A Pay What You Decide toolkit from ARC – Stockton Arts Centre, as well as links to a few other PWYD resources, including ARC’s blog about the scheme.
PWYD is a pricing strategy designed to encourage new audiences to try new work. It requires audiences to book in advance, but voluntarily pay an amount determined by them after the show, based on their experience. ARC decided to introduce PWYD on its entire theatre programme in January 2015 and you can download their guide below.
Pay What You Decide – is it beneficial for arts organisations?
This blog by ARC Stockton’s CEO looks into the scheme they have been running for over five years:
“ARC has operated PWYD on all theatre and dance performances since January 2015. In the first two years, audiences increased by 44%. Audiences in 2019 are 86% up compared to 2014, our last full year of fixed ticket pricing – well above our target growth of 3-5% per year. The percentage of PWYD audiences new to ARC is between 8-14% each year, with a much higher percentage new to theatre (ie crossing over from other artforms we present).”
Pay What You Decide: Make it Work For You – advice from Spektrix
Pay what you decide (PWYD) theatre turns the question: “Was the show worth the price you paid for the ticket?’ on its head, empowering audiences to choose how much money they want to spend. There are different models for this – pay what you can (PWYC) differs from PWYD – but the principles remain the same: the amount of money that changes hands is up to the audience.
