Life, 1917-12-27 · page 24 of 41
Life — December 27, 1917 — page 24: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
This article satirizes ticket scalpers and theater pricing practices in the post-WWI era. Life argues that speculators and box offices have exploited theatergoers so aggressively—charging inflated prices through various schemes—that they've destroyed their own market. The "goose" metaphor suggests they've killed the source of their profits. The piece identifies the problem: ticket agencies, speculators, and hotels were adding excessive surcharges (fifty cents to a dollar or more per ticket) on top of already high prices. Even wealthy patrons grew disgusted. The public responded by simply avoiding theaters, turning instead to cheaper entertainments like movies. Life's irony is bitter: theater managers' greed to extract maximum revenue per ticket has backfired, reducing attendance to near-ruinous levels. The accompanying illustration shows a man literally knocked down by theatrical ticket-buying expenses—visual proof of how punitive the system had become for ordinary audiences.
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Killing the Goose ONG ago, and time and again, Lire used to tell its read- ers and the public at large the only way to get fair treatment in the way of prices for theatre tickets. This was to exert a little self-control and not pay exorbitant prices to see shows that happened to be the rage, and whose managers encouraged robbery. The advice was given in response to constant com- plaints about unfair treatment of would-be patrons by the box-offices, ticket agencies or speculators and their various combinations. For years the public has gone on not taking this advice. Not wishing to be tiresome, Lire ceased to reiterate it. It was a good sermon, but it couldn't be preached too often. Lately, though, something has happened. Dire times have come to the box-offices, the ticket agencies and the speculators. The cause ‘has been variously identified as the amount of loose money that went into the Liberty Loans, the over-building of theatres, the objection to the nuisance of the war tax on tickets, the competition of the movies and a numer of other things, no one of which is probably responsible, although all er may have much to do with the prevalent theatrical distress. <a RHAPS as good an explanation as any may be based on the well-wora aphorism that you cannot fool all the people all the time. Of course the ill-informed and wad-possessing man from out of town, and the man controlled by some woman with her eye sot on one show and no other, can always be relied upon to give up any foolish price for the tickets they want. They have always been a quick asset for theatrical sharks. But even they are getting wise to the game that has been so long and so tuccessfully worked against them, and just now it is not so easy for the box-office, hotel agency and ticket specu- lator combination to push the prices of tickets up to absurd heights. The rest of the public seems to have reached the point where to a great extent it can do without theatregoing, except on occasions. Persons who used to be regular tors to the theatre have found it such an expensive luxury, and attended with so much effort and inconvenience in the matter of secur- ing seats, that they have given up the hibit and found other ways of securing amusement for Jess n.oney and with less trouble. NP SIP LOPE SOP LO SOP ANY of these did not object to paying the regular advance of fifty cents a ticket exacted by the hotel agencies for the best seats. That had come to be a recognized addition to the box office price and was figured on as part of the fixed expense. But when even the hotel agencies had to go through the rigmarole of telephoning to an alleged speculator to raise *L PFE * the excess charge a dollar or more on each ticket, even these patrons became disgusted. They endured the extortion when they had to, but they went to the theatre with a grievance instead of in the mood to enjoy. It had to be a super-excellent performance to remove the feeling that they had been robbed. It used to be that the av young man could take the young woman of his affections and her mother too, if that was insisted upon, to the theatre, and even for a bite of supper afterwards, without impoverishing himsclf. That meant pleas- ure for them and a continued interest in the theatre. To-day that is out of the question, except for young Croesuses and profligates. DD 2UEF Ceca 92 VES ee « 3777S HE foul-mouthed sidewalk speculator we e used to know has been suppressed by law, Gra his place being taken to some extent by the runner-in for the cigar-store ticket offices which thrive in the theatre district and are always supplied with good seats when the box-offices are empty. Even this gentry is suffering in these days when the public scems to have learned its lesson and to be revenging itself on the theatres for impositions and. ill- treatment in the past. The managers themselves are largely to blame for this atti- tude of the public, particularly those who in happier times have had popular successes in their theatres, Instead of doing everything in their power to protect their patrons against im- position and extortion they have adopted every means at their command to get the utmost possible dollar out of the public. Instead of protecting their box-offices and their patrons against the speculators, they have stood in with them to push prices up to the absurdly high cost that has discouraged theatregoing. Lately it has been the public’s turn, and, swinging to the opposite of its usual extreme, it has brought the theatrical business almost to the verge of panic. Presumably this is only a temporary condition. Whether the theatres in the future will regain the position they used to hold in public esteem depends largely on the managers. If they act like fly-by-night showmen desirous to get every dollar and get away with it, the outlook is not very bright for them or the public. If they are desirous of establishing their claim to being reputable busi- ness men they will do something to create and maintain a good-will on the part of the public by which they live. THE RECIPE — “TAKE THE YOLKS OF SIx EGGS—"! comicbooksseom)