Ticket Sales

What's going on in Perth? Why the move to using a ticketing agency such as BOCS for amateur theatre productions? Earlier this year I saw JCS at Marloo, And had to book through BOCS. The performance was oversubscribed, and extra seats were brought in and placed in the aisles. Now I see Harbour are using them for their one act season. Is it because companies can't find someone to take on the task? Surely within a clubs membership there is someone capable/willing to do it. I guess it does stop the problem of no-shows, as you have to pay upfront - is this the reason? It does add a slug to the cost of the ticket. If you're paying $100 to see Phantom, then $6 isn't much in relative terms, but on top of an $18 ticket it seems excessive. Any answers?

I think the reason for agency sales may be that the shows get bigger exposure through their advertising and web site.

Unfortunately, even though I am in touch with the theatre in Perth, there are a great deal of shows that never seem to appear on any lists and I hear about them solely by word of mouth.

I agree that the booking fee can be really annoying, but the sales and promotions section of almost all amateur productions - and even a few small professional ones - is often pathetic. It must be soul destroying for the actors and crew to put weeks of work into a show only to find, after the event, that even close friends have been unaware of their presentation.

How many productions tell their local papers? Put up posters? Inform radio arts programmes? Use theatre.asn? Or get their nearest theatres to do reciprocal advertising, instead of hating each other?

'Telling the papers' doesn't simply mean making a phone call, but writing an article and supplying a photo to the press.

agency sales

Thread (15 posts)