Discount Ticket Prices For Families?

[trionbd]

Unless DCI can force Chinese teenagers to start marching drum corps for $30 a season and find third-world corps willing to perform for $150 a night, there's not much relevance Wal-Mart brings to the discussion.

I was thinking the same thing!

I'm usually not one to blindly give DCI props, but they don't have a ton of options when it comes to ticket prices. Life is expensive these days. I'm sure that reserving these modern venues makes for a very large overhead. Why would you expect to pay $100 for a good seat at a professional sporting event or a concert and not expect to pay the same for watching the most hard working and professional marching circuit. Doesn't make sense. And DCI does offer discounted tickets...on the 15 yard line. Just like pro sports teams sell cheaper/affordable tickets for seats in the upper deck outfield/end zone.

Another similar point...If you go to a regular season baseball game, you expect to pay X amount. If you go to the same venue to see a division series playoff game, you expect to pay twice as much. If you go to see a championship series game, you can expect to pay 3 times as much. And the World Series??? Probably 5 times as much. But people are constatly complaining about the ticket prices at shows/regionals/world championships. I know that some will say that the high ticket prices at sporting events are to pay for the rediculous salaries that atheletes make these days. But people must not mind paying it, because they still buy the tickets. It's not too much. It's just how much things cost these days.

[glory]

So much bad economic thinking in this thread. Most of all, DCI should not reduce prices (reduce its own revenue) for a group of fans who will buy the tickets at full price anyway. It is a not-for-profit organization seeking revenue to distribute to the corps, after all.

Ticket prices should be set at the market rate. Period. Anything else would be stupid.

As for Wal-Mart, it understands I'm sure that low price is not a loyalty formula. Its success offers no lesson for DCI's pricing strategy.

HH

[ozarkbugler]

So much bad economic thinking in this thread. Most of all, DCI should not reduce prices (reduce its own revenue) for a group of fans who will buy the tickets at full price anyway. It is a not-for-profit organization seeking revenue to distribute to the corps, after all.

Ticket prices should be set at the market rate. Period. Anything else would be stupid.

As for Wal-Mart, it understands I'm sure that low price is not a loyalty formula. Its success offers no lesson for DCI's pricing strategy.

HH

Ah, but there you have it. The group of people willing and able to pay the higher prices is dwindling.

[kansasDC]

The best way for parents/family members to get "cheap tickets" to shows is to volunteer for the corps their family member marches in. I went to every show on tour last summer from Carmel, IN to Denton, TX and did not pay anything to get in (other than a little sweat). I sold souvies and at many places (such as Houston) got to see every corps perform.

[dcbd]

I think discounts should be given to highschool kids. 0-25% off with highschool ID maybe. Some smaller shows attempt to do this by informing local highschools to sell to their band students to recieve a group discount, but that is not quite the same. Some kids will drag their parents to shows, and some parents will want to go to make sure their kids are safe. More seats filled maybe. I don't think discounts for anyone else would really work out, but i also haven't put much thought into it.