Richard Ings explores the issues raised in a new book exploring the strategic role that pricing can play in the arts.
When John Kemble tried to raise prices after the opening of the new Covent Garden Theatre in 1809, he provoked sixty-seven days of rioting and a public controversy that raged in the press for several months; he was eventually forced to give way to the supporters of the Old Price. 1
It would seem that pricing in the arts has always been an emotive issue and one that the popular media of the day can be relied upon to cover with some eagerness. As the behaviour of the theatregoers of 200 years ago suggests, the value of the arts is not in question those particular punters were clearly enthusiastic enough to take to the streets to defend their right to enjoy theatre. The problem lies rather in how that value is translated into price and whether that price is perceived as fair.
Audience aware
In considering all the ps of modern marketing (product, place, promotion, people and the rest), price may in fact be more crucial than most in determining the success or failure of an arts event. Certainly, the extraordinary triumph of the National Theatres Travelex seasons, where audiences get to see a first-class production at a third-class price of £10 suggests that price has a central role in drawing in capacity crowds. It seems odd, then, that until recently there has been very little research into the role of pricing in the arts. Consequently, our contemporary John (and Joanne) Kembles have very few resources available to help them to develop a pricing strategy or, more fundamentally, to appreciate that pricing can be a strategy. If a company or a venue or a festival or a paying gallery wants to emulate the Travelex effect and quite a number have wanted to can they really pull it off without going pear-shaped financially? For many subsidised organisations, there is the added pressure of having to demonstrate their willingness and ability to draw in more than the usual crowd and thus pondering how they can do that without discounting themselves into debt.
For some years now, Arts Council England (ACE) driven or supported, depending on your viewpoint, by government policies to end social exclusion has argued for diversifying and expanding audiences for the arts. The New Audiences programme sought to encourage the traditionally poor attenders of mainstream arts events to take a chance on the arts: these included groups defined variously by age, culture, economic status, geography and physical challenge. Though the jury is still out on how important price was relative to other factors (such as simple lack of interest), for many promoters developing new audiences still implies simply lowering prices. Equally, the only reason for those same promoters to develop a pricing strategy seems to be in order to maximise income by any available means.
Strategy
It was the intriguing notion of squaring this circle achieving access objectives and optimising income that provoked ACE led by the South East office into commissioning the first ever publication on pricing strategy. This volume, which I have had the privilege of editing, ranges far and wide across the topic of pricing in the arts. One of the six main contributors, a cultural historian, examines the big historical and philosophical picture in order to try to answer how we assess value in the arts and set our prices. Another, a highly experienced consultant on pricing, focuses on the range of strategic tools that are available and when and where they might be practical. Another describes recent pricing developments in the United States as a fascinating point of comparison with our own.
What unites all these writers, whether they are examining the illogicality of box office charges or the risks of devaluing a product through setting too low a price, is the conviction that the role of pricing in the arts has been under-rated and misunderstood for too long. For too long, this subject has been dominated by myth and supposition Young people will only come here if they get a big discount, Public subsidy means that we cannot charge a realistic price for our show, and so on and our hope is that this book will, through its essays and case studies, help to dispel some of those assumptions. More broadly, we hope that, in starting to clear up some of the mysteries that surround pricing from simple puzzlement over what penetration pricing means to the applicability (or not) of airline-style yield management techniques to the arts box office it will encourage managers to develop more imaginative and productive pricing strategies in the arts.
Caution
But the book has to strike a note of caution, too. If experience tells us anything, it is that pricing the arts is never easy; success at the box office is not predictable, any more than it is for the actual artistic product. Nor can audience behaviour be reduced to simple utilitarian motives how could anyone have foreseen, for example, the spike in demand for premium-priced tickets in the West End that followed the July bombings in 2005, when theatre receipts were otherwise well down?
There are no formulas to follow and no one instance of success again, the Travelex model springs to mind that can be transferred entire and unchanged to a different context. Our readers will, in the end, have to make their own minds up and take their own chances. All the book will be able to do is give them a better idea of how to go about setting prices strategically not least to forestall potential riots outside their doors.
Dr Richard Ings is an independent writer, researcher and evaluator in the arts. He is the commissioning editor of Arts Council Englands forthcoming publication on pricing in the arts, to be launched in May this year. It will be aimed at arts managers, those directly involved in setting price or engaged in funding and supporting the arts. The book will cover key issues and suggest practical approaches to developing strategies on pricing. For details contact Robert Marshall; t: 01273 763027
e: robert.marshall@artscouncil.org.uk
1 John Brewer (1997) The Pleasures of the Imagination: English Culture in the Eighteenth Century, Farrar Straus Giroux