor of 25% to
further diminish the
value of those donations that
we're getting.
So not only were we afraid to ask for
more systematically,
more intentionally across
our donor base to make gradual elevations
a big part of our giving strategy.
We have to understand that a $1,000 gift
today just doesn't go as
far into the organization
as it did five years ago.
It just doesn't bring as
much support as it used to.
But you know, right now, work that I'm
doing with a client is
looking at the quantity
of givers, donors at various levels on
the annual fund membership table.
There's a point over which the one-on-one
conversations have to guide the giving.
But at the lower end of the annual fund
table, if I'm seeing the
past five years consistent
decline at the $250 to $500 level, then I
may have a giving level,
a pricing, a bracketing,
a benefits problem that in this
environment, we may need to shift the
benefits at the lower levels,
shift some things to ensure that
we keep donor
acquisition and retention happening
in the best possible way.
The best example, the fear here, the best
example I've
encountered, and this is so similar
to the conversations we
were just having about price.
Let's imagine the entry-level gift to get
into the donor lounge
at your theater, right?
One of the most impactful and beloved
donor benefits that we
have seen in the sector.
For many organizations, that price, that
entry point price for a
gift to get access to the
donor lounge has not moved
in years and years and years.
Meanwhile, more and more people, so some
organizations are
seeing more and more people
eligible, able to
make that level of gift.
So let's say that was $1,500, 8, 10
years ago, the last
time you set these prices.
We now have a lot more people because of
inflation, because of incomes
have risen and other reasons,
right?
That there are now just more people for
whom that becomes an
achievable entry point.
And so now we start to hear complaints
from organizations
saying, "The donor lounge is
too full.
We can't accommodate everybody, and we
need to move it, but now we're afraid."
Of upsetting, disrupting, we'll lose the
money, we'll lose the donation, we'll
lose the relationship
if we actually have to ask people to do a
little more to gain
access to this benefit,
which is in high demand.
And the same, I would say we talk about
annual fund, but the same principles
apply for membership
for organizations that have that.
If we don't charge it in tickets, we have
to get it in philanthropy thing.
We've seen, I can think of three cases
right now in our client
history where a decision
was made to level the
pricing playing field.
Two of them were in the
orchestra field, publicized loudly.
We'll get XYZ Bank to enable
us to make prices accessible.
So we take all of the ticket prices on a
single ticket basis and
all of the per ticket prices
for subscribers.
No matter if I was paying $75 a ticket,
XYZ Bank covers that
delta and agrees to for three
years and I'm now paying...
My prices go back.
And I'll tell you what.
When we have seen that happen, inevitably
the only consistent
count-onable result is
that I have to raise more money to cover
that gap and we can't
do it sustainably year on
year on year because it creates very big
structural revenue gaps.
And so I think we have to be really
careful in our sector
about what we assume about what
people will pay, how easy it is just to
have price affect
volume or we're going to find
ourselves in a world of hurt and right
now we cannot afford a world of hurt.
We're already in a world of hurt.
This sounds like a hot take, which is a
great segue to our game,
which is Hot Take Artist
and so I'm going to give you both some
pricing strategies and
models to get your hot take
on.
Welcome to Hot Take
Artist with Brad and Jill.
And joining us on the
sofa is Mr. Eric Nelson,
who is going to be our adjudicator.
So what I'd like from
each of you is a hot take
on these pricing models
or pricing strategies.
And it could be for or against,
and Eric will decide
who has the best hot take
on that pricing model.
The most sizzle.
The most sizzle.
Yeah, prepare your sizzle reels.
Are you ready?
Okay, the first then
is early bird pricing.
Who wants to go first?
Oh, I'll come in hot on
this for a couple of reasons.
Many organizations are
afraid of underpricing
or training audiences about low prices,
and they will, but especially early,
when in fact that's when they need
to be using early bird pricing.
Another really important
element of early bird pricing
is to think about blind renewals and
blind subscriptions.
Our organizations are often terrified
about being able to sell a season
until we know
everything about that season.
They don't think their
patrons will join them
on a journey of blind
faith into the next season,
when increasingly they will.
They will come with you,
a proportion of them will,
and that can mean early money
and improved cashflow
into the organization.
I love early.
I don't love discounting,
and I don't love
associating with price all the time.
So when I think about early,
I think about other
incentives, access, and other benefits.
I think too often we
revert to price as an incentive.
I love early, I don't love
it at being tied to price.
Eric, who wins this hot take round?
I'm gonna agree with Jill on this one,
because it expands out of just price.
Though Brad, honorable mention
about the different pathways
in which to use early and expand that.
So they're both kind of winners,
but Jill's the most sizzly on this one.
Okay, next hot take.
Pay what you want.
Oh, God, can I go first?
Yeah.
I don't mean to have a tone.
Have a tone, it's a hot take, Jerome.
But I've got a tone about this.
If we use, if we price strategically,
we will have prices
that enable people to come
with their wallet in the
right slot, so to speak.
And pay what you can suggests that we,
it puts us in a,
almost like we're asking,
begging for your participation.
And I don't think
that's the right posture
for our businesses,
for our products, period.
I think we use these in the wrong way.
I think we use pay what you can
as a way to create an
air of accessibility
without actually thinking specifically
about who are we inviting
and why is pay what you can
the right thing for a
very particular audience
who we are targeting.
We have seen it can
work, but we often see folks
and it can work in terms of yes,
people will buy those tickets
and they will show up
to those performances,
but we lean on it too heavily.
It becomes a crutch or an excuse
to create price
accessibility for everyone
without thinking about
anyone really in detail.
Okay, Eric, who wins this round?
I'm gonna give it to Brad
because of the solutions orientedness,
because people are
probably gonna keep using them.
I appreciate Jill's take on that.
But for those of you who
are just gonna keep trying,
having the targeted approach
is a really interesting thing.
One price for all, where all
seats are sold at one price
to enable marketing in
an accessible price point.
I've got a hot take and
it's based on our experience.
As a consultancy, we have had,
I can think of three organizations
who have done price for
all, one price for all,
and they have reduced
the price in some cases
only for single ticket buyers,
but in some other cases for everyone,
including the subscriber.
It requires philanthropy is my hot take.
If we're going to reduce
the price of the ticket,
then philanthropy is what will be
required to close the gap.
Is that sustainable?
My answer in experience is no.
I can't disagree with Jill on this,
but I think I'd come at it from a
slightly different angle.
My hot take on this is that
we hear a lot from clients
about pricing that is fair,
pricing that is equitable,
pricing that is accessible,
and this kind of lowest common
denominator approach
to pricing is actually not equitable.
It is the opposite of fairness and equity
because it means you are in a position
to choose and speak for everyone,
to identify one price point that you,
in the position of the organization,
say I have deemed this
price point to be the one
that is the most fair
and accessible to everyone,
rather than
acknowledging that we might need
multiple price points,
we might need a range
in order for individuals to decide
what is the
appropriate price point for them.
It puts us in an
incredibly pretentious position
with good intention, but
it's incredibly pretentious
that we are going to
decide what is the fairest,
most accessible price point,
and it puts us
financially in a real bind.
There's some hot takes there, Eric.
There's a lot of heat,
There's a lot of sizzle,
in this one.
I really appreciate both answers,
but I'm gonna give it to Brad on this
because I like the collaborative nature
with your audience
that you're talking about,
so you're not deciding for them,
but you're offering a variety of options
that deal with who they are.
Okay, so two hot takes
for Brad, one for Jill.
So Brad's in the lead so far, Jill.
We need you to up the ante of your hot--
Turn up the heat. Yeah.
Turn up the heat.
Okay, next one then,
last minute discounts.
Fire sales to try and drive volume.
Okay,
Stop this.
Stop this madness.
Be confident in your product.
Do not panic and train
people to wait for your panic
and to wait for the discounted tickets
that you are going to send.
Yes, I want, like you, as many people
attending your performance as you do.
We want it to feel as full as we can,
and yet that is putting short-term desire
ahead of long-term, desire ahead of
long-term strategy and results.
Please stop this.
We are training our
audiences to wait for fire sales,
and we are not building
long-term relationships
with them along the way.
It's okay to let some shows not meet
the ideal of what we would have.
If we run out of time to sell as many
seats as we would like,
we are out of time, and that's okay.
Move on to the next,
continue to build
long-term relationships,
not short-term gains.
The only addition I'd make is that
if you are going to do
it, don't broadcast it.
We talk about dynamic
pricing being up and down,
and so if we're watching volume,
and if we've reached a ceiling,
and we need to discount
at the last minute, do it.
Just don't tell the media about it.
Yeah, don't put it on Facebook for sure.
I like it.
This was more than a take.
This was like a
strategy and a multi-step plan,
so I appreciate all of it.
I want it to be an intervention.
Yes, right, indeed.
From Passion alone, I
have to give it to Brad
on the look to the camera,
but great points all around.
Yeah.
Okay, next hot take, folks.
Dynamic pricing.
Smart.
Can I just go?
Yeah, take it.
Hot it.
Dynamic pricing is our firm,
our clients were the first to do it,
and it still happens
increasingly easily today.
It's smart business,
it maximizes demand when you have it,
and it is a cherry on
top of a bigger demand
and inventory management program.
I say allow for a little nuance
when you're thinking
about dynamic pricing.
The way we describe dynamic pricing,
the way our clients
have done it for years,
is not how big multinational
conglomerate concert hosting
organizations practice dynamic pricing,
but in press and in media,
it is all given one term.
So allow for a little nuance.
Don't let the way
other folks are describing
an important business practice deter you
or infuse fear into your decision making
around something we know
works when executed well,
when executed with our customers in mind,
when executed ethically, it can be
incredibly valuable,
but don't let others
throw shade on dynamic pricing
and create fear for you
and prevent your business
from taking advantage of it.
Yeah, I like that spoonful of confidence
that you gave to both of those.
And Jill, I'm gonna give this to you
because you laid that foundation for us.
So excellent.
Well done.
Okay, final one folks,
final hot take, are you ready?
Let's talk package pricing,
bundling benefits or tickets
to incentivize loyalty.
I've got a hot take for this.
Bundling and packaging does
not have to mean discounting.
It does not.
Many do.
Many times the benefit
to being a subscriber
is to not pay as much for your tickets
compared to single ticket buyers.
Many times a member may get a discount
when they're multi buying in
the UK or in other markets.
However, that doesn't
have to be the main driver
of why we position
multi buying and packaging
in front of our audiences.
It can be about access.
It can be about being the first to book
but not necessarily at a discount.
It can be about access to
certain parts of the theater,
certain inventory that
actually we don't want to discount.
But in order to get
access to this inventory,
you must buy a certain number of events.
Packaging does not
have to mean discounting.
I have a different take on this,
which is that
bundling is about frequency.
So whether it's
discounted or not discounted,
bundling creates frequency of experience,
whether it's a philanthropic bundle
through an annual fund set of experiences
or a ticketing bundle.
And bundles are drivers of recurring
revenue for our field
and bundles are a trillion
dollar industry globally.
The subscription trade
association talks about
the power of recurring revenues
and bundles power recurring revenues.
Powerful stuff on both sides.
Jill brought data.
Yeah, so I think I'm
gonna, as the data geeks.
I knew it.
I knew it.
She brought numbers.
Is Brad Carlin the winner?
He's not the winner.
You just got yourself a tie.
We're a tie.
Yes.
A tie then.
It is a tie between Brad and Jill.
So they were some hot takes.
I wonder what your hot take is.
Thank you for joining us
and thank you Brad, Jill,
and Eric for being such
a fabulous adjudicator.
Pretty hot in here.
Hot stuff folks.
Whoo, those were some hot takes.
Okay, last question
I've got for you both.
Is our real challenge pricing?
And if it's not pricing, what is it?
Mmm, I, boy, I don't think it's pricing.
I don't, I think it's how we define
success on an event by event basis.
And some of them will be sellouts and we
enjoy that and our
debate will be how high should
that price go.
But the sticky wicket gets stickier when
it's middle demand or
low demand and then we're
looking for something to blame and price
becomes the target when in
fact we just didn't characterize
what success looks like from the get.
Yeah, I think that's right.
I'd add it's for me, we let emotion drive
our pricing strategy too often.
Is it 0% of the pie?
No, but we often defer to emotion rather
than strategy or clear
definitions of success when
making really important strategic
decisions around price.
Well thank you, I think this was a great
and important discussion to have.
Thank you for your hot
takes, appreciate you.
And thank you for
watching and being with us again.
We'll see you next
time on Leading The Way.