Arts Beat by Glyn Goffin
Cheap tickets now will fill theatre seats for years to come
As a university student, I never thought I’d get the chance to take in live theatre now that my parents aren’t footing the bill.
Instead, like most students, I turned to big-box multiplex movie theatres.
The comfort, the sound and the amazing big screen blew me back into my airplane-style seat, but I found the actual content of movies sadly lacking.
I needed more than transplanted Friends stars in high-budget romance comedies that had the same standard basic boy-meets-girl plot.
I started looking around for the deals.
With our entertainment dollars spread so thin, it’s easy to just rent a movie and call that your weekly entertainment.
But is this really entertainment?
The National Arts Centre has committed itself to encouraging a younger audience to attend performances and to realize there is a theatre outside of the big-box.
Students are now encouraged to discover the NAC’s world of classical and jazz music, and ballet and modern dance.
Grade school students have been invited to attend open rehearsals and the NAC’s Live Rush programme enables high school, college and university students to buy last-minute tickets to any NAC production for less than the price of a movie.
Last year more than 4,700 students capitalized by purchasing the discounted Live Rush tickets.
I was one of the 450 Live Rush ticket holders who attended the National Ballet’s performance of Don Quixote and the audience wasn’t once asked, “dude, where’s my car?”
Live Rush is a necessary nudge for young people, since most of them would rather sit in a multiplex than enjoy the finer points of life.
When I look at the stories in our newspaper’s Arts & Entertainment section I realize there are a lot of opportunities to take in Centretown’s fine art.
The Enriched Bread Artist’s free open house studio, and the Great Canadian Theatre Company’s “pay-what-you-can” weekend matinees are only a couple of ways art lovers can enjoy fine art.
These are more important in a larger scheme of selling tickets – they get people out to the shows and with any luck they’ll continue coming out.
It’s necessary to fill the empty seats in live theatres once again with warm bums – younger bums.
By offering deals to students, the NAC can fill seats, and more importantly, introduce a younger audience to live theatre.
Right now, as a student, I’m only filling a seat, but in a year I’ll have to pay full price and the NAC will have one more paying customer.
A commitment to youth at this time will ensure there is a paying audience in the future.