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.
DynamO is proud to partner with TRG Arts to help cultural organisations build stronger, more sustainable futures. While DynamO provides the tools for agile, real-time pricing decisions, TRG Arts brings decades of expertise in strategy and demand management. Together, we combine long-term structure with day-to-day responsiveness, ensuring every performance works harder for both mission and revenue.
In this post, Peter Ling - Communications Executive at TRG Arts - shares practical insights into how demand management works, and how it can transform audience behaviour, ticket yield and organisational resilience.
At, we believe that an organisation’s mission and revenue are inseparable: growing one strengthens the other. To achieve that, you need more than hope that audiences will turn up. You need to actively manage and build demand.
That means using data to decide in advance how many seats to make available at each price, when to release them, and how to signal value so people feel urgency to book early. It’s about managing perception as much as product, and every campaign is a catalyst for behaviour change; when audiences believe something is in demand, they behave differently. By effectively managing this demand, our clients strengthen their earned income and attendance.
What is demand?
In TRG Arts’ work, demand is the level of audience interest in a specific performance, series, or event; and the opportunity to shape that interest. Through data, it’s seen in how quickly tickets sell, which seats go first, and how much audiences are willing to pay. But demand isn’t fixed. With the right strategy, you can influence when people buy, how much they spend, and how full it feels when sat in their seats.
Why is demand important?
Demand sits at the heart of your organisation’s success. High demand can optimise ticket yield (your average ticket price) and help you make the most of limited seating capacity. Managing demand effectively allows you to:
When your mission and revenue work together, every ticket sale fuels both your artistic and community goals.
How does ‘demand management’ work?
Demand management is the process of strategically shaping audience behaviour before and during a sales cycle.
At TRG Arts, this means using data for:
Done well, demand management gives you a strong foundation. DynamO adds valuable real-time responsiveness through its tools, allowing you to fine-tune prices as audience behaviour unfolds; combining long-term planning with in-the-moment action.
We’re thrilled to announce a milestone collaboration between DynamO and The Mousetrap - a genre-defining, historic institution and our first-ever West End client.
The partnership marks a significant step in our mission to bring cutting edge pricing technologies to the UK theatre industry, empowering iconic venues to increase revenue and attendance through dynamic pricing.
A new era for the world’s longest running play
The Mousetrap has been captivating West End audiences since 1952. Now, they’re embarking on a new pricing strategy, harnessing DynamO’s world-class pricing software to optimise ticket sales.
Seamless Spektrix integration
We’ve integrated Dynamo with The Mousetrap’s ticketing system, Spektrix, enabling automated dynamic pricing across their various performances, price bands and ticket types. With a sliding scale from full automation through to manual pricing approval, DynamO’s dashboard offers The Mousetrap’s box office team the opportunity to refine allocation of internal resources - all while boosting revenue.
Proactive price management
Our pricing configuration and real-time reports enable The Mousetrap to respond both quickly and strategically to audience behaviour and booking patterns, without compromising website user experience.
Audience-centred innovation
DynamO’s software has been fine-tuned to support The Mousetrap’s preexisting concession policies and loyalty programmes, such as group booking discounts - with lower and upper price limits maintaining fair and predictable pricing.
Interested in exploring dynamic pricing?
If you’re interested in finding out how a partnership with DynamO could help your organisation increase revenue and fill empty seats, get in touch using our contact form or email info@dynamopricing.com. We’d love to hear from you.
We’re pleased to announce a new partnership between Watermill Theatre and DynamO Pricing. Based in Bagnor, Watermill is a regional producing theatre with a strong track record of attracting a wide audience.
The Watermill team - led by Marketing Director Emma Bright - is excited to harness DynamO’s cutting-edge pricing technology to build on this success, and continue to maximise revenue and attendance.
Increased efficiency and impact
After experimenting with manual dynamic pricing and making frequent updates to ticket prices, the Watermill team were ready to explore an automated solution to streamline internal processes, free up marketing team resources and drive an uplift in revenue.
Improved reporting
Through our conversations with Watermill and the specific requests they had for data they’d like to see in their monthly reports, we were able to update our standard reporting and roll this out across all of our clients. We’re thrilled to be able to respond to client demand and continually improve our offering.
Great shows that audiences love
Watermill Theatre are vocal about prioritising audiences when it comes to programming and their approach to accessibility. They offer a wide range of concessions, relaxed and BSL-integrated performances, along with discounted tickets for young people and schools. DynamO’s technology supports this work by enabling responsive yet responsible pricing that protects inclusivity schemes and encourages transparency.
Ready to explore dynamic pricing?
If you’re interested in learning how a partnership with DynamO Pricing could help your organisation increase revenue while remaining audience-focused and inclusive, reach out via our contact form or email info@dynamopricing.com. We’d love to hear from you.
