Jessica Ryan

“The League doesn’t ask patrons to rank the primary driver in their ticket purchase. (Individual shows sometimes do in their own research surveys. I’ve heard various figures from producers throughout the years—and most are similar to what I found. Though it has varied to a certain extent show to show.) That’s what I asked of people—what truly drove their purchase. I went to musicals as well as plays from last spring to this fall; I did not poll at any show running over two years. For Shucked, a show that several people told me greatly benefited from influencers, I spoke to twenty people during previews and then another fifteen people later in the run. In total, two of 200 people I spoke to said an influencer was the primary reason they purchased a ticket. Both of those people were under 30. Several others had seen influencer content, but that content was not the primary reason they purchased tickets. (Source material, stars, personal recommendations, and press topped the reasons; show specific obviously.)

There are likely many reasons that influencers are not driving ticket sales. According to the League, last season the average theatergoer was 40.4 years old, older than the typical influencer target. Theater tickets are generally expensive, so it may take more than one person’s word to take the plunge and buy. But, additionally, most influencers that push theater consistently are so-called "theater influencers" and primarily have their content pushed to theater fans.”

What was particularly fascinating, though, was that being in a live audience in the theatre (red line) led to higher highs and lower lows than watching in a small group (yellow line) in my lab. It was even more reduced when people watched the movie alone (brown line) in my lab. In fact, because of the scaling it looks like they flatlined but I can assure you, the peaks and troughs are present, they are simply greatly reduced in size.

Collective effervescence led to emotional enhancement, making the live performance with a big audience that much more impactful.

The service is currently available to about 10,000 libraries, or 40 percent of North America’s libraries, as well as about half of high-end colleges in the country. Kanopy houses roughly 35,000 titles with 150 more coming each week. Some standouts on the service include newer films like “Moonlight” and “Lady Bird,” as well as older classics like “Rashomon” and “Chinatown.”

These proof of concept short stories have emerged as something akin to the dizzying deals made for spec scripts decades ago. This sale also marks 12:01 Films and Verve’s 25th short story overall on their current run… Several of the stories have been adapted and published as novels through a Simon & Schuster label called 1201 Books. The real proof of life for these short stories will be the success of the movies made from them. About four of them are moving close to production starts.