San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
The pandemic shook the arts community. Here’s how it affected audience experiences
The past year forced the performing arts community to exist in a precarious state, never knowing whether plans would fully pan out, always on edge for an anticipated event to be canceled, watching helplessly as reopening goalposts moved further away. Organizers were continually postponing, canceling and rescheduling as they tried to follow pandemic guidelines while also trying to hang onto audiences.
Even with more than three-fourths of San Francisco residents 12 and up having received at least one dose of vaccine, theatergoers and concertgoers may still be wary of purchasing tickets without knowing what the next weeks or months might bring, and whether they will end up forfeiting money they paid in a more optimistic moment.
So The Chronicle set out to examine the box office practices of a variety of producers and ticket vendors — some local, others national — who frequently present shows in the Bay Area. Using assumed names and email addresses, we surveyed 14 companies in theater and music, buying tickets and then trying to get refunds.
We called and emailed box offices, timing how long it took to get a response via email and to reach an actual person on the phone. We also timed ourselves buying tickets online, counting how many web pages we had to click through to make a purchase and comparing how easy sites were to navigate.
We sought clear language on whether and how we could get refunds in case we no longer felt safe attending indoor shows. We kept track of various handling and processing fees not always reflected in tickets’ advertised prices. And we compared the prices of tickets to comparable shows from the same sellers before and after the pandemic to see whether they had changed.
Our data, by definition, is imperfect. One phone call or email experience doesn’t necessarily characterize an entire box office, and many companies are still working with reduced staffs after pandemic-induced layoffs and furloughs. And our aim is not to single out individual customer service representatives, who are often among companies’ lowest-paid and least-powerful staff and frequently endure abusive treatment from entitled consumers.
Still, box office protocols and culture and the management that shapes them aren’t above scrutiny. Arts and entertainment companies, like other businesses, should be accountable to their customers.
With all that in mind, here’s what we found:
Ticket prices and fees
In general, we set out to buy the cheapest admission we could find; sometimes that was a single ticket, though many presenters were selling only subscriptions during our reporting.
In comparing upcoming shows with those before the pandemic, we tried to find the same artist or type of show or, in the case of some musicians, two artists with similar numbers of followers on online music services Spotify or Bandcamp.
We observed an array of pricing strategies, probably reflecting uncertainty about how the pandemic has changed consumer demand and behav
ior. When we looked at comparable products before and after the pandemic, we found that American Conservatory Theater (which presents shows at both the Geary and Strand theaters in San Francisco), Berkeley Repertory Theatre, San Francisco Symphony and the Mission District concert venue the Chapel all raised prices.
By contrast, the San Francisco Ballet and Bottom of the Hill, the Potrero Hill nightclub that currently has indie rock band Surfer Blood and punk rocker Joey Cape (of Lagwagon fame) on its calendar, lowered prices of comparable shows from before the pandemic and now, while broker Ticketmaster and concert producer Live Nation (both part of the same company) and San Francisco Opera have taken a mixed approach for two comparable products, lowering their top prices while raising the prices of their cheapest seats. BroadwaySF, which produces Broadway tours at the Orpheum and Golden Gate Theatres, raised its lowest price but kept its top price consistent for most shows, while reducing its prices overall for the musical smash hit “Hamilton.”
“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” at the Curran is more difficult to parse. The 2019 version came in two parts, and the version arriving in 2022 is structured as one sitting. On the surface, it looks as if prices have increased, from $59-$289 to $79-$299. Previously, though, patrons had to buy two tickets; now they need only buy one.
When we compared advertised prices to total costs after added fees, what we found is old news to any seasoned concertgoer but is worth repeating: Don’t bank on the final cost of a show until you’ve navigated all the way through a ticketing website.
Some fees add less than 10%; two fees, including one from San Francisco Opera, added more than 25%. The absolute numbers can startle, too. For a three-day pass to Labor Day weekend’s sold-out BottleRock Napa Valley, the first major Northern California music festival since the start of the pandemic, ticket broker StubHub added $141.55 in fees to a $408.90 sticker price.
Scott Walton, a spokesman for BroadwaySF, explained the company’s
$70 subscription fee this way: “For each show, there is a $10 ticketing fee, which covers administration of the ticket, including us having a fully staffed ticketing center. The ticket service team are paid above minimum wage and also receive health and other benefits. So for seven shows, the cost is $70.”
When we checked, that $70 fee was reflected on some but not all of the pages leading to a purchase on BroadwaySF’s site.
Entertainment consultant Tom O’Connor, who started his career working at box offices and is now president of the arts and culture firm Tom O’Connor Consulting Group in New York, has been hosting virtual roundtables with marketing leaders from across the country every month and said that “the bigger existential question within the industry is actually around access.
“In many ways, before the pandemic, we were talking a lot in the industry about maximizing revenue and all that we have to do to keep organizations afloat,” said O’Connor. “But the conversation now is about how we hold that tension between maximizing revenue with the need to provide access points for many people from across the economic spectrum so we can diversify our audiences.”
The purchase process
If you dream of a one- or two-click ticket purchase, dream on. We were often required to create an account, frequently clicking through eight to 10 pages just to buy.
We made our fastest purchases through EventBrite and Brown Paper Tickets, which tend to offer more affordable tickets from smaller producers, clocking in at about two minutes. At the other end of the spectrum, buying from San Francisco Symphony took more than 6½ minutes.
Companies’ customizations of their box office web pages reflected differing
approaches to consumers. A favorite bit of hospitality came from the Symphony, which, as we were about to check out, allowed us to select add-ons to our purchase, including directions to Davies Symphony Hall, guides to hotels and restaurants, and a “First Timers Guide.” We also appreciated how the Opera dedicated an entire page to asking us to “accept” that everyone in our party ages 12 and older would have a negative coronavirus test or be fully vaccinated. That step made us feel safer about attending an Opera performance.
A more obnoxious flourish came from Ticketmaster and Live Nation. Midway through our purchases, a pop-up window appeared. “Complete your purchase,” it said. “Tickets are selling fast. Get yours now before
Sticker price and fees for tickets
Data for Bay Area events taking place starting in summer 2021
Purchase "Cosi Fan Futte" at S.F. Opera BottleRock Napa Valley via StubHub Spiritual Cramp at Bottom of the Hill BroadwaySF subscription Dashboard Confessional at the Fillmore
"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" ACT subscription
Spotlight Series at S.F. Symphony Day to Night Festival via Eventbrite Berkeley Rep subscription
Sticker
price
$31.00 $408.90 $13.00 $240.00
$40.26
$79.00 $95.00 $200.00 $75.00 $240.00
Fees $12.00 $141.55
$4.11 $70.00
$10.70
$14.25 $12.00 $20.00 $6.81 $15.00 they’re gone.” To proceed, we had to click a “Got it” button. It’s possible that warning was valid, but we were buying tickets in July for a show in October amid uncertainty over the delta variant. And four days later, tickets were still available.
Refund policies
Pop music refund policies are almost universally strict — no refunds, no exchanges. This has been a guiding principle in concert ticket sales, where reselling is king.
The Chapel, which has San Francisco artists Osees (formerly known as Thee Oh Sees), Andrew St. James and Chuck Prophet among those slated to hit the stage this year, did not mention