Ticket to Ride

Pew's Campaign for Culture grants $2 million for half-price ticketing initiative and more.

by Jenna Portnoy

1812 Productions calls itself the smallest of the city's big theater companies. This summer six employees will manage the nine-year-old company's $500,000 budget.

But when it comes to getting the word out about a new show or selling discounted tickets to specific performances, the company can't compete with the marketing muscle of its larger counterparts. So the company relies on the Philadelphia FunSaver program and other initiatives of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

The FunSaver program offers patrons half-price tickets and helps theater companies unload tickets at the last minute. A $2 million grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts means the program is quicker and easier to use.

"A large portion of our budget is spent on marketing, but it's never enough to reach all the people we want to reach," says Dave Jadico, external relations director at 1812. "This gives us access to the people who we know are interested in theater."

1812 usually sells out all its hip, comedic shows, but at the start of a run, before the glowing reviews and word-of-mouth publicity, the discounted ticket offers help it sell seats that might otherwise go empty. Last year, Jadico says, the company brought in $2,000 to $3,000 in half-price sales.

The alliance maintains a list of more than 47,000 subscribers who receive e-mail notification of up to 20 half-price ticket offers a week. The three-year grant, which will run through 2007, extends and expands the Campaign for Culture's marketing initiatives. An additional $1 million needed for the campaign will come from program sales, cooperative advertising and money from an unrelated grant, says John McInerney, director of marketing and communications at the alliance.

Before the grant, subscribers who received e-mail offers had to contact the individual company putting on the production to buy tickets. The new online option cuts out the middle man so that, using Buy It Now software, subscribers can click on an offer, buy tickets and pick seats instantly. The alliance hired Zero Defect Design, of Paoli, Pa., to redesign its Web site and Tix.com to run the online box office. About 38 percent of the total $3 million budget will pay for FunSaver and FunGuide upgrades, plus a study analyzing ticketing practices.

The alliance adds a $2.50 surcharge onto every ticket and member institutions might tack on a fee as well, says McInerney. The fees pack less of a punch on half-price tickets, he says. For example, last week's e-mail touted $6 tickets to see avant-garde trumpeter Eddie Gale at the Slought Foundation. Additional fees wouldn't even bring the total up to the cost of one full-priced ticket.

It's up to each institution when and if it wants to offer a block of seats for an upcoming show. The program caters to companies of all sizes. For example, the Opera Company of Philadelphia has sold 1,200 tickets through 10 offers and made $41,000, McInerney said. The Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts has made 53 offers and sold 7,900 tickets to bring in $205,000, he says. The half-price ticket program has generated more than $1 million for participating groups since its inception in January 2003.

While the companies are certainly glad to get the extra cash, the program helps them achieve another goal — filling seats.

The Society Hill Playhouse has used FunSaver to pack the house, says general manager Philip Roger Roy. Although they have sold out almost every seat in the first 40 weeks of Menopause the Musical, there have been three occasions, including Memorial Day weekend, when not every ticket was sold, Roy said.

"It's hard sometimes to even give tickets away if you don't have the right show," Roy says, but for eking out a last-minute sell out, it's perfect.

The Pew money is the second renewal of a three-year grant. The first grant, for $1.6 million, launched the discounted ticket program in 2003. In addition to revamping the FunSaver program, this year's money will also fund the second annual Center City Arts and Culture Week from Oct. 20 to 30, which kicks off with a free day of theater and also includes a print advertising campaign, continuation of a marketing mailing list and guest speakers. The alliance represents about 300 nonprofit arts and cultural institutions in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Marian Godfrey, director of civic-life initiatives at Pew, says the alliance's mission fits Pew's interest in supporting artists and institutions and helping them reach their audiences. She calls marketing "an important piece for the ecosystem of the arts."

Peggy Amsterdam, president of the Cultural Alliance, echoes Godfrey's goal of widening the scope of the arts in the city. "I'd like to see people attending two to three times more than they're attending now," she says. "And I'd like to see people try new things. Take a risk, see something new."

To sign up for the FunSavers half-price tickets e-mail, visit www.phillyfunguide.com.