So Vineeta Aunty and I had a conversation, and basically what she told me is that the DCT only has 135 tickets remaining; they've already sold all the rest (the Section A tickets are completely gone). I was not anticipating this at all, to be honest; I knew Charlotte's Web would be a really popular play, but I didn't know it was so popular that people would be willing to reserve tickets two months in advance. This essentially means we won't get to raise as much money as we had initially anticipated because we will have fewer tickets to sell.
The other problem is that the DCT is giving us the $15 group rate per ticket, which is also not much of a discount. The typical rate ranges from $17-19, so they're essentially only giving us $2-4 dollars off. In addition, they're requiring that we pay $100 for a room rental, which makes it all worse because that's an additional expenditure that will take away from the total amount of money I raise. Based on my calculations, at this point, it seems like I'll only be able to raise between $1000-1500 (which isn't a small sum, but it's less than I was hoping).
What we've decided to do is buy whatever tickets are remaining (essentially making the play completely sold out, which I guess works in our favor) and sell them at the same rate we were expecting to sell them at, which is $25 (because $25 is how much is required to educate one child through Pratham for one year in India). I've been in an email exchange with Trish Long, the director of the DCT, to negotiate the pricing and ask if she can give us a better discount by explaining the reasons; she just emailed me back and said that she can't do anything else about the pricing because Charlotte's Web is such a popular play, which means there's very little flexibility. She suggested Mariachi Girl and another play, but again, neither of those will work because of the age demographic of our potential buyers/audience members and the coordination of times/dates with my final thesis presentation. She also said that $100 is already a discount from the typical $200 rate for the room rental, so there's no negotiating on that front either. She is being extremely kind and willing to help do whatever she can for this event, though, and I appreciate that.
I really hope we can work all this out in time, because we have to pay for and receive these tickets by the end of February in order to have enough time to sell them and get the word out. My mentor keeps reassuring me that we won't have any problem selling all 125 tickets and that the event will be a success no matter what, but I don't know at this point. We'll just see how it all goes.
The other problem is that the DCT is giving us the $15 group rate per ticket, which is also not much of a discount. The typical rate ranges from $17-19, so they're essentially only giving us $2-4 dollars off. In addition, they're requiring that we pay $100 for a room rental, which makes it all worse because that's an additional expenditure that will take away from the total amount of money I raise. Based on my calculations, at this point, it seems like I'll only be able to raise between $1000-1500 (which isn't a small sum, but it's less than I was hoping).
What we've decided to do is buy whatever tickets are remaining (essentially making the play completely sold out, which I guess works in our favor) and sell them at the same rate we were expecting to sell them at, which is $25 (because $25 is how much is required to educate one child through Pratham for one year in India). I've been in an email exchange with Trish Long, the director of the DCT, to negotiate the pricing and ask if she can give us a better discount by explaining the reasons; she just emailed me back and said that she can't do anything else about the pricing because Charlotte's Web is such a popular play, which means there's very little flexibility. She suggested Mariachi Girl and another play, but again, neither of those will work because of the age demographic of our potential buyers/audience members and the coordination of times/dates with my final thesis presentation. She also said that $100 is already a discount from the typical $200 rate for the room rental, so there's no negotiating on that front either. She is being extremely kind and willing to help do whatever she can for this event, though, and I appreciate that.
I really hope we can work all this out in time, because we have to pay for and receive these tickets by the end of February in order to have enough time to sell them and get the word out. My mentor keeps reassuring me that we won't have any problem selling all 125 tickets and that the event will be a success no matter what, but I don't know at this point. We'll just see how it all goes.
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