January Archive Highlight - “Pay Up - pt 4; “To Put a Price on It”

“To Put a Price on It”

This is part 4 in an ongoing series on the different ways people pay for my experiences, and the second half of two highlights about the pay-what-you-wish after-the-fact set up of the Telelibrary. If you're just starting now, you'll want to start at least with the first half, if not the first post in the series.

Previously, we looked at 2 of my areas of focus for my payment systems: #1 Payment as a Lowered-Obstacle to Accessibility, and #2 - Payment as a Form of Direct Feedback & Gathering Data

Now that we've gathered a bit more data (and stared into the loving void of a few more spreadsheets), let juno in with the final two areas of focus:

#3 - Payment as a Space for Meaning Making

Last month, I reached out to Patrons to ask them to chime in with their own experiences contributing to The Telelibrary. For starters, I asked folks to give quick impressions in a poll:

A large majority of of respondents indicated that the payment System “makes them feel good" and "feels connected to the spirit of the Telelibrary" (73.68% each, though not the same 73.68%), and 63.16% said "the option to pay after [their] experience feels meaningful".  In terms of understanding what that meaning or positive sentiment may feel like, we can look to the additional comment of one User, who explained that:

“to me the Telelibrary payment structure is intrinsic to the nature of the piece. It makes it completely accessible, both literally and psychologically, which I think outweighs any scheduling inconveniences. [...] Honestly, I can’t imagine it being any other way…it’s just such a perfect fit for what the Telelibrary is to me.”

On the other hand, 36.84% reported that "The payment system of the Telelibrary has “no effect” on their experience of the piece, and 31.58% said "The option to pay what I choose makes [them] feel stressed."

Naturally, two things can be true at once, and since this small group of 19 Users who responded can’t be seen as representative of the whole Telelibrary User base, I believe the connections between some of their responses are what are most instructive.

Every respondent who reported the payment system Making Them Feel Stressed also found it to also Make Them Feel Good (57.14% of Stressed Respondents), Feel Meaningful (57.14%), Feel Connected to the Spirit of the Piece (28.57%), and/or Deepen Their Experience (14.29%).

One participant in particular left a comment which gives us some insight here (which was echoed by another User, who replied “Ditto”):

“Pay-what-you-wish for The Telelibrary made me feel both good and stressed, confusingly. I spent 5-10 minutes after my experience thinking about a number that felt right. It prompted me to reflect on what I had just experienced in perhaps more of a transactional way than if I had paid upfront, but I can't say if that alteration had a positive or a negative valence. It was just different in a way that I took notice of. My previous experiences with pay-what-you-wish had always been either at museums' ticket counters or in an informal pass-the-hat model at DIY shows, which both feel lower stakes in their relative anonymity. Spending 53 minutes in a 1-on-1 dialogue with you and then being prompted to decide how much each of those minutes were worth to me, and then tell you effectively to your face, was much more intense.”

What can we take away here? I’m not surprised to find the pairing of Stress and positive sentiments; I’m well aware that payment systems like this are not always comfortable for participants, or even kind (I definitely don’t think it’s generous). However, given that no respondent reported feeling Stress without other positive sentiments, I think it is fair to say that this moment is a challenge that can feel rewarding to surmount. I continue to be excited by the emergent and unintentional connection between the variable payment and the spirit of the piece; I believe this is one of many elements that has biased User behavior towards being almost exclusively pro-social, and that the reflection triggered by the payment choice gives a chance not only to consider the perceived value of my time but also the value of what each individual User (and all Users together) have created.

However, from a design perspective, I don’t think The Telelibrary does the best job supporting Users through the “challenge point” of determining the price they wish to pay—especially when I look to other more recent projects. For Fair Trade, my Co-Creator Jessica Creane and I talked about the difficulty of having “homework” after an experience is done; as a result, I think our set up and system of prompts does a better job of positioning that participant choice as feeling intentional (more on that next month). Undersigned on the other hand feels like a better set of solutions to the “stakes” mentioned in the comment above, as it creates a very connected ideological framework that I believe better positions (and even dares) participants to answer honestly.

On a conveniently-transitional note, several User comments on the poll also speculated about the effect of this system on profitability:

“Also, as someone who has a *really* hard time pricing my work, I appreciate the consumer being able to set the value as they see fit, and I wouldn’t be surprised if that ended up being higher than you might have guessed.”

“I don't think that paying after makes the experience [of the Telelibrary] more meaningful, but (particularly the first time) I definitely paid more afterwards than I would have beforehand.”

Let’s see if they’re right.

#4 - Payment as a Path to Profit (?)

There are two ways to consider this question: the first is to ask bluntly “what do you make?,” and the second is to ask “how might a comparable payment system for an experience similar to the Telelibrary perform?”

The first one is easier, so I’ll keep it blunt: after donating 15% of each contribution to various charities, this past year of 2022 I earned about $37.67 a call.

To answer the second is nearly impossible, but in the act of trying, I think we can get some good information about patterns and possibilities. Those of you who are still here after that first part (that ‘you’ may well be the ‘singular,’ not plural) let’s dive back into the weeds to find out.

Last month, I included a chart of the Average Contribution each week of the Telelibrary, Over nearly 3 years and almost 1500 performances:

When we look at the 1185 calls surveyed as representative of a pure “pay after you go” system, the average contribution was $25.92, with 911 Users paying an average of $33.68 and the rest paying nothing at all.

Immediately the impact of participants not paying jumps out as an issue for the viability of this model. However, it is worth remembering that costs are quite radically low - at that average rate, it only takes about 12 performances to cover a year’s worth of the largest single cost of production, which is the service I use to redirect and record calls through a business number. Additionally, I think it’s pretty key to look at the way the average contribution changed year over year, from $23.30 in 2020 to $26.71 in 2021 to $29.18 in 2022. To me, this speaks to one of the major strengths of a payment system of this kind: it allows a creator to gradually and organically increase value over time, (and to do so in a way where development time is compensated). Couple that with the scalability of the piece and we find a not insignificant source of revenue. Over the course of three years, I averaged about 44 shows a month. Some months it was as few as 13 shows, and one month it was 87 (... never again). After my first year, I basically made it a rule that 52 shows was a comfortable upper limit, which meant aiming for an average of 13 shows a week. Performing those 13 shows takes about 13 hours (including set-up time and notes afterwards), and on a particularly good week, I might log 7 hours editing audio and/or scheduling and releasing shows. Using the 3 year average contribution, that gives me around $336.96 a week, which after minimal costs is a creative job paying in the ballpark of $15-16 an hour.

In a future post, I could have plenty to say about the advantages of producing participant-responsive theater for small audiences over long periods of time: namely, it drastically reduces overhead and spreads costs out over time, allows productions (and performers) to constantly improve and/or expand over time, and gives a large amount of flexibility to creators/collaborators without asking them to wait for a “big break” to get paid—all while generating enormously fulfilling experiences (both creatively and personally) for both creators and participants alike.

But we’re talking about PROFIT right now, so let’s keep to that. On that note, I think it’s important to be transparent that none of these amounts represent my actual earnings, as I’ve adopted a more complicated system in the hopes of increasing my own payout and ensuring that I distribute funds to causes I care about. And so, after a combination of private engagements, festival appearances, gifted shows at fixed rates, and distributing shows through Patreon, the average earnings per show (after 20-15% was donated to a rotating set of relief funds) was $31.26 (by the same math above, more like $406.38/week or $20.319/hr). Again, that reflects an average across three years, which has also grown year over year ($32.30 in 2021, and $37.67 in 2022).

These amounts aren’t anything like hitting a jackpot, but they do represent a steady, dependable line of income that I’ve been able to use to pay rent for nearly 3 years while funding the development of two new pieces. And I’ve been able to generate this income in a way that doesn’t feel extractive, but instead creates deep and gradually increasing value for everyone involved.

All in all, a model worth considering.

~

Next month, we’ll (finally) finish this series by checking out the result of two different limited runs of Fair Trade. Until then,

Thanks for everything you contribute,

Yannick