We’re pleased to announce a new partnership between Watermill Theatre and DynamO Pricing. Based in Bagnor, Watermill is a regional producing theatre with a strong track record of attracting a wide audience. 

The Watermill team - led by Marketing Director Emma Bright - is excited to harness DynamO’s cutting-edge pricing technology to build on this success, and continue to maximise revenue and attendance.

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Increased efficiency and impact

After experimenting with manual dynamic pricing and making frequent updates to ticket prices, the Watermill team were ready to explore an automated solution to streamline internal processes, free up marketing team resources and drive an uplift in revenue. 

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Improved reporting

Through our conversations with Watermill and the specific requests they had for data they’d like to see in their monthly reports, we were able to update our standard reporting and roll this out across all of our clients. We’re thrilled to be able to respond to client demand and continually improve our offering. 

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Great shows that audiences love

Watermill Theatre are vocal about prioritising audiences when it comes to programming and their approach to accessibility. They offer a wide range of concessions, relaxed and BSL-integrated performances, along with discounted tickets for young people and schools. DynamO’s technology supports this work by enabling responsive yet responsible pricing that protects inclusivity schemes and encourages transparency. 

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Ready to explore dynamic pricing?

If you’re interested in learning how a partnership with DynamO Pricing could help your organisation increase revenue while remaining audience-focused and inclusive, reach out via our contact form or email info@dynamopricing.com. We’d love to hear from you.

A new report has found that 91% of live music fans believe that dynamic or surge pricing should be illegal in the UK. The Music Fans’ Voice survey gathered data from more than 8,000 music fans across 8 cities between February and March this year. But what does this mean for arts and culture venues and events? And how can we optimise revenue and attendance, while also managing audience concerns?

At DynamO we’ve been helping cultural organisations navigate this challenge successfully for years, so here are some of our top tips:

1) Clarify what dynamic pricing really means

The results of this survey likely conflate scalping, surge pricing and demand-based pricing - three very different practices:

• Scalping = unauthorised resale at inflated prices, often using bots
• Surge pricing = prices rise rapidly based on real-time demand spikes (e.g. Uber model)
• Demand-based pricing = planned, data-driven adjustments before and during the sales window, often with limits

This conflation is understandably driven by frustration from one-off, high-demand events - like the Oasis saga - which are not representative of how responsible dynamic pricing works in audience-focused organisations with meaningful and ethical pricing strategies in place - like most theatres! The survey responses suggest a lack of understanding around what true dynamic pricing actually entails - which is designed to balance affordability and sustainability, and can often include lower prices.

2) Use segmentation to build trust

So how can we get audiences on board with a practice that can ultimately be beneficial for everyone? Transparent communication and clearer segmentation is key, and can help you better appeal to both cost conscious and cost ignorant attendees. Cost sensitive audience members prefer to buy tickets for less popular timeslots if the same performance can be enjoyed at a lower cost, whereas people who care more about time constraints will pay more for higher demand performances if a certain timeslot works better for their schedule.

Some practical steps include:

• Offering early access discounted or lower price range tickets to loyal audience members or specific demographics (e.g. under 25s)
• Applying dynamic pricing only to general public sales
• Communicating the use of price capping and fairness policies up front so that audiences can make informed decisions

3) Cap premiums

Increasing revenue is needed to meet rising costs. Dynamic pricing offers an alternative to simply raising all prices and completely excluding price-conscious audiences - an increasing practice amongst a small percentage of West End venues. It enables you to make the majority of inventory affordable, and let the premium seats flex based on demand - with capped limits.

4) Reinvest gains into inclusion efforts

Dynamic pricing revenue could similarly be channelled toward support funds or access schemes, making it part of the solution, not the problem. For example, the top 5% of high-price tickets could fund free or discounted tickets for underrepresented audiences or grassroots venue support - redistribution, not exploitation.

5) Adopt a long-term, sustainable approach

One of the most encouraging findings from the report is that almost all respondents agreed that live music events are an important part of UK culture. In order to keep this culture alive, it’s important that we’re able to find financially sustainable ticketing models - particularly in the face of the sector’s “imminent burnout alongside significant skills and workforce gaps,” plus diminishing government and philanthropic funding.

Dynamic pricing isn’t a case of greed - it’s about ensuring events remain viable by implementing time and cost-saving tools, while matching value with demand. It works particularly well in venues and events with:

• Many performances
• Seating with varied desirability
• Time and space for audiences to plan purchasing decisions in advance

In music events with one-night-only performances, there’s a much greater sense of urgency. But as an industry at large, the cultural sector has the ability to take a more balanced approach - including pre-set pricing stages, transparent calendars and fair access tools.

Dynamic pricing checklist

It’s understandable that audiences might be weary when ticket prices feel unpredictable or even unfair. Your work as a venue or event isn’t just about transparency - it’s about building a sense of shared values and trust. If you’re looking to explore dynamic pricing and want to do so in a way that places your audiences at the heart, remember to:

1. Educate audiences with simple guides on how your pricing works
2. Reserve fixed-price or discounted tickets for members, early buyers or specific demographics (i.e. under 25s)
3. Set and clearly communicate the use of price caps
4. Reinvest revenue from high-demand seats into access and inclusion programmes
5. Use dynamic pricing only where it adds value - whether you’re looking to grow your audience, increase revenue or achieve a balance of both

If you’d like to have a conversation to learn more about dynamic pricing and how it could help your organisation achieve financial sustainability, we’d love to hear from you. Get in touch at info@dynamopricing.com.

Arts organizations are working under very difficult circumstances. The Centre for Cultural Value’s Culture in Crisis report illustrates how the UK’s cultural sector is “facing imminent burnout alongside significant skills and workforce gaps.” These gaps are leaving a workforce that is not representative of our society, and also exhausted teams who are not equipped for everything being thrown at them. There is simply not enough human resource to execute everything and so teams need smarter tools and processes that can help them. It’s absolutely natural to have a knee-jerk reaction to implementing anything new when you’re burned out and simply battling to put out fires every day. But taking a moment to implement time and cost-saving tools can help to fight those fires at their source so that there are fewer to deal with each day.

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“I’m too busy to implement a complex new pricing tool”

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With modern software and data analytics tools, dynamic pricing is accessible to any team, however busy, thanks to automation. DynamO developed a very straightforward and easy-to-use interface and provides free support and assistance. Setting up the dynamic pricing parameters for a typical theatre performance (3-5 different ticket categories) takes 2-5 minutes for our clients. Even very small theatres and music groups with only 1 person managing ticketing are achieving great results using DynamO.

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“We have lots of one-night shows and we don’t have autonomy on price-setting (we have to set prices in line with promoters / producers), so dynamic pricing can’t work for us”

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Dynamic pricing can be applied to a wide range of events, including one-time performances, festivals, sports events, and more. Predicting the success of a one-time event can be very tricky as success depends on multiple variables: big names, promotion partners etc. However, dynamic pricing actually helps to mitigate the risk associated with one-off shows or short runs. Over time it becomes a highly effective tool to support performance lifecycle evaluation and decision-making.

When first implementing dynamic pricing you can talk to your partners about whether they want to do it or not, and if not you don’t have to dynamically price their shows. Once you have dynamically priced a few shows you can show them the data to evidence the potential ROI they are missing out on and they will likely choose to participate, as we’ve seen with numerous clients in this position.

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“If the prices are always changing how can I forecast accurately?”

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Forecasting is always an educated guess about the future. With dynamic pricing, forecasting is actually more reliable than with fixed / static pricing, because it reacts to market fluctuations and generates additional yield on popular shows while boosting audiences at less popular performances / events. Ticketing managers can predict based on their past experience as they usually would. The only change they need to make is that they should expect better results both in revenue and tickets sold than ever before. A typical DynamO client generates 14-17% average revenue growth while reducing unsold inventory by over 20%.

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“We often have to paper / discount heavily at the last minute to fill a show, dynamic pricing will only exacerbate this late booking behavior - we want to encourage early bookers!”

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Dynamic pricing can help encourage early booking and aid in avoiding last minute discounts to fill an event. In many cases prices increase as the event date approaches and availability decreases. There are many logics that can be applied in dynamic pricing and it’s never guaranteed that tickets will be cheapest at the beginning of the sales period, or at the end of it, or anytime in between! While it can provide a kind of gamification opportunity to ticket buyers, there is not a simple and consistent rule that they can follow. With dynamic pricing they can’t just wait and be guaranteed a cheap ticket.

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“As a not-for-profit organization, I don’t think it’s a good fit - dynamic pricing is designed for profit-making companies.”

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All kinds of cultural institutions can benefit from dynamic pricing. Optimizing ticket sales allows you to break down cost barriers across your programming and reach a wider audience, while ensuring financial sustainability. Dynamic pricing strengthens any mission-focused organization’s pricing strategy. It can result in wider availability of cheaper tickets and longer periods of availability for high-demand performances. Organizations such as the Hungarian State Opera, Operetta Theatre, and Palace of Arts have demonstrated how beneficial this approach can be. With the additional revenue generated, these institutions can further improve service quality and invest more in their artists, creating a positive social impact.

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“Ticket buyers don’t want another layer confusing them - it’ll stop them from completing their purchase”

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• While dynamic pricing does introduce a variable, it doesn't need to complicate the process or slow down purchasing. Some people check the prices more than once before deciding on whether to buy the ticket or not, but the process itself is the same.
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• At DynamO re-pricing frequency can be set by the ticket inventory holder (organizer’s / venue’s ticketing team) and can vary between approximately 15 minutes up to days. More frequent price updates result in smaller changes in prices which means that most individual customers don’t notice, or the difference for them is negligible. Tickets that are already in the cart don’t change price even if there is a price update in the meantime for the rest of the tickets. Until the checkout process has finished (either  through a completed purchase or cart abandonment) the price of tickets in the basket will remain the same.

• Dynamic pricing is a useful tool as part of your wider pricing strategy to attract and retain audiences, it can complement your existing membership programs, discounts / offers, and multiple ticket categories.

• Dynamic pricing makes it easier for your audiences to get the best tickets, at the best price by purchasing directly with you. Dynamic pricing disincentivizes scalping and bots by lowering the second-hand sellers’ profit. If they buy a lot of tickets with an automated bot, they pump up the price for themselves as usually there is a limitation of how many tickets can be purchased at the same time.

• Implementing dynamic pricing is a great opportunity to communicate with your audiences and help them understand why this is beneficial to them. You can help them understand how it will work and how they can get the best prices and availability according to the models that you have set up. This may be about booking early, or letting them know that they will no longer have to rush to get seats at the blockbuster show. DynamO can provide guidance and support on this.