There’s always been this sanctity behind live stage plays, where you go to see it in person like you would a soccer game. All the events play out right in front of your eyes, the flashy moments and touching stories on the stage. Those behind these on-stage productions value the sanctity of attending in person to experience the performance live; While it is a unique experience to experience it live, in modern day these performances often get advertised online on social media, where anybody can see that it’s happening, but it’s only for those who live in the area and those lucky enough to get a ticket before the theater fills up. Otherwise, you’re out of luck; it’s unfair to a majority of people who want to enjoy these performances but aren’t able to because they don’t live around the theater and get lucky with buying a ticket.
I think recording these performances should become more commonplace among theaters as a way to circumvent this. It won’t be the same experience as seeing it live, but people will happily spend money to see it at all.
There’s the issue of piracy; movies deal with it, and people pay for tickets to go see movies in theaters still. People would pay for in-person tickets and digital broadcast tickets for that live experience, and recordings for the future would sell for preservation and to those who wish to support the production.
So many more people exist today than they did decades ago; there’s an audience for every possible way to experience a performance, and tons of people who want to do that get gatekept by location and luck. This reduces potential revenue by limiting the number of paying customers per show; with rising costs in the economy, it will become tougher to maintain this mindset even if people want to experience a show live. That’s why I think the solution to this is allowing recordings and broadcasts of these performances so more people can support production and keep ticket costs reasonable; there is a large audience of people who’d love to support the production of these fine performances guaranteed.
