Other people have talked about it, but Bill Edwards isn’t a talker, he’s a doer.
The Florida entertainment mogul made a top-to-bottom assessment when he took over operations at Mahaffey Theater in St. Petersburg, Fla, back in September 2011. When all was said and done, he could not figure out why the building was adding so many surcharges to ticket purchases.
“I’m an ex-Marine, so my thought after taking [the theater] over and getting my arms around it was: stop the bleeding, protect the wounded and prevent shock,” said Edwards, CEO of Big3 Entertainment, which includes a record label and TV production arm.
“We were doing an Elvis commemorative show and tickets were $19.35, for the year Elvis was born,” he said. “But when I looked at it and cranked out a few tickets, it was $58 and change. I went, ‘how’s that?’”
So, Edwards dug around and asked why the venue was charging nearly $5 to mail tickets when a stamp costs 46 cents? Heck, he even offered to lick them himself if it would reduce the fee. “As a guy who had been down on his luck when I was young, I realize that a great night on the town to take my girlfriend out might cost $100 and if I can get us into a show for $40 for the two of us, I can take her to dinner and get a bottle of wine.”
His solution: stop adding all those charges and give his patrons true pricing. “You’d be surprised how many people change their minds after hearing the total price,” he said. “I said we would not be charging them any of those fees anymore and people said, ‘you’re out of your mind!’ I’ve been told that before and it never stopped me.”
In February, the 2,031-seat West Florida performing arts theater became the first one of its size in the region to adopt a no ticketing-fees policy and Edwards said he couldn’t be happier with the results.
The venue is looking at leaving nearly $360,000 on the table this year as a result of doing away with charges and add-on fees that averaged around $9 per ticket. In the past, patrons could expect to pay a service fee that ranged from $3-$10 per ticket, as well as an order-and-handling fee of $4 per order and another $5-charge for mailing the tickets.
Edwards decided that the theater would absorb the cost and, lo and behold, he said it’s been a successful move so far, with shows at or near sellout status since the change was announced. When you go to the Mahaffey Theater website now, one of the first things you see is a splashy graphic that announces, “NO ADDED TICKETING CHARGES EVER!” That message has resonated and, at the very least, gotten the venue a lot of local, regional and national press attention.
While the Mahaffey does allocate around 10-15 percent of their tickets to Ticketmaster, general manager Joe Santiago said they don’t really promote that through their advertising in order to focus on the fee-free tickets offered through the venue’s website, box office and phone sales.
Mahaffey switched over to Tessitura for its in-house ticketing a year ago, and Santiago said he’s been able to track the sales data since the change went into effect and the loss of the fees has been made up in volume so far.
“We’re only four months in, so I can’t put hard numbers on it, but we’re seeing a lot of activity and publicity,” he said. Edwards said unlike before, where many shows were typically at 65 percent capacity, he is now routinely selling out most shows at the Mahaffey.
“If I’m selling out the theater for every show and doing my own ticketing, and there’s not a huge cost to print, those hidden charges are just another way to make a bit more money,” he said “I’m running a theater of the arts and, bottom line, it’s a charity and my job is to make sure it survives and is full of diverse programming.” He said he’s had a number of patrons tell him that the fee deal is the best thing that ever happened to Mahaffey and they wish other venues would follow suit.
Dan DeMato, founder of ticketing consulting agency FutureTix, said ticketing fees have long been considered the cost of doing business. But at some point they also turned into another potential revenue stream for the venues. “They’ve evolved into a bigger and bigger take and there’s been a push recently toward transparency, with a number of venues and ticketing agencies trying to show ticketing charges upfront as opposed to when you reach the payment screen,” he said. “The next logical progression is what Mahaffey is doing. There’s being transparent, and then there’s, ‘why do we have them at all?’”
While every other cost of doing business (hiring ushers, stagehands, etc.) is backed into the ticket price, DeMato said what Edwards has done is not an easy step for all.
“A $5-discount is a big deal, but you get that for being a senior,” he said. “There are a lot of venues who are looking at this, but they’re also looking at raising ticket prices, so they don’t know how to take that step.” Factor in the increased research and development costs for new technology like mobile apps, mobile seat upgrades and scanners that allow you to wave your phone to gain entry, and DeMato said a lack of fees could make it prohibitively expensive to upgrade.
“If the fee goes away, I think consumers are still paying it, because venues still need to pay their ticket providers,” he said.
He thinks we will see more no-fee attempts as the venue world looks at other vertical sales successes in books, clothing and merchandise sales, where consumers are being pushed online to avoid sales fees and lower the costs of maintaining brick-and-mortar stores.
“I think ticketing will get there, but it starts with undoing the history of going to computerized ticketing systems and charging those convenience fees,” he said. “Mahaffey is taking a big step in undoing that history. Mahaffey should be applauded for giving consumers what they want: simplicity and all-inclusive pricing. It’s up to the ticketing vendor, venue and promoters to work out the logistics.”
Interviewed for this story: Dan DeMato, (516) 608-0626; Bill Edwards and Joe Santiago, (727) 892-5577