If you've been inside a Broadway box office recently, you may have noticed fancy digital screens displaying the performance schedule and pricing information for the show playing at that particular theater. These screens aren't just for clarity or to make the lobby look cool. The screens are the front end of a sophisticated new business process that's become increasingly common on Broadway in the past few years: dynamic pricing.

 

You're probably familiar with dynamic pricing from any airline travel you may have done recently. As you may know, the price for any given seat on an airplane can vary widely depending on when you're buying it, where you're buying it from, and through what method. In fact, the person seated next to you in coach may have paid less than half of what you paid, or more than twice as much. 

Well, this flexible-pricing model is becoming increasingly common for Broadway theaters. Instead of one set price for each section of the theater, the cost of each seat can vary over time, based on demand, the time of year, or even the specific location within each section (for instance, charging a premium for seats located on the aisle). Weekends and holidays are usually more expensive, but theaters might charge higher prices for other peak periods, too, such as after the Tony Awards, or lower prices for traditionally slow times on Broadway, such as midwinter or shortly after Labor Day. Add in all the avenues for discount tickets (TKTS, online discount sites, group sales, etc.), and you're looking at a relatively high likelihood that the person enjoying the show next to you paid a very different price for the privilege.

(See my recent posts on finding Broadway discounts online and insider tips for using TKTS.) 

Technological advancements have made dynamic pricing possible, including sophisticated computer modeling programs that can crunch any data from a particular show's historical financial performance. Clearly, long-running shows like The Lion King or Wicked have the advantage here, because they simply have more data to crunch than more recent hits, like Beautiful: The Carole King Musical or A Gentleman's Guide to Love and Murder. 

Disney Theatricals is the undisputed king of dynamic pricing. As a huge diversified company, Disney has data-crunching abilities that most Broadway producers can only dream about. Disney boasts a proprietary data-modeling system that allows them to analyze historical sales, project future demand, and adjust ticket prices accordingly. As a result, The Lion King frequently beats Wicked on weekly revenue, despite the fact that The Lion King has been running five years longer than Wicked (ticket revenue typically decreases over time for long-running shows), and has a significantly lower top ticket price ($195.50 for The Lion King, $300 for Wicked). 

From a theatergoer's perspective, this is both good news and bad. On the one hand, producers are becoming a lot more savvy about when they can hike up ticket prices and still sell tickets. On the other hand, flexible pricing also means prices may come down when demand is low. So, if you're flexible about when you can see a certain show, it pays to poke around and find a time when the price works with your budget.