Why so secretive about loyalty program? I would want to broadcast to the world that I value my loyal patrons so much that I do cool things for them. Why under-price parking? And there can be totally legitimate reasons (customer service reputation, competitive advantage over another urban theatre, etc). If that's the case, there are some very cool studies about price as a signal for quality. So if you've negotiated a below-market rate for parking for your customers, print the “real” price on that parking ticket, even though you're charging them less, and they will value the service more. So when you can't increase revenues, at least you can increase reputation.

It's hard to imagine a theatre with perfectly equal seating throughout the entire house. I've worked in everything from a 50 seat theatre in Seattle, to a 400 seat theatre in Louisville to a 1200 seat theatre in NYC. In all, there have been some seats that some audience members would be perfectly willing to pay more money for, if only you asked them. But you'd never know until you tried.

I guess in sum my proposition is that looking at how you price your product (by amount, and by structure) can lead to some interesting discoveries, and possibly to increased earned rev. The other side of this coin is to think about what services your customers really want, that you're not yet providing them. And the only way to know *that,* is to ask them…or to listen to them tweet

A coatcheck isn't usually a concern in Florida, but we do hold peoples bags, and even will refridgerate their to-go boxes if they've visited a resturant before curtain.

We quietly do a paron loyalty thing, as described above, sending out special offers as a reward or to bolster ticket sales (BOGO offers, free admission to previews, etc.) These people already love your theatre and are probably out there advocating for you every day, so this gives them a chance to bring that friend they rave about your shows to into the experience, and a great audience building tool.

A lot of these things we do anyway, parking is a continued concert in our urban setting, and instead of up-pricing parking, we have negotiated a deal to make it very accessable to our patrons.

For smaller houses without tiered seating, upgrades aren't always possible. We have a very loyal patron base and actually have multiple widths of seats (to accomodate for a curve in the auditorium we inherited them from) and if its someone we know is larger, we try to make sure we get them in the most comfortable seat for them in the first place. Also since we're a smaller house, we built ample legroom in when constructing our spaces when we built the theatre (48″ seatback to seatback!!!)

We're not big on fees, but do have a tip jar for donations at our concessions that usually gets some action, whether or not people are drinking. Maybe fees aren't the way to go?

This post was mentioned on Twitter by devonvsmith: why (and how) we could be giving the VP treatment to single ticket buyers (for the right $) http://ow.ly/1nk0fQ...