On Broadway, Disney takes cue from airlines to sell more tickets

In reality, Disney and airlines rely on a shared economic premise: Getting as many butts in seats as possible

On the surface of it, there’s very little in common between Broadway shows and airlines — unless you count the sheer amount of drama that comes with taking to the skies these days.

But in reality, the two businesses rely on a shared economic premise: Getting as many butts in seats as possible.

Enter stage right a new partnership between Disney Theatrical Productions and Volantio, an Atlanta-based start-up that helps airlines manage oversold flights and other logistical challenges by reaching out proactively to guests and rewarding them for flexibility. Everyone wins, in theory. Airlines can seamlessly move passengers around to optimise operations, and consumers can get flight upgrades, free miles, or other perks without the schlepping and disappointment of getting rebooked at the airport ticketing counter.

Now they’re doing the same for Disney’s Broadway productions, starting with Aladdin, via a pilot programme that quietly launched in early April. Opt in to notifications during your ticket purchase, and you may, for instance, receive a Volantio-powered offer to trade your mezzanine seats on a Saturday night for centre orchestra on a Sunday matinee, free of charge.

“Capacity has always been fixed in the history of theatre,” says Azim Barodawala, chief executive officer and co-founder of Volantio. “You can’t put a new balcony in for the show just because the demand is there to sell the seats. But we’re enabling Disney to do exactly that on a targeted, as-needed basis.”

Even if such shows as Aladdin and The Lion King, for which the Volantio partnership is not yet live, average roughly 97 per cent occupancy, some days of the week may have slightly lower attendance. “Being able to siphon people from really high-demand performances to, say, a 95 per cent-occupied performance has real material benefit to us,” explains Nicholas Falzon, vice-president of sales and analytics at Disney Theatrical. Previously, the only way to spread out demand was by raising prices as theatres started to sell out. “Now, we don’t have to rely on that as much.”

“For us, a show like Lion King, pre-pandemic, represents over $100 million gross a year. Getting an additional 1 per cent is a financial benefit, but it’s also literally just more people. Without doing something like this, we can only grow our business via price,” Falzon continues. The idea can scale: Including touring companies, Disney Theatrical currently has 10 active productions of The Lion King.

In a survey of 260 active theatregoers conducted by Volantio and Disney before they formed their partnership, 63 per cent said they “definitely” or “probably” would opt into opportunities to receive upgrades in exchange for flexible show dates, and 48 per cent said they would accept an offer with a minimum of one day’s notice. Just as he does for airline clients, Barodawala will apply machine learning to maximise the odds that consumers will bite.

People buying tickets with billing addresses from beyond the tri-state area, for instance, are likely to receive offers to switch performances for within a few days of their original date — the idea being that it still falls within their vacation period — while locals may be offered opportunities to move from one Saturday night performance to another. For now, there’s no way to indicate in advance what set of conditions you would accept; all offers will consist of free upgrades and will be fully optional.

Falzon points out a major difference between Broadway and air travel: “There’s no such thing as an oversell in a theatre, and ultimately, we want people to understand this is nothing more than a net benefit — a free opportunity. Nobody is impacted if they say no.”

From a revenue perspective, the point is only to upgrade ticket-holders whose seats are a hot commodity. “It’s easier to move people into alternate performances with shows that don’t sell out as much because there’s more room to place people, but you have to have performances that you expect to sell out for it to have a benefit,” he explains.

The change is just one in a series of moves that the Broadway community has adopted to offer and reward flexibility since the pandemic struck.

“The standard on Broadway for years was ‘No exchanges, no refunds, no questions,”says Falzon. 
 

“Institutionally, Broadway had to come back from the pandemic with a full-exchange policy to help guests feel comfortable booking. Now, people expect the flexibility of being able to get refunds or exchanges as their plans shift. It’s not even a ‘nice to have’ now; it’s table stakes.” One might as well find a way to benefit from it in the back of the house, too.