Want to book best seats? Pay $1,000 up front
mainFrom Peter Dobrin in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
The Kimmel Center is instituting a mandatory $1,000 donation for access to the best seats in its Broadway series. That’s $1,000 up front, before the cost of the tickets themselves….
At a time when venues need to lure back their distanced patrons, Kimmel seems to be going about it with a cement sock.
Read on here.
I prefer my $20 seat in the bleachers and my 10×50 Bosch binoculars.
This is actually very standard procedure for many athletic events…I’m not surprised it is happening in the arts as well.
expensive night out.
Well, we’ll see if this blows up in the Kimmel’s face or works out well, but if they’re going to try it anywhere, this is where: the touring Broadway shows are by far the Kimmel’s best sellers. In fact, Opera Philadelphia and the resident dance companies now have to schedule their dates around the Broadway tours.
One important detail in the article: the share of the Kimmel Center’s income that’s earned (from ticket sales and rental fees, including to the resident companies) as opposed to contributed is 93%, which is very, very high for a not-for-profit in the U.S.
PS — Increasing contributed income would be a tricky matter for the Kimmel: it would be, in effect, competing with its own resident companies for donations. Lincoln Center can get away with that in New York, a global financial capital with lots of money sloshing around; it’s not so easy in Philadelphia.