If you want to go see Hamilton, you are going to have to pay. Tickets now cost $849.
According to the New York Times, it now costs $849 to purchase a single Hamilton ticket for the best seat in the house. However, it’s important to point out that while the beast seat in the house costs $849, there are 46 seats available at $10 each in order to make the show available to people who can’t afford more expensive theater tickets. But, it’s going to be rather difficult, if you want to buy those $10 seats. In fact, the 46 $10 seats are sold via a lottery and only 21 seats per show are available.
The show is sold out through next January, but the producers have already begun selling tickets for the following four months to American Express cardholders. They intend to begin selling tickets the general public after the Tony Awards, which Hamilton is favored to win multiple awards, including best new musical.
At $849, Hamilton is the most expensive show on Broadway history. In fact, The Book of Mormon once held the record charging $477 dollars for premium seats.
It’s important to point out that the only group making money off of ticket sales are resellers. According to the New York Times, resellers make $60 million per year on “Hamilton” tickets using legal and illegal algorithms to purchase tickets.
“What has certainly been frustrating to me, as a business owner, is to see that my product is being resold at many times its face value and my team isn’t sharing in those profits,” the lead producer of “Hamilton,”Jeffrey Seller, said in an interview on Wednesday. “It’s not fair.”
So why are they charging $849? Producers believe that by charging that much it will dissuade scalpers from using their algorithms to purchase large quantity of tickets.
“How did I get to $849? By continually monitoring the secondary market and finding out where the average is,” Mr. Seller said. “If I’m at $849, I think we may succeed in taking the motivation out of the scalpers to buy those tickets.”
Producers of the show believe “we’re taking from the rich to give to the poor, because there’s no question those premiums are subsidizing those $10 tickets.”
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What do you think? Would you pay $849 for a ticket to Hamilton? Leave us a comment below.
