When I made my post about the new TKTS booth in Philadelphia last week it occurred to me to check if Opera Philadelphia would be offering it $11 tickets for any seat in the house again this year. Sure enough, the next day, May 1, they started offering $11 tickets to subscribers, donors, and Opera Pass holders. Starting May 11, they open the $11 offer up to everyone else.

Prior to going on sale with the $11 tickets on May 1, they did offer fuller priced subscriptions to two of their venues ranging from $137-$666 for the series at the Academy of Music and $17-$166 for their Flex Package at two other venues. Both were promoted encouraging people to get their seats before the $11/seat subscriptions went on sale.

So to a great extent this is a matter of how important it is to you as an audience member to get the seats you want and how much you are willing to pay for them. If your risk-reward calculation suggests you can get acceptable seating waiting for the $11 on sale, then you wait and see.

There were some stories out about the return of $11 tickets in early April. There was also a video announcing the return of the pricing and addressing the critics. Essentially, they say they got the audience cross-section they were seeking and the attendees were invested in the experience. At the end a woman in an Instagram Reel says she saw everyone having a great experience. Opera isn’t dying, “it is just too daggone expensive.”