Ticket Pricing and Discounting in Regional US Theaters: A Quick Poll

February 2023

In early January 2023, we reached out to several regional theaters in the US to understand how they were approaching pricing given soft audience demand since the pandemic.  We asked three questions of CEOs/heads of marketing; attached we share the six responses we received.

Key takeaways:

• Although overall demand is down, most theaters don’t believe price is a driving factor for most.  Discounting has not been an effective method of ‘bringing back’ a large number of audience members; instead it is used for targeted enticement to specific audience segments.

• In fact, respondents were more likely to have raised the highest-end prices as those customers are much less price sensitive

• A discounted offer or deal tends to be more effective than passively lowering prices; a ticket that is $30 after a half price discount moves more than a $20 standard ticket

• The approach to discounting varied but all respondents were maintaining or increasing discount programs such as $25 tickets and discounts for groups, veterans, or youth

• Discounting through targeted mailing lists was common