If you were a poor, struggling college student desperate to get your hands on a cheap seat at one of Broadway’s hottest shows in 2013, you had to get up at the crack of dawn, be one of the first 10 to 15 people to show up, and then stand in line and wait five hours for the box office to open to be one of the few daily ‘ticket lottery’ winners.
But that’s so three years ago, an eternity in the ever-expanding mobile ticketing industry. Enter ticket company TodayTix, a three-year-old company that has revolutionized the ticket lottery and the way less-affluent theatergoers get to experience live theater.
The way it works is simple. Instead of standing in line, all the customer has to do is download the TodayTix app, choose a show that has a lottery and enter the lottery for free. If you share a post on any social media platform about the show you want to see you get a second entry for free. About four hours before show time the winners are randomly drawn.
Discounts are indeed deeply cut-rate. In New York City, a digital ticket lottery ticket will run from $20-$30 and in London they will fetch £15-£25. Tickets are delivered to customers either at the box office window or, for Broadway shows, through a TodayTix concierge who waits in front of the theater and hands customers their tickets.
“We launched our first lottery feature almost two years ago,” said TodayTix Co-founder and CEO Merritt Baer. “It started with the Atlantic Theater Company in New York and we quickly brought on The Public Theater (N.Y.), which was the original home of ‘Hamilton.’ Today we have daily lotteries with many, many theaters around the world.”
To date, Baer said that the ticket lottery has had 2.5 million entries. Typically a show will still only sell 10-15 tickets at the ticket lottery price. “Standing in line in front of a theater, in the cold, is history,” said Baer.
The trend toward mobile ticket lotteries has caught on, and Baer said many theaters on Broadway and around the world have versions of a digital lottery system.
Deborah Warren, director of marketing, Center Theater Group, Los Angeles, which oversees three theaters in the market including the Mark Taper Forum and Ahmanson Theatre, has been working with TodayTix for the past year and utilized the ticket lottery for Arthur Miller’s “A View From The Bridge” and the pre-Broadway tryout of the new musical “Amelie”.
“When we launched our 50th anniversary season we wanted to create something that would remind people of our anniversary,” said Warren. “TodayTix put together a program we loved where the lottery tickets were priced at $19.67, which was the year we were founded.”
Center Theatre Group reserved four prime seats in the house for each lottery. They had over 50,000 views on the TodayTix site; 6,000 people entered the lotteries and they got 2,000 shares on social media.
“The lottery worked really well for us,” said Warren. “We really enjoyed the partnership with TodayTix. They really understand theater; they understand our mission and it worked so seamlessly. The box office didn’t need to worry about anything.”
Warren said the theater has a commission arrangement with TodayTix.
TodayTix is also reshaping the way people buy theater tickets, especially the younger theater patrons.
According to TodayTix statistics, 70 percent of theatergoers using the TodayTix app are millennials. While the median age of a typical Broadway theatergoer is 45 years old, the average TodayTix customer is 29 years old. Only seven percent of TodayTix users were older than 55, with the 33-54-year-old age group making up only 23 percent of sales. Baer also said that men are 30 percent more likely than women to buy tickets the same day as the show.
“We like to think of ourselves as the Uber of tickets,” said Baer. “We’re moving unsold tickets, often to a new generation of theatergoers who are a decade younger than the average theater customer.”
“The industry overlooked the mobile ticketing experience for theater patrons for a long time and that’s where we stepped in,” explained Baer. “You download our app; it determines what city you are in; it shows options for that week and you can buy your ticket in 30 seconds or less.”
Tickets on TodayTix can be bought anywhere from the day of a performance to seven days out. “We offer the best ticket price possible,” said Baer. “If a show is not discounting, we sell the ticket at face value. If it is discounting, we sell it at the discounted price. Nineteen percent of Broadway tickets go unsold on a yearly basis. One of our initial goals was to sell that shortfall at insider prices. And we do it in a way that’s easy. Instead of sifting through dozens of discount sites, our customers can look at what shows are available and buy instantly at great prices.”
Another feature of the TodayTix app is ‘Rush Tickets’. To use this component, customers have to share a social media post of the show and, at 10 a.m. every day, a certain number of discounted tickets will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. Once a customer has posted on social media they are eligible for a rush ticket on any day after. The number of tickets available through rush ticketing varies. “It depends on the needs of the show,’ said Baer. “Most have a limited number but some have hundreds.”
Baer started TodayTix with co-founder Brian Fenty three years ago. Today the company is in 10 cities including New York City, London, Chicago and Los Angeles.
It has 2.5 million users and has sold over 1 million tickets. There is a $7.50 fee in New York City and a $5 fee everywhere else. There is also a $5 concierge delivery fee.
Baer said that 30 percent of TodayTix inventory is sold day of a show, 20 percent the day before a performance, and 50 percent on days three through seven prior.
“The world is moving toward mobile ticketing,” he said, “and we’re taking advantage of that opportunity. We’re improving mobile conversions and increase audiences.”
TodayTix has 50-60 employees, mostly in New York City, and offices in New York City and London.
Baer did not disclose the value of his company but did volunteer that it received $16 million in funding last year and is currently backed by Walden Capital, Tylt, SF Capital and New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer.
“We used the funding for acquiring talent, marketing and making geographic plays,” said Baer. “Expanding geographically is something we’re really excited about. Our ultimate goal is to connect global theater audiences.”
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REIMAGINING THE TICKET LOTTERY
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