September Archive Highlight - “Pay Up - pt 1;

September Archive Highlight - “Pay Up - pt 1;

“You’re always Handing Me Money”

One of the things I like about returning to a given Festival year after year is the chance to build an ongoing relationship with a patron. Every Philadelphia Fringe, there are a few folks who will reliably look me up and take a chance on whatever I have on offer this year. Some of these do so because they are excited by the themes or forms I’m exploring — and a few do it simply because they try to see every Fringe show (for the record, this year that’s about 180). One such patron is a wonderful fellow we could call “Mr. E” —though I like to think of him as “the Mayor of Fringe,” as more than anyone else I’ve met, he really does come quite close to seeing them all. In addition to the respect I hold for someone taking the Everest mindset and running a theater gauntlet “because it’s there,” it’s a treat to meet someone who has such a rare perspective across many of my pieces (there are currently less than 5 people in the world that have experienced The Telelibrary, Fair Trade, and Undersigned). Sometimes, that perspective is comes succinctly:

“You’re always handing me money” quips Mr. E, as I see him after experiencing Fair Trade. While this hot take isn’t incorrect, it did get me thinking about how central experiments with payment methods have become to my artistic process. It also got me wondering about the distance between my intentions and the audience’s experience. And so, as Fair Trade wraps up its first run, Undersigned prepares for a wider release in NYC (performances are booking now, October 17th-19th), and Telelibrary marches onward to 1400 calls, now seemed like a good time to really dive into what I’m trying to accomplish, and to see if we can’t measure how much it’s “working.”

In future posts we’ll explore the specifics of each project, but for starters, I think it’s useful to track the goals that cut across all of these ticketing models.

#1 - Payment as a Lowered-Obstacle to Accessibility

The Telelibrary began within about a week and a half of widespread lockdowns reaching the United States, and from the first moment it was clear to me that a “Pay What You Wish” model was necessary for the particular moment. In addition to recognizing the sudden and stark financial need of people the world over (and particularly in the performing arts community), it was an acknowledgement of how my needs at that moment were prioritized. Back when the common understanding was that we were all settling in for a “quick two weeks of quarantine,” I was more invested in learning about remote performance and experimenting than I was in creating a solid line of income (see goal #2). I also recognized that asking people with newly infinite and highly uncertain time and an infinite amount of content to consume to give their time to me was a bigger ask when time was all that most of us had.  

While the realities (and duration) of our social distance shifted quickly and became more transformative than many of us could have anticipated, I quickly found that I greatly valued the broad access this model made possible.

#2 - Payment as a Form of Direct Feedback & Gathering Data

When sharing all three of these pieces with playtesters, I often ask this pair of questions:

“How much would you expect to pay for an experience like this?”

“How much would you like to pay for an experience like this?”

I’ve found that those can be surprisingly different responses, and beyond being instructive for eventual pricing, they help tease out much larger questions about what a piece feels like for a participant: how much does it ask from them? How much does it give in return? For The Telelibrary, even as I officially “began” the project, I was still performing for close friends, and so I decided to keep the decision of payment after the experience, as a way of continuing to gather data on what participants thought would be the best price.

This data is in some ways quite limited, as there are so many confounding variables present, ranging from audience expectations about pricing, to financial circumstances, to their mood on a given day. I’ve also found in conversation that this intention in particular can get lost; “Pay What You Wish” is often simplified to mean “free” in some participants’ minds. Still, as the number of participants rises over time, it does become possible to articulate an average “price” for such an experience, and to ask how far one feels that price reflects the experience, labor, and time invested. Over years, and as my priorities for these goals have shifted, I’ve tried to be more and more explicit about that invitation - in future posts, we’ll look at how that language has changed over time for The Telelibrary, and what effects (if any) we can notice in User response.

However, even as the framing around the invitation changed, I’ve found that participants have seemed to consistently appreciate the opportunity for payment to be a conversation, allowing them to communicate their own sense of value of and gratitude for a given piece — so much so, that these sentiments quickly went beyond mere data collection to instead become an extension of their experience.

#3 - Payment as a Space for Meaning Making

I’m a firm believer that part of the emergent ethos and “moral center” of Users of The Telelibrary is influenced by the ability to set your own price once you’ve had your own experience. I often speak about the work of designing experiences as being about affirming certain behaviors and establishing respect and consideration for participants: in The Telelibrary, I’m explicit with Users about the ways I am extending Care for them, and in return, they have extended boundless care towards the System, me as its maker, and to each other. This reflection of care is a major ongoing factor in the surprising answer to one of the earliest questions I tried to ask with the piece: what are the limits to meaningful human contact when we use technology to attempt to close distance?

As Fair Trade and Undersigned developed to ask very different questions, I tried to shape the payment methods for each show to better connect to the themes the larger piece is exploring: in Fair Trade, participants are invited to ask how they might renegotiate a ticket price; in Undersigned, participants are invited to consider the risk they are making in participating, and are told that risk will be mitigated by me assuming a risk of my own [1] : 1/3rd of the cost of their ticket lays waiting for them at the venue, in cash. They’ll have the option of taking the money and walking away, and I’m betting that they won’t.

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

Over the years, as I’ve told people about these various payment structures, I’ve heard countless variations of the sentiment that what I’m doing is “kind,” or “generous,” or even “charitable.” I’ve also been told endless times that it is a system that could only work for a single-performer piece.

And yet from the very first payment I received for The Telelibrary, I found that most Users were willing to pay more for the piece than the price I assumed would be competitive, attractive, and sustainable. Indeed, it’s quite possible that integrating consideration, participant agency, and creative expression into the process of paying for experiences may lead to higher profits. Several collaborators I know with theater companies have reported this to be the case anecdotally.

But how far is that really true for my work? Over the next few months, as we look at each project, I’ll be sharing data on how these 3 different payment systems have actually played out. While some of these projects are quite young, and thus don’t have the mountains of data present in The Telelibrary, I still think doing so will be informative, and will raise plenty of questions for these and future projects.

In the meantime, I’d love to begin gathering your impressions: what pieces have you seen? What has your experience been like paying for them? Do the goals above sound familiar — or did these Systems mean something entirely different for you?

Send me a message, or leave a comment below! I’ll take your feedback into account as I run the numbers these next few months.

~

[1] for the curious, the full text of the “Down Payment” System is included here:

“For Undersigned, participants are asked to make a "Down Payment," rather than buy a ticket.

What does this mean?

Getting a reservation for this experience is a risk. This risk is certainly your money; you are putting down $60, which is not nothing (in this economy, it's approximately .... 2 gallons of milk?). It’s also your time; 50 minutes is not nothing (plus however long it takes to get to Brooklyn). Finally, this risk is also your participation; you will be taking a distinctly active role in your invocation, and you stand to gain as much as you are willing to venture.

While Management certainly supports the business of risky business, in recognition of the gamble you are taking, the Management of the Undersigned will join you in risk: at the venue, there will be an envelope with your name on it, containing $20. When your experience is complete, should you feel you got more than you bargained, you will have the option to add money to it. You will also have the option of taking money out, and walking away.

The Management of Undersigned bets that you won't.”