“People don’t buy tickets as far out as they used to.”

This is true.

And it’s especially true after extreme events that shake the confidence of our consumers. In the 31 years of my career, I’ve faced three global crises that shook our market:

1. 9/11/01
2. 2008 Financial Crisis
3. 2020 Pandemic and Broadway Shutdown

(That’s almost one every 10 years – and if I look further back, there was the Persian Gulf War in 1990 – so every decade we should be prepared!)

After each of these crises, advance ticket buying decreased.

It makes sense – people are:

1. Absorbed and obsessed with watching the news of the unfolding events, so they block out other things
2. Not wanting to plan something (especially something expensive), because what if “something happens?” 

They freeze, and for good reason.. 

(This also happened with Harmony.  After the invasion of Israel by Hamas on October 7th, we lost a lot of advance ticket sales with our Jewish audience.)

Eventually, with time and distance, buying patterns slowly return.  But the longer the crisis, the longer the recovery.  That’s why the pandemic caused the largest shift in this pattern of all the events I’ve witnessed in my medium-length career. 

So what do we do?

Well, the most commonly heard phrase in times like this is, “People don’t buy tickets as far out as they used to.”

Again, it’s a fact.  

So, we bottle up our advertising into shorter windows to try and take advantage of when they are considering.  We blitz, instead of slowly moving the ball down the field. 

The challenge that I’ve seen is that the shorter buying periods are never enough time to make enough impressions to build a big enough advance.  [Unless your show is an event with stars (Othello, Gypsy) that you know will be in demand.]

I first experienced this with my revival of Spring Awakening in 2015.  I saw the production that summer, and we were offered a sliver of a window to move it to Broadway – and if we didn’t take it – we may never have gotten there.  So we took it.  83 days after (!) I saw that magnificent Deaf West production directed by Michael Arden, it started performances on Broadway.  

And when we compared our advance sales to other productions that had earlier on-sale dates, there was no doubt that had we gone on sale earlier, our advance would have been higher.

Should I have waited?  Well, alas, alack, our business doesn’t allow for that kind of flexibility often – because we’re waiting for theaters – waiting for stars – waiting, waiting, waiting, until it’s go, go, go.

But we should do our best to change this.

Because, while I believe people may not be buying further in advance, they need to know they CAN buy further in advance.  Knowing a show is available and happening (first announcement), is the biggest free impression you can get.  Getting that out there as soon as possible starts the ball rolling down the hill for your buyer.  Then, by the time you start your blitz, at least there is an awareness in the market.  

And since social media can keep your ball in the air so much more these days, it’s not as expensive to have a longer buying window.

It’s not as easy to do without knowing we booked a theater – which is one of the biggest challenges Producers and Theatre Owners face (because they can’t tell us we have a theatre until the current show in the building decides to close up shop.) 

But perhaps there is a way to have a “soft” announcement (we often know we’re coming in – just don’t know which theater).  Or dare I say, perhaps we show restraint – and that if we can’t find out about our theater, we wait until there’s adequate time to market the show?

Because people will buy further out in advance . . . if we give them the opportunity to.  And even if they don’t, you’ll have a longer time to build your impression bank the further out you announce.