Further to my post last week about the Lyric Opera of Chicago’s woefully misguided subscribers-only run of A Streetcar Named Desire, some numbers:
An anonymous opera company on a similar footing to LOC had a recent season where single ticket buyers made up for a percentage of ticketholders that ranged between roughly 30% and 70%. Their total capacity of ticket buyers, single tickets or subscriptions, ranged from about 50% to 80%. Most opera companies operating with the amount of repertory offered by a company such as LOC account for certain productions being more equal than others, and hope to bundle up less-popular works with subscription packages to guarantee attendance (or at least sales). For this reason, the least popular opera of the season we’re looking at is unsurprisingly also the lowest single-ticket show—though just under 1/3 of the house was still filled by single tickets, which is not a pitiful sum. There’s a handful of productions in this Harder Sell category, with single ticket buyers making up a similar percentage of the total sales.
When we get into the more popular fare, whether it’s a rep standard or an opera featuring a known quantity, the numbers, also unsurprisingly, go up for both single ticket buyers and total capacity. The most popular operas on the single ticket spectrum are the works most often done by the company, works that subscribers have probably seen enough times that—in a yin to the dicier rep’s yang—the company would rely more on single ticket buyers to keep the house full as they’re less likely to have seen the work as a subscriber.
Where Streetcar falls is somewhere in the middle. Taking a comparable opera with a comparable star from this season, single ticket buyers made up more than half of the sales, which were also quite high at almost three-quarters of the house capacity. What LOC is doing in this situation is, theoretically, eliminating over half of the potential ticket buyers for this performance and hope that that same percent will go and subscribe.With a lineu of repertory standards that is pretty safe, LOC is relying on its casting, which is per usual commendable (Netrebko, Hampson, Polenzani, Furlanetto). Not for nothing is this the Second City. But this is still a big gamble. Subscribers may have, in the past, offered more stability—steady gigs of operagoers who keep on returning. Obviously, they can’t be discounted either. But why, then, when a single ticket buyer can make up almost the entire capacity of a house, is it worth the gamble to discount either faction entirely?
Is it possible that the strategy is not based on overconfidence in the draw of Streetcar but the opposite? i.e. are they concerned that unless people are forced to buy Streetcar to lock in discounts for more popular shows it won’t sell? I just find it hard to believe that any modern, non standard rep piece, even with Renee is a match in box office terms for a starrily cast Traviata. Sadly! I’d make this point redoubled in spades for Chicago which is surely the world’s most conservative opera house.
I’ve done some analysis on COC numbers and it’s clear that management believes the only place they can get higher individual sales is from absolutely bog standard rep in traditional productions. Subscription sales stay more or less constant whatever and certainly underwrite shows where it might be hard to sell to the less knowledgeable non-subscribing public. The figures are a bit startling. A ‘typical’ COC show has eight performances and roughly 2/3 of the seats will be sold to subscribers leaving 5-6000 to sell to individuals. A “bums on seats ” production might get 14 performances. Since the number of subscription sales will be much the same that leaves around 17-18000 seats to shift. It’s vanishing rare that anything beyond Magic Flute or Tosca et al really stresses that 8 performance number. The only show in recent times that has was the lepage production of Stravinsky’s Nightingale. There’s no real expectation that a starry cast helps either. Next season’s Tristan gets only seven performances despite Ben Heppner.
If that’s the case, then all the more reason they should open it up to single ticket buyers, many of whom are likely to come from out of town to see Renée in a, comparatively speaking, rare opera.
I agree. The whole approach seems misguided however you cut it. My guess is that they will end up unloading a lot of single tickets at the last minute at relatively large discounts.
Yes, t’s my understanding that initially tickets for the Netrebko and Fleming performances will be limited only to subscribers. But later in the season, after all the subs have been sold, the remaining tickets will be available for single ticket buyers. They’ve done this several times in years past, so they must think it works. The LOC business model is one of the soundest in the business, so I trust they know what they’re doing.