The holiday season usually brings new audiences to some theaters in the region. It also presents a chance to attract repeat customers.
Theaters across the country are still trying to rebound from low attendance after the pandemic. Many are also rebuilding the number of season ticket holders — people who pay in advance for multiple shows.
Bill Berry, the executive and artistic director at The 5th Avenue Theatre, said people are looking for fun holiday experiences at this time of year.
"I'm a believer that once you come and experience a live performance, you sort of go, ‘Oh, that was fun. I want to go see another live performance, and another and another,’” he said. “They're addictive."
The theater ended its fiscal year in August with around 9,000 subscribers, which is less than half of what it had during its 2018-2019 season. Still, Berry said, single ticket sales and subscriptions are showing signs of improvement; this season’s numbers are up compared to the previous year.
Berry believes the theater industry in the Northwest is at an inflection point.
"We need longtime supporters. We need those audience numbers to keep growing," he said.
In his view, audiences want to see shows they are familiar with, which is partly why they are showing the theatrical production of Elf through Dec. 28.
“If we’re the place you can come into and feel good and it helps you get through your day and do the things you need to, we love being that thing,” Berry said.
At Village Theater’s Issaquah and Everett locations, single ticket sales are above pre-pandemic levels, but the number of season ticket holders remains low.
“That has been one of the great challenges for our theater: to continue to fill that gap, even as all these other areas are showing enormous strength,” said Adam Immerwahr, the theater’s artistic director.
That strength includes record-setting single-ticket sales for both a musical and a play for the arts organization. The musical Legally Blonde sold 20,678 single tickets. And the play Dial M for Murder sold 13,673 single tickets.
Immerwahr said the theater doesn’t typically put on holiday programming because their productions run so long that they overlap with the holiday season. Village Theatre is showing the musical 9 to 5 in Issaquah through Jan. 4 before it moves to Everett from Jan. 10 through Feb 8.
Immerwahr said that production gives people a break from Christmas.
“Santa might be there after the show — if you’re lucky, on the right day,” he said. “But yet, not everything has to be holidays all the time, so it gives our audience a nice respite, as well.”
The theater's approach isn't rigid, however. For the first time its presenting A Very Die Hard Christmas at its Everett location, a play created by the Seattle-based comedy troupe The Habit. That production will run from Dec. 26 to 28. Immerwahr said it has been sold out for weeks.
"Turns out Die Hard does real well," Immerwahr said. "Yippie Ki-Yay.”
