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:
The results of this survey likely conflate scalping, surge pricing and demand-based pricing - three very different practices:
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.
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:
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.
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.
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:
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.
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:
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.
Across the UK performing arts sector, no two organisations sell tickets in quite the same way.
A major festival may need to respond to rapidly changing demand across hundreds of performances in a concentrated sales window. A regional theatre may be balancing year-round programming with the buying habits of a loyal local audience.
These differences make the sector a particularly useful test of what dynamic pricing can achieve. Rather than relying on a single formula or pricing pattern, success depends on adapting to the way demand develops for each organisation, production and performance.
Recent DynamO results illustrate this clearly. Edinburgh International Festival and Watermill Theatre have both generated double-digit average revenue uplift through dynamic pricing.
From Edinburgh International Festival to Watermill Theatre, DynamO is supporting organisations with very different audiences, programmes and sales cycles.
Below, revenue uplift is defined as the additional ticket revenue generated, compared with what the same ticket sales would have generated with static ticket prices. These results sit within the 12-30% revenue uplift range DynamO is currently achieving across arts and culture clients.
Across its 2025 Festival, Edinburgh International Festival achieved:
With a concentrated sales cycle, multiple productions and significant variation in demand across events and performance dates, pricing needs to respond quickly as audience behaviour develops.
Leon Gray, Head of Ticketing and Audience Experience at Edinburgh International Festival, says:
“DynamO is a powerful and versatile pricing solution that integrates seamlessly into our tech stack. Most people view dynamic pricing as a commercial tool, but DynamO has helped us to not only increase our revenue but maximise attendance and maintain our commitment to affordability initiatives. It’s been really nice and refreshing to work with a partner that gets who we are and what we are trying to achieve.”
Between January 2025 and July 2026, Watermill Theatre achieved:
Operating in a very different market, the organisation balances artistic programming, local audience development and commercial objectives across a year-round programme.
These results reinforce something we see consistently across our work in arts and culture: there is no single demand pattern for the sector, and demand can vary dramatically even within the same organisation.
One production may sell strongly as soon as tickets go on sale, while another builds momentum much later. Weekends may behave differently from midweek performances. Particular seating areas, performances or audience segments may develop their own patterns.
That is why DynamO responds at a much more granular level than simply asking whether an organisation is ‘busy’ or ‘quiet’. Each organisation sets where and how its prices can change, and DynamO responds to demand within those parameters.
Responsive pricing should not be confused with surge pricing. Surge pricing raises prices sharply in response to a short-term spike in demand. DynamO works within a price range the organisation sets in advance, making measured adjustments in either direction across the sales cycle.
This can include increasing prices when tickets are selling strongly, but it can also mean taking a more cautious approach or moving prices down when demand is softer. The result is a pricing approach that reflects how audiences are actually behaving.
For cultural organisations, revenue is rarely the only consideration. Pricing decisions often sit alongside commitments to accessibility, audience development, membership, artistic strategy and ensuring that a meaningful range of ticket prices remains available.
Dynamic pricing therefore needs to operate within those priorities rather than independently of them. Teams can determine where pricing is allowed to move, establish appropriate limits and protect specific inventory or price points where required.
This means dynamic pricing can support stronger commercial performance without requiring organisations to abandon the principles that underpin their wider ticketing and audience strategies.
The results from Edinburgh International Festival and Watermill Theatre show what that can look like in practice: double-digit revenue uplift across two very different cultural environments, achieved through pricing strategies adapted to the individual organisation rather than imposed through a standardised model.
Send us 12 months of sales history and we’ll model your potential revenue uplift, free of charge. Get in touch through our contact form or email info@dynamopricing.com.
Dynamic pricing in arts and culture is more than increasing ticket prices.
For theatres and cultural organisations, the challenge is more nuanced: making the most of periods of strong demand, responding when sales are softer, protecting affordability and ensuring that pricing supports the wider goals of the organisation.
This is where DynamO comes in.
Our very first clients included leading organisations within the Hungarian culture sector, giving us early experience of the particular challenges that theatres and cultural organisations face when balancing commercial performance with audience development and access initiatives.
Since then, DynamO has expanded across Europe and the United States, working with a growing number of theatres, venues, festivals and live event organisers.
Our recent results with a Northeast US theatre and a Pacific Northwest theatre demonstrate how that experience is translating across the Atlantic.
From the Northeast to the Pacific Northwest, DynamO is delivering strong results for cultural organisations operating in very different US markets. These figures, taken from our latest client impact reporting, show the potential for dynamic pricing to generate meaningful incremental revenue across the performing arts sector.
Between April and June 2026, DynamO helped the Northeast US theatre achieve a 19% average revenue uplift.*
Across a longer period from October 2025 to May 2026, the Pacific Northwest US theatre achieved a 12% average revenue uplift.*
*Revenue uplift is defined as the additional ticket revenue generated, compared with what the same ticket sales would have generated with static ticket prices.
These results sit within the 12–30% revenue uplift range DynamO is currently seeing across arts and culture clients.
While each organisation, market and sales cycle is different, both case studies demonstrate how a responsive, data-led approach to pricing can deliver strong commercial results in a range of cultural settings — with a 5-7x return on cost.
Working with theatres in different parts of the US has reinforced something we have seen throughout our work in the culture sector: demand behaves differently from one organisation, production and market to the next.
The Northeast US theatre and the Pacific Northwest US theatre operate in very different local markets, with their own audiences, programming and sales patterns. Within each organisation, demand can also shift significantly between productions, performance dates and different stages of the sales cycle.
That is why DynamO does not apply the same pricing rules everywhere. Our technology responds to the demand patterns of each organisation, within the pricing strategy and parameters set by its team.
When demand strengthens, this can mean capturing more value from high-demand inventory. When demand is softer, prices can respond in the opposite direction. This gives organisations a more flexible way to manage pricing throughout the sales cycle rather than relying on static prices or occasional manual changes.
That flexibility is also what separates DynamO from surge pricing. Surge pricing raises prices sharply in response to a short-term spike in demand. DynamO works within a price range the organisation sets in advance, making measured adjustments in either direction across the sales cycle.
Our recent partnership with TRG Arts is helping us reach and support more cultural organisations across the US, combining DynamO’s responsive dynamic pricing technology with TRG Arts’ deep expertise in demand management and arts-sector strategy.
Alongside this, our recent Tessitura and existing Spektrix integrations make it easier for organisations already using these platforms to adopt DynamO within their existing ticketing ecosystem.
Together, these developments are creating more opportunities for US theatres and cultural organisations to access dynamic pricing in a way that fits naturally with how they already work.
We’re excited to continue building our presence in the US, while supporting more organisations across the global culture sector.
Send us 12 months of sales history and we’ll model your potential revenue uplift, free of charge. Get in touch through our contact form or email info@dynamopricing.com.
UK theatre venues have carried the financial burden of box office infrastructure, ticketing technology, and marketing - only to steer much of the dynamic upside over to visiting producers.
When most of the extra pound generated by smart pricing flows straight out the door, venues lose the incentive to leverage technology that could improve their entire pricing strategy, not just dynamic pricing. It’s time to break that cycle.
Join DynamO Pricing and TRG Arts for an exclusive commercial working session designed specifically for venue leaders ready to ensure their deals can keep up with the pace of technology.
What we will cover:
Why attend?
This is a direct, commercially focused discussion on how to stop leaving money on the table. You will leave with actionable strategies to take into your next season's programming negotiations.
