Fees for Free Events

Amy,

We don't have any fees on our free events; I don't think we've ever tried to introduce them either.

For example, next week we have our "Subscriber Appreciation Day" where subscribers are invited to the studio to watch company class and rehearsal and take tours. There's no fee associated with the event, though; it's strictly a stewardship/recognition initiative on our end. We also do a "Donor Appreciation Day" event with a similar setup in April.

We do have events which are "gated" by membership levels; for example, members of our Founders' Society ($2,000+) can attend exclusive previews, but only members at the $3,500 level or higher get to stay for a dinner with artistic staff and dancers after the preview. But there aren't any per-event fees associated there.

Similarly, we have a "patron lounge" at our performances where donors of any amount over $250 annually can get light hors d'oeuvres and wine at intermission, but again there's no per-event fee.

Thank you,

Brian

Amy, 

We do not charge our facility improvement fee on any free tickets, but that being said, if a patron selects a free ticket along with other paid tickets, there are fees charged on the order.

Michele

Depending on the event (and who's running it) is how we decide what free event gets a fee.  

When we DO charge a fee for a comp ticket we usually stand strong on $5. When I introduced this fee 5 years ago we had patron questions, and for us they were simple to answer "As a not for profit theatre company this fee covers the cost of processing your reservation through manual labor and our ticketing system".  This worked for well for us, and made sense to a lot of patrons. We've not had any other questions like that come up since we initiated the fee.

We chose $5 because our research showed that it was just enough money to part with, but seriouse amount of money that was a subsantial loss if the patron didn't show up for the event. We also recognized the fact that if a party of 2 or 4 were reserved it was a large enough investement to the patron to have them guarentee their attendance.

These are all GREAT answers!!!!!! Thank you for your response!!

Thanks for your response!!! 

I'm interested in the comp tickets....who do you typically offer comps to? Ours are usually only the Artist or our Center Staff, so charging a $5 fee seems like it wouldn't really work. Do you have a separate comp fee for the Artist or your own ticket staff?