Daveed Diggs, Okieriete Onaodowan, Anthony Ramos and Lin-Manuel Miranda in Hamilton (Photo by Joan Marcus)

When it comes right down to it, the question isn’t whether people will pay outrageous sums of money to see Hamilton. It is who will benefit most from these stratospheric prices.

To be sure, ‘Hamilton’s top ticket increases to $849‘ is an eye opener of a headline, but considering ongoing accounts of people paying upwards of $1,000 per ticket on the secondary market, what such headlines were really taking note of was that the show itself would now be getting more of that revenue, instead of outlets like StubHub and Ticketmaster’s own resale service. With every commercial production having a fiduciary responsibility to its investors, it became almost untenable for the show’s producers to allow that much money to go to other parties, bypassing not only investors but the creators of the show as well.

The producers had previously conducted a repatriation of tickets that appeared to have been sold to scalpers in bulk via automated bots (which I’ve written about before, as has Hamilton writer Lin-Manuel Miranda). The show’s producers say they have now put in place measures to stymie such automated sales going forward, limiting purchases not only by customer but by IP address (which limits sales to individual computers or networks). But whenever there’s a valuable commodity that is scarce and undervalued, and Hamilton tickets have been both, there will be profiteers. Even these measures aren’t going to shut down the resale market. Perhaps it will at least put a dent in Hamilton’s, by reducing the aftermarket profits available.

Reportedly only 200 tickets will be sold at $849 per performance, and when I last went online to buy Hamilton seats a few weeks ago, I was already seeing original sale tickets at over $500. But no matter what, this is still a leap. To counter the inevitably outcry, the producers also expanded the daily online ticket lottery, making 46 tickets per performance available at $10 each, for those able to attend with little notice and the luck of the draw. Also noted was the show’s arrangement with the New York City Department of Education, whereby some 20,000 tickets were made available to schools at about $10 each, with the Rockefeller Foundation underwriting another $70 per ticket, still less than half the original asking price.

But as it has come to symbolise new musical and dramatic styles, as well as an embrace of diverse artists, Hamilton has also sadly come to represent the growing inaccessibility of Broadway, and indeed a great deal of professional theatre, from the widest possible audience. Even recognising the basic economic imperatives of supply and demand at play with Hamilton, it’s unfortunate that theatre has a new round of headlines that reinforce the idea of theatrical elitism and an economic divide, at the very time when so much of the field is waking up to the need for equity, diversity and inclusion on the stage and in the audience. Despite the move’s inevitability, it remains an unfortunate new price precedent. As someone who clearly recalls the outcry when The Producers introduced VIP pricing just 15 years ago, I’m quite sure it won’t be one that stands forever.

The expanded lottery and discounted school tickets notwithstanding, the Hamilton producers didn’t help matters when they made seats from the next block of tickets (January to May) available for exclusive sale for five days to holders of the very top tier American Express cards, fostering an elitism that contradicts the spirit of the show. As for why the tickets then go on sale to everyone this Sunday at 8pm, precisely when die-hard theatregoers begin watching The Tony Awards, it’s simply a mystery.

If the primary motivation behind the new record-setting ticket price for Hamilton was to depress the secondary sale market and undermine scalpers – less than a decade after Broadway industry leaders supported an end to caps on resale markups, helping pave the way to the current scenario – here’s a thought. Maybe some portion of the new revenue (which is at least $60,000 per performance, by my estimate) could fund a new Hamilton Foundation, literally enabling the show to fund its own outreach to communities which could otherwise not attend, perhaps even extending that largesse to other shows without the same means to underwrite discounted tickets. Then the Rockefeller Foundation could support yet other good works, rather than funnelling money to a commercial theatre production, however worthy it may be as art and education and however much it is discounted.

Hamilton was in a no-win situation, and perhaps with time they’ll figure out some new initiatives to balance out the impact of their new pricing structure. But as was the case with Book of Mormon, Jersey Boys and The Lion King, to name just a few, additional productions and time will slowly make it possible for more people to end up in one of the many rooms where Hamilton will be happening, without spending a month’s rent or mortgage payment for the privilege.

“I have a guy.”

I used to hear this phrase a lot, from various people not in the theatre industry, who always seemed to be able to acquire tickets to sold-out Broadway shows with ease. I don’t hear it so much anymore, because now everybody has a guy, whether ‘he’ goes by the name of StubHub or Ticketmaster Fan-to-Fan resale or something along those lines.

In 2007, when New York State lifted caps on the amount that ticket resellers could charge over face value, long-standing opposition from the commercial theatre community had gone silent. Only six years after The Producers had introduced ‘VIP’ or ‘premium’ pricing, using the argument that these higher priced tickets would make it possible for productions and artists to realise more income via direct sales, most shows followed suit, with their sales success directly correlated to audience demand. Resellers jumped into the fray, more openly than ever before. But now, with the rise of automated bots that gobble up tickets for sale online, it seems to be getting even harder for the average ticket buyer to acquire seats at something close to a reasonable price, even from the official ticket outlet, in the already expensive Broadway arena, if they can get them at all.

In “Why Can’t New Yorkers Get Tickets?,” a report issued last week by the state attorney general, the results of which surprised no one familiar with what’s been generally evident for some time, it was affirmed that a combination of preferred sales that limited the number of seats actually made available to the public, along with mass acquisition of tickets by bots, were biting into ticket inventory in a big way. While there are laws in New York against the use of bots by resellers, and a few fines have been levied, it’s going to take a lot more scrutiny to police such sales. As it seems in so many aspects of modern life, the people determined to get a leg up on everyone else, even when their actions are criminal, seem to be further ahead of the technology curve than those chasing them.

Theatre is not alone in this struggle; the same holds true for rock concerts and sporting events. But any given theatre is so much smaller than those venues that the problem seems more pronounced, as does the heightened demand that drives prices up, a situation most apparent today with Hamilton, which is enjoying demand that’s comparable to those experienced, in my theatregoing life, by, among others, Cats, Phantom, Les Miserables, Miss Saigon, the 1992 Guys and Dolls revival, Rent, Jersey Boys and The Book of Mormon.

So this isn’t a new story, even if it has been turbocharged by technology and made more apparent by the rise of online sales. It’s based in the fundamentals of supply and demand. Some theatre buffs might feel some small sense of pride that theatre is able to generate this kind of interest and desire. But in the process, it only emphasises how expensive theatregoing can be, even when only a few shows command eye-popping prices on the open market.

Broadway is a predominantly commercial enterprise, so it’s unlikely that capitalistic efforts will ever return ticket sales to something close to accessible for the majority; the real battle is over who gets their hands on the most significant part of the revenues being generated. However, just as dynamic pricing spread from the commercial realm to subsidised companies, one can’t help but wonder what’s happening when celebrities appear in regional houses, or when 200-seat theatres such as New York Theatre Workshop start selling tickets to Othello with David Oyelowo and Daniel Craig in the leads this fall. While NYTW made an effort to limit resales during its run of Lazarus by requiring photo ID to pick up seats, that will only go so far.

As someone who was extremely surprised when the commercial theatre industry ended its opposition to resale caps almost a decade ago, I certainly applaud efforts to put all ticket buyers on a level playing field and stem the tide of unbridled price hikes, both official and illicit. At a time when income inequality continues to divide America in so many things, it’s a worthy effort, though I fear a losing battle which has probably already had an insidious and deleterious effect on the perception of theatregoing as an entertainment option for all, even beyond the confines of Manhattan.

Somehow, some way, people with the means to do so will manage to get the tickets they want, when they want. They will always have a guy, even if their guy is now a silicon chip.

This essay originally appeared in The Stage.