Hamilton tickets just went up “sharply,” the NY Times reports. While the show is sold out through next January, those planning on seeing the performance should start saving pennies now as the ticket prices for best seats now cost $849 – cue in Rent soundtrack, “how we gonna pay this month’s rent?!”
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“In the new block of tickets, about 200 seats at every Hamilton performance – mostly in the center orchestra – will be sold for $849. The rest of the house – everything but the lottery tickets, or about 1,075 seats per show – will be sold for between $179 and $199 (currently, the regular seats are priced from $139 to $177),” the NY Times states.
The efforts are to combat the loss of tens of millions of dollars producers are losing from scalpers who have been reselling tickets at a significantly higher margin. Lead producer, Jeffery Seller tells the Times, however, that he is also determined to get tickets into the hands of people who are not wealthy.
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To balance the price spike producers are offering 46 lottery seats per show at only $10 each. The team has also teamed with the Rockefeller Foundation to allow 20,000 New York City public high school students each year to attend the show for $10. The show will earn $70 per seat, with the balance paid by the foundation, notes the Times.
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The efforts allow 19,000 people per year to attend the show for $10 dollars and anyone can enter the lottery. “In some ways,” says Seller, “we’re taking from the rich to give to the poor, because there’s no question those premiums are subsidizing those $10 tickets.”
That’s one way to look at it. The show’s $849 dollar ticket has now become the highest price for a direct ticket ever on Broadway – another one of many firsts for the musical.
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