Sony's Hot Ticket program brings live events to theaters at $20 a pop

If you're a live event nut but live in the sticks, listen up: Sony is about to bring live performances to digital theaters with its new Hot Ticket program. Sony will broadcast Broadway shows, concerts, and sports events to around 500 digital theaters, live and in HD digital projection for about $20 a seat. The venture will launch with Cirque du Soleil's final performance of Delirium from London and for the two of you who haven't seen it yet, Rent's final Broadway performance will be shown in September. We have to admit, though, this could create some fun SuperBowl parties with rival factions on either side of the aisle, Congress style.

[JAmerican @ May 22nd 2008 11:25AM]

Village People reborn lol

[shan @ May 22nd 2008 12:01PM]

Pssh, I'd recognize a cast from RENT anywhere.

[Ken @ May 22nd 2008 2:32PM]

Everyone's got AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS AIDS!!!!

[Flashpoint @ May 22nd 2008 11:35AM]

I'm glad some people enjoy this crap, because you'd never catch me in the audience of any of this stuff unless the performers were performing death defying leaps and tricks.

I wouldn't attend anything short of a bare fist deathmatch.

[Esat Dedezade @ May 22nd 2008 11:36AM]

...

[jd @ May 22nd 2008 1:09PM]

well, in Cirque du Soleil they do perform death defying leaps and tricks

[Grant @ May 22nd 2008 11:36AM]

1) How can they reasonably charge $20 a ticket for these kinds of remote performances, when the relative overhead to broadcast a show is so little?

2) Ticket pricing for live shows are so high because, among other factors, you have to compensate people at every business level. Will some of my $20 eventually funnel back to the artists themselves, or is this just money I'll be paying my local Cineplex?

3) In the case of sporting events, how will this kind of pricing structure change based upon local blackout agreements and in-market competition from pay providers like DirecTV and Dish Network? How can they reasonably charge money for this kind of service and not be in direct competition with satellite providers?

4) "The two people that haven't seen Rent?" I wasn't aware there were only two straight men left on the planet. Guess life just got pretty sweet for me. Ladies, form the line at my left unless you can find the other guy.

[Bradley @ May 22nd 2008 12:00PM]

I'm the other guy

[PSM @ May 22nd 2008 2:52PM]

I work on Broadway and am a member of Actors' Equity. I haven't heard anything about this yet except here on Engadget, and as it's kind of an unconventional way of transmitting a performance, I don't think the contract is really written to cover this situation. But in general any recording of performances, especially for sale, results in compensation for the actors, which would add to the cost of the tickets for the remote viewers. I'm not sure that would account for most of the $20, there's probably a lot of people hoping to make a nice profit on it. But you also have to remember that the people sitting there live are paying around $120, so the producers probably figure they can still attract buyers by giving them a 90% discount for watching it in a movie theatre (where you can eat popcorn, and parking is probably free -- actually it doesn't sound half bad!)

[Geoffrey Sperl @ May 22nd 2008 3:27PM]

Guess what? I'm straight and Rent is probably the best musical I've seen since Les Miserables. And those aren't even my wife's favorites (she prefers Miss Saigon). So little attacks like that are NOT funny... they just make you sound like a dick.

[Grant @ May 22nd 2008 5:47PM]

@ Geoffrey Sperl:

Lighten up, Francis.

[ZeroCorpse @ May 23rd 2008 12:26AM]

Wow. SOMEone is a little too quick to fly off the handle to defend his manhood against an insinuation that a love of the theater makes him gay-- Even going so far as to make a point of mentioning his "wife" in a blatant "See? I'm totally not gay!" moment.

You know what they say about the ones who are too quick to deny it...

Spend much time tapping out rhythms in the men's loo, Geoff?


(Disclaimer: I was a theatre geek, and I'm totally not gay.)

[jim @ May 23rd 2008 12:46AM]

Believe it or not, the auditorium rental winds up being the worst part of this-- if I'm Sony, and I am keeping the ticket costs for myself, I'm probably paying $1K-3K in a major market to take over a single screen for the duration of the broadcast.

That's a lot of tickets I have to sell just to cover the rental, never mind the satellite air time, monitoring, and production crew.

This becomes more viable if you don't have to bet $1-3K to see how many people in Iowa want to see Rent, and split the ticket costs with the theater.

But you're still looking at several grand to equip the theater to run all this stuff-- even if they already have a digital projector (about 1/7th of the screens in the US do), you still may need a converter box, receiver, new cabling.

I've been involved with a lot of these "alternative content" deals, and they're very iffy propositions-- some theaters wind up selling out three screens when they expected to barely fill one, other wind up having no one at all show up for the presentation. Sports events and concerts tend to do well, other stuff, not so much.

[OSnix*-geek @ May 22nd 2008 11:36AM]

NCM is already doing this with the MET, and fathom events. Not really new, I guess unless it's because it's Sony, we are considering this "news".

[T H @ May 22nd 2008 11:47AM]

What the FUCK is he laughing so hard at?? That pisses me off for some reason.

[shan @ May 22nd 2008 12:06PM]

He's singing, not laughing. http://www.siteforrent.com/abouttheshow

[T H @ May 22nd 2008 12:12PM]

I don't know why I clicked that link, but it was a waste of 15 seconds- that explained nothing. Yes, I know Rent is a Broadway show. Yes, I know people tend to sing their little hearts out in those. Does he look like he's singing? No. Are they singing at the moment? No. Do you know too much about Rent or were you trying to make a condescending comment..? Probably..

Either way, someone should go up there and punch him in the gut. =)


Is that Ricky Martin next to him?? Look at that face! What a smug lady.

[T H H @ May 22nd 2008 12:33PM]

what are you on about T H? your comments piss me off for some reason, someone should punch you in the gut (or the face, one can live and dream)

good job the world doesn't revolve around you really or we'd be royally screwed daily. Funnily enough, just because you don't like it doesn't mean the rest of the world hates it.

enjoy the rest of your day....

[T H @ May 22nd 2008 12:42PM]

LOL! Man, I'm not actually angry... and I never said that I expected the world to hate it.. or share my opinion.. nor did I say I "hated" it either.. besides the fact that it's just a photo. This is a place where I'm allowed to express my opinion, no? Something just struck me as annoying about the photo. Clearly my response annoyed you.. enough to attack me personally, which I find a bit extreme, but hey, to each their own.

"good job the world doesn't revolve around you really or we'd be royally screwed daily. Funnily enough, just because you don't like it doesn't mean the rest of the world hates it. "

I mean.. really? Bit much. Hope you didn't wet yourself with excitement while responding. Stop whining.

[phanbouy @ May 22nd 2008 12:58PM]

"I mean.. really? Bit much. Hope you didn't wet yourself with excitement while responding. Stop whining."

and previously...

"What the FUCK is he laughing so hard at?? That pisses me off for some reason."

hmm so he was saying something about whining. interesting...

[Doggabone @ May 22nd 2008 3:51PM]

It's curtain call. He's laughing at some twit in the third row whose panties are in a knot because of someone else's laughter. Uptight people give him the jollies.

Who cares why he's laughing? Probably someone else in the line cracked a joke, or maybe he had a good show.

[AC @ May 22nd 2008 11:47AM]

The guy in the middle has Got It!

[patsy @ May 22nd 2008 1:43PM]

Yeah, that's the Hard Man Cut.

[edgore @ May 22nd 2008 2:01PM]

I am pretty sure that guy in the middle is Jai Rodreguiz, who also used to be on Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.

[Geoffrey Sperl @ May 22nd 2008 3:29PM]

That's Jai, yes. And his character is Angel, the transvestite.

Come on, folks... a little culture. Is it that difficult to get some?

[J @ May 22nd 2008 12:02PM]

The Red Sox have been doing this with Showcase Cinemas for a few years. They charge some nominal fee ($7-10, I'm not sure) They then broadcast the game in HD and pack the place and they get aisle vendors to come in to sell concessions. The crowds are nuts. It's the only time that you can find a full movie theaters these days.

Of course, it helps that tickets to the actual games are pretty expensive ($20-$150 per seat) and you can't even get them unless you're very lucky.

[Martin Lund @ May 22nd 2008 12:03PM]

SWEET!!!!


"No Day But Today!"

[NoPeace @ May 22nd 2008 12:05PM]

Sporting events have a long way to go, since you can't charge for a rebroadcast of a NFL game, and satelite provides terminate contracts to movie theaters that do try to show pay per view, or other content....know from first hand experience.

[UncoolJohn @ May 22nd 2008 12:20PM]

Fathom already does this with concerts from the Met, as well as other things like This American Life live a few weeks ago, and random Anime movie showings.

[OSnix*-geek @ May 22nd 2008 12:43PM]

beat you to that comment!

[TVGenius @ May 22nd 2008 2:33PM]

That's great and all, but rather than target mid-sized cities where this would actually be a really cool thing and bring new events into those markets, they'll end up putting them all in large cities where Cirque's traveling shows have already been, and where the Broadway touring production of Rent has already been in the last couple years. Typical. You could put the same equipment in a theater that seats 400 people here as in a big city, and guess what, it'll probably sell the same number of tickets, since we're all tired of driving three hours to see concerts other than mariachis and has-been country artists.

Sorry. My 2c. *deep breath*

[garbanzo been there done that.... @ May 22nd 2008 2:59PM]

Wow! What a technological break thru! Drive to a theater, pay to sit in an uncomfortable seat, pay out the noise-hole for expensive-crappy treats(TM), put up with other patrons (even more annoying than yourself), and not be able to pause to take a tinkle.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a dream. I know it sounds Far-Fetched, but follow me on this.... What if we could buy HD TV sets, connected to a network of cables or satellites that would allow you do order and download programming of any type you desired, pause and rewind for a nominal fee -- or if there was an internet company that would mail out shiny-magic disks that contained HD programming. ???

THAT would really be something.

[Brian @ May 22nd 2008 4:24PM]

Who are those people and why are they holding hands?

[majortom1981 @ May 22nd 2008 4:32PM]

I would actually see the last perfomance of rent in a theater considering the actual seats are probably sold out.

[Jon @ May 22nd 2008 5:10PM]

And also I believe the original cast will be performing it! That's kind of a big deal.

[phanbouy @ May 22nd 2008 5:28PM]

jon, i dont know how to say this, but i'm kind of a big deal

[Joe @ May 22nd 2008 5:23PM]

This is assuming they don't push it back another 6 months :-p Great show though.

[Magallanes @ May 22nd 2008 6:08PM]

Gaijin 4koma ????