Kia ora Basement friends, whānau, and fans,

Happy New Year and welcome to 2025! We hope you are well, and rejuvenated after a sunny holiday break!

Basement Theatre is implementing a few changes to ticketing prices that we wanted to share with you before you book your Summer/Pride tickets (line-up announcement happening Friday 10 Jan!).

After much careful and deliberate consideration we have decided that it’s time to raise our base ticket prices, and we wanted to take some time to reach out and explain why.

It goes without saying the price of everything here in Aotearoa has been going up and up (it’s a cozzy-lives crisis after all), and everything from the power bills to your favourite oat latte is more expensive now than it was a year ago. That’s why at Basement we do everything we can to ensure the artists who use our space and perform their incredible works are charged the absolute minimum we can. We are so proud of our Hire-For-Nothing programme which saw an incredible 81 shows perform at Basement Theatre in 2024. These 81 shows weren’t charged a cent for venue hire and kept 100% of their box office takings.

It’s these box office takings, however, that are now unbalanced. While we have been able to keep our costs as minimal as possible, that isn’t true of all the other costs artists need to cover for their works. Costumes, props, and sets all cost money to make and prepare. Rehearsal space is often charged at a premium. And recommended rates for artists' time and work go up just as the living wage increases. Even though the Hire-For-Nothing programme enables artists to take home 100% of their box office, artists have been struggling to make ends meet, and the profits from putting on a show just aren’t going as far as they used to.

We want to help ease this financial pinch, so the Basement team has decided it is time to change our pricing structure to help our artists sustainably create and share their work.

We are increasing our current base prices from $18 for a concession ticket and $28 for an adult ticket, to $20 and $30 respectively. While only a mere $2 per ticket, this small increase will go a long way towards ensuring the artists who come through our spaces can put on shows with more certainty that they can balance their books and pay their collaborators a fair wage.

“But Basement!” we hear you scream, “$18 is already a struggle for me and I want to keep seeing plenty of shows!”. That’s where our second new change comes in - we are introducing Early Bird tickets! If you book three weeks or more in advance, tickets will be $17 and $27 respectively, $1 less than our previous prices. We are adding Early Bird prices as we (and many other venues across the motu) are noticing that audiences are buying tickets very last minute. In 2024, 21% of audiences booked their tickets on the day of the performance. *Sweats everywhere*. Old habits die hard, so we are hoping that by offering Early Bird tickets in 2025, we will encourage audiences to buy tickets in advance. If our audiences rally around getting the worm, our artists will have more security that their work is going to be received by a large and encouraging crowd when they are in rehearsals and not when they are in the green room about to head onto stage.

“But Basemeeeeeeeeent”, we hear you cry again, “it IS a cozzy living crisis! I can barely afford to come out to shows, let alone buy tickets in advance!” Shh shh shh, rest your tired lungs. The Choose-What-You-Pay pricing scheme is still in full swing. Artists can opt for Choose-What-You-Pay for their show instead of the static prices if it will help them achieve the values and goals they want to see for their show. 48% of shows have opted for Choose-What-You-Pay since it was introduced in 2023, so there will still be plenty of shows to see at Basement if you’re on a tight budget.

To wrap it up, everyone at Basement Theatre just wants the artists we love to be able to share their work with the audiences that love them. And to be able to build sustainable arts careers for themselves in the process. So by making a few small changes every now and then, we hope that can continue for many more years!

With much aroha,
Basement Theatre

Photo by Ankita Singh from the Basement 15th Birthday Party