My current understanding of the ADA rules are that all price categories available to the general public must be made available to those with accessible seating needs (See ADA 2010 Revised Requirements: Ticket Prices).
I wonder how those organizations with dozens of different price zones in your hall handle this requirement. If you put every row in a different price zone, certainly there are not accessible seats in every single row of the theater, are there?
You could perhaps zone your accessible seats as two-per-price-zone, which I think would meet the letter of the regulations presuming you had twice as many accessible seats as you did price zones, but is anyone actually doing this?
It's even more complicated than that, because you have to offer the accessible seat prices in the same percentage as the prices for the rest of the house AND the seats cannot be priced higher than the other non-accessible seats in the same area.
We figure out the percentages that we need to have for every zone map and try to get as close as possible as we divide up the number of accessible seats we can offer at each price.
We have lots of zones in some of our shows. In one of our venues, all of our accessible seating is in the back of the house, which means that not all prices are represented because some of the prices would be higher than the natural price of the area. This only benefits anyone purchasing the ADA seating, so we have yet to have any complaints.
The way we see this is all levels must have an accessible seating available. However not all prices have to. Our Orchestra level has many prices however the Wheelchair and companion spaces are the lowest price on that level. No one will complain that they want to pay more.
Our cheapest seats are Balcony and there is no accessible seating in the Balcony 6th floor, so when someone request Balcony wheelchair and a companion, we charge the 6th floor price and place them in 5th floor, an accessible area that is a one upgrade level. We do not move them from Balcony 6th floor to Orchestra 1st floor, unless the 5th floor is sold out.
This does cover the requirements for availability and pricing.
M. Jane Orosco
Marketing Data Manager
510 Preston St. | Houston | TX 77002
T: 713-546-0247
F: 713-247-9228
E: jorosco@hgo.org
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From: Tessitura Ticketing Forum [mailto:forums-ticketing@tessituranetwork.com] On Behalf Of Nick Reilingh Sent: Wednesday, July 6, 2016 4:36 PM To: M. Jane Orosco <jorosco@houstongrandopera.org> Subject: [Tessitura Ticketing Forum] ADA compliance with lots of price zones
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