The Future of the $480 Broadway Ticket

The unprecedented top ticket price of $480 for “The Producers” on Broadway was greeted with shock and dismay when it was announced in late October. The show, with a story line that revolves around greedy Broadway producers, had already raised eyebrows with an earlier top ticket price of $100--also unprecedented for an open-ended run of a Broadway show.

Yet so great is the desire to see the Tony-winning musical, which is entirely sold out through late March 2002, that the $480 ticket has found takers--although the producers of “The Producers” won’t say exactly how many. Not since “The Lion King” opened on Broadway in 1997 have tickets for been in such high demand. So Broadway Inner Circle, a new company that’s handling the premium-priced “Producers’ seats that are located primarily in the center of the orchestra area, is trying to expand to other shows.

The company devised the high-priced tariff, available for 50 tickets at every performance, as a way to keep some of the money that out-of-state scalpers were making in the hands of the producers. The price was designed to be slightly lower than the charge for comparable seats offered by scalpers, Broadway Inner Circle officials said. The producers channel percentages of their take to the royalties holders who created the show.

So far, the primary target audiences for these tickets are corporations that want to entertain clients or hotel concierges, according to Broadway Inner Circle officials.

Most of the investors in the Broadway Inner Circle are also backers of “The Producers.” And for each ticket sold, $80 is a service charge that goes to Broadway Inner Circle. That $80--the maximum allowed under a New York law that restricts the markup on tickets to 20% of the face value--is not included in the pool of revenue from which the royalties holders and some of the theatrical unions’ pension funds benefit.

Union leaders have raised questions about whether the entire $480, not just the first $400, should be included in that pool. In addition, the arrival of a $480 ticket “looked as if the producers of the ‘The Producers’ were behaving like the producers in ‘The Producers,’” said Barbara Hauptman, executive director of one of the unions, the Society of Stage Directors and Choreographers.

Joe Farrell, who runs Broadway Inner Circle but is not an investor in “The Producers,” and producer Tom Viertel, who has a stake in both “The Producers” and Broadway Inner Circle, say the $80 service charge is needed to pay for the expenses of Broadway Inner Circle, which they say is an entity separate from “The Producers.”

Grosses of “The Producers” have climbed in recent weeks--from just under $1.1 million for the week preceding the first performances of high-priced tickets (which began on Nov. 16) to more than $1.19 million for the week of Dec. 3-9. Viertel said the rise is “completely attributable” to Broadway Inner Circle.

So just what do theatergoers get for their $480?

Mostly convenience. Like those who purchase their tickets straight from the box office--and unlike scalpers’ tickets--buyers can receive full refunds (including the service fee) if one of the stars of “The Producers” will be replaced by an understudy at that performance. They could also exchange tickets for other Broadway Inner Circle seats at performances with stars Nathan Lane and Matthew Broderick, whose contracts expire on March 17, 2002. In addition, patrons can avoid a wait in line--they enter the St. James Theatre through a separate door.

Once inside, though, the amenities end. Aside from the choice seat location, the $480 pays for no special food or drink, backstage passes or private restrooms.

Still, an opportunity exists for a business that can snag hard-to-get tickets for well-heeled theatergoers who are eager to see the sold-out show. In a sampling of prices on a recent Thursday for the next day’s show, a scalper’s Web site was offering four orchestra seats for $1,012.50 each, plus one mezzanine seat for $439. On the same day, a pair of orchestra seats for $480 each was available through Broadway Inner Circle. Unsold tickets are put back into regular stock at the box office, at the regular ticket price of $100, which can then be sold to people in the cancellation line outside the theater.

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Premium Is ‘Ill-Advised,’

Says One Producer

Liz McCann, a veteran Broadway producer (“Copenhagen,” “The Play About the Baby”), said she doesn’t believe that many other producers will want to join Broadway Inner Circle. She speculated that perhaps the producers of “The Producers” are simply trying to maximize revenues before Lane and co-star Broderick leave the show.

In addition, McCann noted that discounting--not inflating--ticket prices is closer to the norm on Broadway in the wake of the drop in business after Sept. 11. The “ill-advised” Broadway Inner Circle philosophy, she said, is part of a trend that “is pushing the theater industry into the same trap the airlines got into: super-discounting tourist tickets and marking up tickets for business travelers, which means they have to carry a bigger load to break even.”

Indeed, the people behind Broadway Inner Circle realized the delicacy of the public relations that surrounded their experiment with super-expensive tickets in a troubled economy. The announcement of the program was delayed several weeks because of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. Until the end of the year, $150 out of each ticket purchase through the program will be donated to the Twin Towers Fund, benefiting attack victims.

Farrell and Viertel said Broadway Inner Circle eventually will expand to offer similar services for other shows. However, producers of “The Lion King” and “Mamma Mia!”--which are considered the next most in-demand shows--have already declined the offer, report spokesmen for those shows.

Viertel said he expects two or three other shows “that command identifiable premiums”--as reflected in scalpers’ prices--to open on Broadway by next spring. He expressed confidence that when producers of popular shows see the grosses of “The Producers” rising because of the high-priced tickets, they’ll want to join the club.

Yet if other shows decide to offer premium tickets, they won’t necessarily join Broadway Inner Circle.

Although the producers of “The Lion King” don’t offer premium tickets on Broadway, they do offer 175 tickets for each performance of their Los Angeles production for $127, $50 more than the regular top price of $77. Buyers of those tickets can get a seat front and center, parking, a souvenir booklet and entrance through a VIP door. Broadway Inner Circle is still “in previews” now, Farrell said. He expects a more intensive marketing campaign to begin early next year. . “Our seven-figure budget is based on having an infrastructure of five or six shows,” he said. If the group’s repertoire grows beyond “The Producers,” the menu of services to the ticket-holders may change--to include food and drink, for example, in theaters with more spacious facilities--and with it, the price of the tickets could also change, surpassing $480.

“This is an evolutionary process,” Viertel said.