The Box Office

When TIFF announced that they were changing their box office earlier this summer, I was curious about what benefits we would see. When the Ticketmaster logo appeared at the top of the screen, my thoughts also turned to what we would lose or what the cost would be (my experience with Ticketmaster as a vendor of event tickets has been mixed and I try to avoid using them where possible).

On the plus side, we now have the option of either printing the tickets at home or sending a ticket to our smartphone. Gone are the days of lining up at the box office to collect a stack of paper tickets. That's definitely been a plus.

Unfortunately, the procedures in place are designed for the person who has purchased a small number of tickets, not the 45-50 that I normally get each year. As with many processes that have introduced self-serve options, the labour has been transferred to the individual and not terribly efficiently.

We've already seen the classic Ticketmaster "sting" of service charges, although TIFF has waived some of them for members this year. But it's the addition of another recent feature of the Ticketmaster experience that I think will result in the greatest cost to patrons.

TIFF has introduced "demand-based" pricing this year, which means that films that are popular are charged at a higher rate. As a member purchasing tickets in advance, my per-film cost is $20, although it is possible to reduce that cost slightly once TIFF starts up (each day, the festival promotes films that have a lot of seats available at a sale price. The base price for one-time purchasers is $25, although tickets for galas is charged at a pretty hefty premium.

I was standing in line with a woman who purchased single tickets last week and one film started at $42 (I don't remember the title, but it was a film with studio backing and would likely have a theatrical or VOD release somewhere down the line). Add Ticketmaster's fees and the price for a ticket moves towards $50.

We've seen the impact of demand-based pricing in the concert arena, with the exorbitant rates charged for Tragically Hip tickets this summer. Some would argue that this is capitalist system working as it was designed to, but the end result is that it will discourage people from purchasing tickets to films at TIFF and reducing its cachet as a "people's film festival". The impact on students and seniors in particular makes the change in box office a negative change overall.