‘Hamilton’ Sets Record-Breaking Top Ticket Price

Being in the room where it happens will now cost even more Hamilton’s.

As Tony Award-winning actor Leslie Odom Jr. prepares to return to the cast of Hamilton next week, the producers have raised the premium ticket prices at certain performances to a record-breaking $1,525.50. The new price eclipses even the astronomical prices charged for tickets to the final performances of sold-out, star-studded shows like Merrily We Roll Along, Romeo + Juliet, and Othello.

When the Hamilton producers nearly doubled the top ticket price from $475 to $849 in 2016, the lead producer, Jeffrey Seller, insisted that the increase was designed to deter scalpers. Raising the top ticket price at the Broadway box office would reduce the margin of profits for scalpers, and “take the air out of those very brokers who are using our tickets to make a killing,” he explained.

In addition, the move would redirect money from the scalpers, who were making about $60 million a year at the time, to the artists, producers, and investors associated with the show.

“What has certainly been frustrating to me, as a business owner, is to see that my product is being resold at many times its face value and my team isn’t sharing in those profits,” Seller stated. “[A]

ll of those dollars are going to those usurious brokers and they’re not going to the very people that create the play, perform the play or work on the play every single day,” he continued. “It’s not fair,” the producer grumbled.

But, some people felt that the jacking up the top ticket price for Hamilton was unfair.

“To pay $849 for a single theater ticket is simply obscene,” howled one outraged theatergoer. “It goes to show how more and more regular aspects of life are being appropriated by and tilted toward the rich,” the person griped.

Broadway actor Jason Danieley complained that charging more money for tickets to popular shows like Hamilton was “not in the best interest of the theatergoing public.” Higher ticket prices for Broadway shows would propel people to more affordable and accessible forms of entertainment like film and television, he asserted, adding that “[a]nything other than making a Broadway ticket affordable is destroying live theater.”

Broadway might soon “might price itself out of the marketplace,” feared producer Stephen Byrd. “We’re getting into opera ticket price range,” he said.

In an effort to combat the complaints, the Hamilton producers expanded the number of seats allocated to the daily $10 ticket lottery and arranged for 20,000 New York City public high school students to see the show each year for $10. “In some ways,” Seller said, “we’re taking from the rich to give to the poor, because there’s no question those premiums are subsidizing those $10 tickets.”

However, others argued that the new high ticket prices were not high enough.

“[T]hese prices are still too low,” declared Rafi Mohammed, a pricing strategy consultant. “Given the average resale price of roughly $1,000 (and that was before Hamilton won 11 Tony awards), there’s still plenty of margin for resellers to gorge on,” he observed. Theatergoers were still willing to pay more than $849, and the producers were still leaving money on the table.

Even with a top ticket price of $1,525.50 at the Broadway box office, tickets to Hamilton with Odom are now being sold for more money on the resale market. The true market value of each ticket is still less than the face value ticket price, and scalpers are now seeking to resell tickets for more than thirty times their face value.

While the Hamilton producers declined to discuss their pricing strategy, it is possible that they are taking into account more than simple economics. The show, which has generated more than $1 billion in ticket sales on Broadway alone, might not want to be perceived as only art for the affluent.

Seller, who introduced the first Broadway lottery for discounted tickets in 1996, previously affirmed that “[a]ccessibility is deeply important to me.” “It’s deeply important to Lin and to our entire team,” and “it always has been,” he continued. “I know what it’s like to not be able to afford a full-price theater ticket,” he said.

The average price of a ticket to a Broadway show increased last season from $125.27 to $129.12. But, if tickets to the star-studded shows Glengarry, Glen Ross, Good Night, and Good Luck, and Othello are removed from the equation, then the average ticket price drops to $125.03.