Set Ticket Prices with Confidence: The Benefits of Dynamic Pricing

We recently spoke with Tom Nolan, Head of Global Ecosystem at Spektrix, about the benefits of dynamic pricing for the arts to help leaders make informed decisions. To read the full article on the Spektrix website, click here.

How to get started with trustworthy dynamic pricing

Be clear about your objectives of dynamic pricing
While revenue enhancement is important to many organizations, many also care just as much about filling seats. Often, the optimal price is a lower price. When we work with clients, we take time to understand the objectives at the performance level and adjust our price recommendations accordingly.

Build in appropriate constraints and controls
This one may seem obvious, but an effective dynamic pricing strategy will set clear constraints and rules such as minimum and maximum price thresholds. We build these types of constraints right into our solution code so that our pricing recommendations are always aligned with our clients’ price range tolerances. We also provide our clients a simple-to-use web portal that allows them to review and approve/reject/override our price recommendations with the click of a button – so the client always maintains visibility and control over the price recommendations before they are sent into the ticketing system and website.

Take a holistic view
It can be tempting to focus disproportionately on only the most obvious opportunities – such as increasing prices on the “premium” seats for a strong-selling performance. In our experience, however, there is a lot to be gained by retaining a holistic view of how you price your house. For example, it is possible to capture the yield opportunity on premium seats while simultaneously retaining a low-price section and optimizing the relative prices across the house to fill it more effectively. Many of our clients also utilize subscriber prices to help set the lower bounds for single tickets to make sure that subscribers always get the best price.

These are a few of the techniques that we utilize to ensure that dynamic pricing generates great outcomes for our clients while also preserving (if not enhancing) the long-term relationship between arts organizations and their patrons.