If you've ever gotten a free ticket to see a show, you cost the Producer money.
With ticket printing costs and liability insurance, you could be looking at fifty cents to a dollar per comp, not to mention the labor associated with filling the orders, etc.
Doesn't seem like a lot, right? Well, one of my favorite sayings is that a lot of a little equals a hell of a lot.
It would not be unheard of for a Broadway show to have 10,000 comps during the first year of a run (think papering for previews, trade deals, etc.)
That's $5k - $10k. That's some expensive paper, isn't it?
So what if we took a lesson from mail order companies that offer FREE products as long as the customer pays for the "shipping/handling"?
Here's my proposal that I'm going to institute at my shows this week: Charge $1 processing fee for each comp to cover your costs. And, if you can get that fee up front, you'll also get a stronger commitment from the consumer to actually show up for the show, as comp ticket attrition is one of the biggest problems with papering.
The takeaway? When producing a show and looking to cut expenses, a lot of people just look at the big things. Don't.
Termites aren't very big, but put a whole lot of them together, and your house will be history.
