Theatre Design & Technology - Feb 1967 - 6

up a book on evolution which said there was one remarkable species which defied the orginary rules. It is called
the Terebratula and it seems to have remained unchanged
throughout all geological time. "Aha," said I to myself,
"that's the species that devised our ticket sales system."
Perhaps that's an exaggeration, but our basic pattern goes
back at least as far as Shakespeare's day-three hundred and
fifty years ago. The selling pattern of everything else has
changed radically in the last three hundred and fihy years,
but not theatre tickets. Each physical theatre still has a
box office; most buyers trudge there or mail in their orders;
if there are no tickets available for the time they want
them, there is no sale unless and until the buyers trudge or
write elsewhere. There aren't any charge accounts -not even
credit cards. It's still "cash and carry," if there is anything
to carry.
It is as if a book publisher set up a separate booth, at
some inconvenient spot, for each book he published; buyers
had to go there, cash in hand, and if the book happened
to be sold out at the time, the buyer went away emptyhanded. You would certainly think any such book publisher
was out of his mind. But we accept it as normal in the
theatre.
Even a man who is operating more than one theatre sticks
rigidly to this pattern. One would assume that he would at
least sell tickets to anyone of his theatres at every box
office. Not so. Each is a separate sales entity. On this one
point alone, we are entitled to say that the system of ticket
selling in New York is really abnormal; the theatre's problem is to make it normal. There have been one or two
feeble attempts - such as the booth in Shubert Alley and
the so-called Macy Box Office - but in the minds of most
people, the Theatre Box Office is still the sales spot.
However, after about three hundred years - in the first decades of this century - a segment of the public began to
rebel against the cash and carry system and demand something more convenient. They no longer trudged to the village shoemaker; they didn't want to trudge to the village
box office. Since we live in a free enterprise society, some
enterprising people decided to fill this demand. They came
to be known as "brokers" although, except for the name
and the fact that for some unknown reason they have to be
licensed, there is no similarity to any brokerage business.
They were (and are) retailers who bought tickets from the
theatre owner and retailed them at convenient spots mostly hotels. They tried to keep on hand a supply of
tickets for all plays. They took orders by telephone. They
permitted charge accounts. They delivered the tickets. For
these services they charged a modest amount over the price
printed on the ticket. Alas for these poor creatures: they
did this in an era when the ignorance of the ABC's of economics was widespread and profound, and when the reformers believed you could change people's morals by legislative fiat.
In their bl issful ignorance of economics, most Americans in
the early 1900's believed that the whole great American
distribution system should be given to them free. If it cost
$10 to make something at a factory, they felt they should
be able to buy it for $10 at the nearest convenient store;
they believed that any increase in that price was due to
wicked "middlemen," and that these immoral creatures were
parasitic speculators who should be legislated out of existence. It's hard to believe today, but I am old enough to
remember the diatribes which, in my childhood, were written on this point. However, in most cases, the producer of
goods set and advertised a retail price; this of course included a markup for the retailer over the factory price, but
since the buyer didn't know about it, he felt that the seller
paid it and raised no questions. But the theatre people

stuck to the pattern of a box office (or factory) price, with
an increase over that price when sold conveniently by their
retailers. And they brought down on themselves the wrath
of public, press and politicians which exists to this day.
A spate of laws and regulations were enacted which has
brought about the current ridiculous, insane situation. There
are only two clearly legal ways in which theatre tickets
can be sold in New York City. One: by mail or standing in
line at the box office. Two: from a so-called broker who
must first get a license, then buy the tickets from the theatre, and resell them at not more than $1.50 increase.
(Please note that he can mark up the price of a $3.00
ticket by 50%, but a $10.00 ticket only 15%: the least
affluent buyer pays the heaviest toll.) What's more, he
must sell them at a place where nothing but tickets are
sold. Moreover, the theatre owners can't legally pay brokers
a commission, nor pay bonuses to big sales, nor give tiein bargains. They can't do what every other industry does
as a matter of course. At one time, the law forbade a reduction in price unless a refund was given to everyone who
had bought at a higher price. It's all preposterous, but it's
true.
Consider an analogy. Assume that similar laws were proposed for the manufacturers of TV and phonograph sets.
RCA would then have to set a price on each item - from
the cheapest phonograph to the most magnificent Hi-fi combination - at which the item could be bought at the factory.
Their retailers would then be forbidden by law to charge
more than a fixed markup of the same amount for any
item; RCA would be forbidden to pay any commissions or
bonuses, or to give any trade-in value for old sets. Moreover, they couldn't sell to any retailer until he obtained a
license. Clearly, such a proposal would produce a volcanic
outburst of wrath against any politician who asked for such
a system. But the theatre has taken this strangulation lying
down.
The whole matter was further complicated by the appearance of buyers who not only wanted service, but also the
privilege of buying choice seats at their convenience,
right up to the last minute. Those buyers were ready, able
and willing to pay far more than $ 1 .50 over the printed
price. Again in a free enterprise society, this produced a
group of speculators who took the risks of supplying this
last minute demand. This drove the moral reformers into a
frenzy of anger. Although the American people speculate in
homes, corn, wheat - the necessities of life - the reformers
declared ticket speculation to be dastardly, immoral and unAmerican. And further laws and regulations were enacted
to legislate morality into the theatre industry.
Laws such as these produce one sure result: a crop of
people who violate them. Prohibition produced the bootlegger and the hijacker; in the theatre we have an underthe-counter market. Over the years, millions of dollars have
gone into the pockets of the men who run this market instead of going to playwrights, stars, honest producers and
theatre owners and their investors, or being used to lower
the price of the other seats. Much of Broadway's troubles
today - particularly the difficulty of financing serious plays is due to the stubborn refusal of pol iticians to let the theatre be free in a free enterprise world.
Having given that much background, I want to take up
some of the myths that have grown up along with this insane system. I call them myths; I suppose the modern
psychiatric term would be "fixations." In any event, they
are beliefs which are clung to, whether or not there is any
rational evidence to support them. But they have had, and
still have, an impact on press, public, politicians and the
industry itself, which has made it impossible to get legislative relief or to try any serious experimentation with
better methods.

[[ill[] THEATRE DESIGN AND TECHNOLOGY

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