The Aug. 19 article "Why aren’t more people playing at Branson’s shows?" by Gary Groman tries to dismiss the concern of the shows and other community members regarding the recent trend of visitors seeing less shows while they are in Branson.
Here are a few facts that should be considered:
1) There are more total revenues in show ticket sales if 7 million people see 4.23 shows than if 8 million people see 3.66 shows per visit! Even with 120 shows dividing the pie, at a $20 average ticket price, the sales results mentioned above would result in each show generating $55K more PER SHOW with the fewer number of visitors seeing more shows each.
2) The better marketers would have actually generated even more than this average amount, as they would have grabbed a larger portion of the now lost pie. Gary attempts in his article that the better marketers aren’t as impacted by the troubling trend. In fact, they should be even more concerned as they have even more to lose.
3) The lost revenues would have been pure profit, as there are no additional incremental costs of having more people in the seats for each show. Therefore, every show in town would have had an average of over $50,000 more in additional profit if we had less people seeing more shows. And, significantly more net profit if there had been the increased number of visitors seeing the old number of shows per visit.
4) As, or more importantly, the "trend" is heading in the wrong direction. Good marketers watch trends to determine if things are going in the right or wrong direction. If trends are going in the wrong direction, they try to determine "why" and adjust factors which might be causing the downward trend.
5) It is a good thing that the theater industry is concerned about this negative trend and is looking at the possible reasons and suggesting ways to halt the very negative direction of sales results for our most important industry.
6) Shows are the ONLY marketing edge Branson has over other tourist destinations. Shows are what makes Branson DIFFERENT than other tourism destinations. Differentiation is the key to marketing success. There are beautiful lakes and great shopping all over the country. What makes Branson different is that visitors can see over 100 live music, comedy and magic shows.
Of course, shopping and lakes ADD to the appeal of Branson.
But, without the shows, there would be far less people shopping and enjoying the lakes. So, the shopping and lakes business owners should be equally concerned about the health of the show industry. It is our goose. Without it, we have no golden eggs.
Ignoring, or dismissing the trend, as Gary seems to do and influence others to do, might have the same dire results as ignoring the FACT that you are getting fewer miles per gallon as you are driving into the desert.
Submitted by: Michael London, Branson, MO.
Editors Note: Gary J. Groman, a.k.a. the Ole Seagull is a columnist. His job is to try to put issues in front of his readers in the hopes, not that they will agree with him, but that they will think about the issues and how those issues could impact their lives and community, make their own decisions regarding those issues, and react where appropriate and necessary.
The column would not have been written had the Ole Seagull wanted to “dismiss the concern of the shows and other community members regarding the recent trend of visitors seeing less shows while they are in Branson.” Rather, it is an issue of such importance to our community that it deserves full and public discussion by the total community. To the extent that the column helps generate that discussion, and it is conducted in the manner in which Mr. London’s well written and reasoned letter does, it has served its purpose.