Ticket scaling and NGBOR

Scaling

A single average ticket price is fine for the first ninety seconds. An offer needs the real thing: each tier, its count, its price. Gross potential is the sum of count × price across every tier, and it is the top line of every conversation with an agent — which is why an agent asks for the scaling before the deal.

Two counts come off before anything is sellable. Comps are seats given away — house, press, the artist’s list. Kills are seats you cannot sell — sightlines, production, the mix position. Sellable is capacity less both. Comps count into attendance, and so into per-head bar and merchandise, and never into sold, so they never attract a per-ticket fee.

The deduction waterfall

gross            =  Σ  tier price × tier sold
facility fee     =  per-ticket × sold   (or % of gross)     never more than gross
after facility   =  gross − facility fee
tax              =  after facility × t ÷ (100 + t)          ← inclusive
after tax        =  after facility − tax
ticket fees      =  per-ticket fee × sold  +  after tax × card %
NGBOR            =  after tax − ticket fees

The order matters. The facility fee comes off first; tax is then taken out of — not added onto — what is left; the ticketing and card fees come off last. A 10% inclusive tax on $110 is $10, not $11. Rearranging the steps moves real money, and if a venue’s settlement sheet runs them in a different order that is a conversation to have before the show, not after it.

A worked example

Capacity              1,500 · comps 50 · kills 50     →  1,400 sellable
Scaling               200 × $75.00 · 1,000 × $45.00 · 300 × $30.00
Gross potential       $15,000 + $45,000 + $9,000     =  $69,000.00  (at full capacity)

Sold                  200 × $75.00                   =  $15,000.00
                      900 × $45.00                   =  $40,500.00
                      230 × $30.00                   =   $6,900.00
Gross                 1,330 tickets (95% of sellable) =  $62,400.00
Facility fee          $3.00 × 1,330                  −   $3,990.00
After facility                                       =  $58,410.00
Tax (10%, inclusive)  $58,410 × 10 ÷ 110             −   $5,310.00
After tax                                            =  $53,100.00
Ticket fee            $2.00 × 1,330                  −   $2,660.00
Card fees             2.5% × $53,100                 −   $1,327.50
NGBOR                                                =  $49,112.50

Attendance            1,330 sold + 50 comps          =   1,380 heads
Bar                   $9.00 a head × 1,380 = $12,420 · at 30% margin  →  $3,726 to the house

NGBOR is 78.7% of gross here. $13,287.50 came off between the face value and the money, and none of it was the artist’s or the promoter’s. The bar line is the reason comps are counted at all: fifty people who paid nothing for a seat still bought a drink.

Why NGBOR is the number

Every percentage deal that says “net” means NGBOR unless the paper says otherwise. The artist’s percentage, the split point on a plus-backend, the promoter’s break-even — all of them are computed from it. A promoter who quotes gross and an agent who hears net are twenty-one percent apart on this show before either has said a number they disagree about.

• A facility fee is the building’s, and it is capped at gross — a per-ticket fee cannot take more than the ticket.
• Tax is a divisor, not a multiplier. If your sheet multiplies, your NGBOR is low and your artist is underpaid on every net deal.
• A per-ticket fee is on sold tickets only. A card percentage is on after-tax money. They are added, and together they are capped at what is left.
• Kills change the sellable base and nothing else. Comps change attendance and nothing in the waterfall.