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The big question for me about the new booth is not how long it took to construct or how beautiful the glass steps are.
The big question for us Producers is . . . will the new design sell more tickets?
The TSA and TDF were without a doubt on the right track by using a spectacular new design to make the booth a tourist attraction, in hopes that it will sell more tickets.
One of the best examples of this theory I've ever witnessed was when I went to see Altar Boyz in Korea. I took a bus tour of Seoul that had three stops: The Ancient Palaces, A Buddhist Temple, and a Ginger Tea Museum.
The Ginger Tea Museum was the last stop. Except that it wasn't a Ginger Tea Museum.
It was a Ginger Tea Shop.
Sure they had a couple of photos on the wall showing how Ginger grows and a paragraph on the history of its healing power, but this was no Metropolitan Museum of Modern Ginger.
By making their shop a museum, they attracted more tourists, and they sure as heck sold more tea (I wonder how much of a kick back the bus company got for including them on the tour).
If I owned a Broadway Theater, I'd build a Broadway Museum in it, charge admission and offer a discount to the show that was currently on the marquee (why is there no Broadway Museum in the first place?).
If I owned an Off-Broadway complex? I'd do the same but probably not charge admission, because the Off-Broadway world needs the marketing.
And then I'd find my own bus company . . .
Sometimes the best way to get people to your show, may not be your show. But you shouldn't care how you get the horse to water, as long as it drinks (unless, of course, it takes the horse 2 years to the get to the water and costs millions over budget).
