Blockchain, while a relatively new concept, is becoming more common to hear about in the media and news. You may have heard recently Snoop Dogg revealed himself as the Twitter-famous NFT influencer, Cozomo de’ Medici or Tesla started accepting Dogecoin payments for some of their merchandise, but most people are still wary of this technology and how is it applicable to Broadway? “Broadway” is considered the home of the American theater industry and is located between 42nd and 53rd street, including Times Square, in New York City. The Broadway industry contributes $14.7 billion to the economy of New York City, on top of ticket sales, and supports 96,900 local jobs. In the 2018-2019 Broadway Season, attendance reached 14.77 million people, with many people seeing more than one show. Broadway greatly vitalizes the economy of New York City and the millions of audience members who visit a show annually, so how is this artistic giant entering the technological space of blockchain, cryptocurrency, and NFTs? With the pandemic shutting down Broadway, very few theaters with plans to explore this technology were able to proceed, yet as Broadway reopens, we are mostly seeing Broadway utilizing blockchain for ticketing services.

What is Blockchain?

Before going into detail about how this technology is being invested in by the Broadway industry, lets define blockchain and why it is so popular. Blockchain is a public ledger of digital information, i.e., it is a secure network on top of the internet. Information in blocks can be anything; a transaction, contract, ownership, identity, money, agreement, or anything that has some value. As each transaction occurs, information gets recorded as a “block” of data, with each block being connected to the block before and after it. Transactions are linked together in an irreversible chain, aka blockchain. Some characteristics of blockchain include:

• “It is immutable – it cannot be modified but one can append the block in the chain
• Data is encrypted and stored in a decentralized manner
• No redundant data
• No central authority
• Anyone in the network can see it using public/private keys
• No transaction cost
• Recorded with timestamp”

Many industries are turning towards blockchain due to the greater trust people have in the technology, the greater security it offers its users, and the efficiencies it offers businesses.

Broadway and Blockchain

The largest Broadway theater landlord, The Shubert Organization, announced its pilot program to utilize blockchain technology “to sell Broadway tickets on their website, telecharge.com”, in 2019. There are many reasons why the Shubert Organization might want to implement blockchain technology, yet two stand out and they both lead to greater profit for the giant theater owner. According to Lee Rodriguez, author of “Shubert Organization set… thwart secondary ticket brokers,” these two reasons include:

“First, is that it may help to eliminate secondary ticket brokers. For a ticket to be used electronically, the blockchain would have to be updated due to the security measures inherently within this technology. This data would ultimately give The Shubert Organization exclusive data about the true value of Broadway tickets and how many are resold after they initially sold the ticket. This data would then allow Shubert to adjust their own prices to reflect true market value by cutting out the ticket brokers profit, essentially bankrupting them. The second way The Shubert Organization could monetize the use of blockchain is through the data they would store and collect on the blockchain from their audiences. They could use the data to market directly to those customers or similar customers again, cutting out the middleman marketing agency.”

Data that Lee Rodriguez states can be stored includes:

• “Original ticket price, show, location, date, and time
• Who bought the tickets and at what price
• Subsequent ticket sale prices and buyer’s details
• Previous transactions, including buyer information and sale price
• Whether or not the buyer actually attended the show or was a no-show
• Fingerprints and/or picture of the ticket owner (and past owners) to identify theatregoers at the theatre entrance via facial recognition
• Data about the current owner, including age, race, height, sex, and Broadway ticket purchase history”

By using blockchain for ticketing, this eliminates the threat of being scammed by fake tickets. While concert tickets have about 12% fake tickets circulating at any given time, research has shown this is not as much of a threat for Broadway tickets. However, organizations can market their use of blockchain as an extra security measure for audiences. While COVID slowed down the trial of this technology for Shubert, there are some other considerations they may need to review before completely implementing blockchain. Lee Rodriguez continues his article to list considerations, such as:

• “Following an internal review, the other primary Broadway ticket vendor, Ticketmaster, is not planning to use blockchain technology. However, Ticketmaster is looking into it for NFL tickets, where the number of fake tickets is extremely high
• Ticket buyers may not want their data stored in the blockchain and have privacy concerns
• Secondary ticket brokers will have a tough time buying into this technology, if it is used to hurt or close their business
• Eliminating ticket brokers would actually raise the original price of Broadway tickets
• The secondary ticket market brokers often drive Broadway ticket sales. Without them a good piece of the total marketing effort is gone. This may ultimately lead to loss of demand for Broadway tickets”

Another Broadway theater, Roundabout Theatre Company, successfully launched the use of 22,000 blockchain-enabled, secure, contactless digital tickets this year by being the first Broadway client of a service called True Tickets. True Tickets is a “secure contactless digital ticketing service that can be tailored to a venue’s specific needs.”

“The data tells the story. Our audiences have overwhelmingly adapted to the experience of digital tickets. True Tickets allowed us to streamline our operations while promising to provide significantly more insights into who is attending our performances. True Tickets has been a seamless addition to the customer experience and has enabled us to take a big leap toward making ticketing a more strategic function. Moving forward, we can better understand and engage our audiences, explore the benefits and potential applications with additional distribution channels, and ultimately create an even better experience for patrons.”

Gabe Johnson, Director of Sales and Analytics at Roundabout

True Tickets also partners with the “Adrienne Arsht Center in Miami and the Dr. Phillips Center in Orlando”. True Tickets is able to seamlessly adapt into Tessitura, the ticketing software system used by many nonprofits, to ensure a consistent, positive experience for patrons. The Shubert Organization and Roundabout Theatre Company have varying degrees of success and positive reception to implementing blockchain into their ticketing services, however I do believe more theaters will shift as success becomes apparent and the technology becomes less elusive.

Blockchain and Other Ticketing Events

While we have learned that fake tickets do not seem to be roaming the Broadway circuit much, there is much higher likelihood of encountering them when purchasing a highly sought-after concert ticket or sporting event. The music industry and sporting industry have already experimented and implemented blockchain ticketing on a much higher level than the theater industry. The advantages these industries gain is no different than to the Broadway industry, Broadway is just known to be slower at adapting to technology. There are specific events that tend to have a higher need and greater success in implementing blockchain-enabled tickets, such as:

• The event is in high demand
• The event has a strong potential for ticket resale
• You want to control who can to re-sell tickets
• There is an active community of fans around your event

Another interesting aspect that ticket sellers can control with blockchain-enable ticketing is attaching a “smart contract” to your ticket. This would, in theory, allow an artist to set a price for an event and scalpers would not be able to change it by price gorging. How many times have you wanted to see your favorite artist in concert but it sold-out in minutes and the only available tickets are from third-party sellers with a 300% profit margin? Smart contracts would completely eliminate this issue for fans, as well as the potential of purchasing a fraudulent ticket. Ticketmaster is currently trialing this technology internationally; a successful run could completely change how ticketing systems work. “Ticketmaster is used by some of the world’s most renowned artists and high-profile events in the entertainment industry.” Many Broadway shows utilize Ticketmaster to sell their tickets, so if Ticketmaster decides to widely implement this technology, many theaters will have no choice but to follow suit.

Blockchain, and Cryptocurrency, and NFTs, Oh, My!

We already are seeing how this technology is taking shape with selling Broadway tickets, however there are some other forms of blockchain that may make their way to The Great White Way in the near future. Very few people are experimenting with these technologies currently, but there are some interesting uses. The producers behind Slave Play and Ratatouille: The TikTok Musical, Seaview, are bringing non-fungible tokens (NFTs) to Broadway. Seaview describes NFTs as, “Digital assets, including photos, videos, GIFs, tweets or digital designs, which are then sold and resold on the blockchain using cryptocurrency.” Seaview, in partnership with a few other companies, have created an online platform to sell Broadway memorabilia as NFTs. Now, fans can purchase their Broadway gifts and souvenirs in the form of NFTs, along with their typical t-shirt or tote bag. The Wrong Man, a new Broadway musical slated to open in 2023, will open its own NFT webstore that features collector’s items surrounding the musical. While physical souvenir stands in Broadway theaters are not going anywhere anytime soon, there may be more emerging NFT webstores for specific shows working in tandem with tangible merchandise. What these companies hope to accomplish by creating Broadway NFT marketplaces is “to develop an industry presence in the emerging technology space and to potentially provide another revenue stream for Broadway businesses“. Another interesting future includes the use of cryptocurrency to invest in Broadway-bound productions. Producers have to follow pretty strict laws to find accredited investors when looking for financial backing for a new production. This is to ensure security for both parties involved. While these laws are not established for accredited investors using cryptocurrency “assets”, this realm may need to establish guidelines as we may one day see cryptocurrency being used as funding by Broadway producers.

Conclusion

Blockchain technology is infiltrating many industries due to its many advantages, such as greater trust, greater security, improving operations, improving efficiencies, and greater opportunity for profit within businesses. While Broadway is on the slower side to adapt to innovative technology, the implementation of blockchain within their ticketing systems is prevalent and expanding. This tool allows greater control for theaters and producers to track their tickets, as well as gather data on their audiences. Blockchain-enable tickets completely removes the chance of purchasing a fake ticket, as well as attempts to control third-party price gauging. While there are many advantages to this technology, theaters should still consider how their audiences will respond in regard to their data privacy and if a greater control on pricing will negatively affect the Broadway economy. Blockchain has made its Broadway debut and will not be leaving anytime soon, so it is important to work out any challenges while it is still being integrated into common ticketing systems.

Bibliography

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As new virtual technologies make their way into the arts and on-stage, there is a much more tangible technology currently being utilized in theater and most audience members do not even realize they are watching it. Like many technological ideas, the concept of 3D printing has been around much longer than the actual capability to print, however this technology has become much more accessible as it has been further developed. It is often used to build props in theater and film, design scale model sets, and offer solutions to lighting design problems on the West End. While these creations are evolving the theater industry, the use is still relatively restricted to printing smaller items. As 3D printing expands into construction and printing on a large scale, will there be a future where 3D printing in the theater goes beyond props and will be used to create full-scale Broadway theatrical sets?

What is 3D printing?

3D printing, otherwise known as additive manufacturing, is the process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital file. Although the concept of 3D printing has existed since 1945, it was put into early practice in 1971. It starts with a 3D model either created from the ground up or downloaded from a 3D library, then it needs to be uploaded to a 3D printing software. As this technology has developed, a lot of software has too. This provides a variety of options depending on what you are using 3D printing for. Tinkercad is a free version that works on your browser and provides lessons for beginners. After the printing software makes your file “printable”, it needs to be put through a slicing software before it can be fed to a 3D printer. Slicing is the process of, quite literally, slicing your 3D model into hundreds or thousands of pieces so the printer can print layer by layer. Once the slicing process is done, the file is ready to be fed to the printer by USB or Wi-Fi where the object will be built layer by layer. Early 3D printers were only able to print a resin or plastic like material, however advancements have made it possible for sturdier alternatives like concrete or metal alloys to be printed with the right equipment. As 3D printing is ever-growing in demand, it is estimated the 3D global printing market will reach $41 billion by 2026 and transform every major industry. It is common to see the use of 3D printing in consumer products, industrial products, dental products, reconstructing fossils, replicating ancient artifacts, movie props, and much more.

Theatrical Props

3D printers are starting to become an item you may see in a small-town theater workshop and even some university theater programs have made printer purchases due to the benefits they bring. Productions sometimes require very specific props that are either too expensive, will take too long to find, cannot be built, or even do not exist anymore. The solution is 3D printing. Once a digital 3D model is created and sliced, it can be sent to the printer which saves a lot of time and money for the theater. Additionally, once an item is printing, that person can go do other tasks with their day. Even Broadway is starting to adapt to this technology and we are seeing it on more stages. In Head Over Heels the Musical, there is a scene that involves a full vase of flowers to fall and break every night. It would be too expensive and infeasible to replace this vase every show, so they came up with a digital design that was 3D printed with the edges of the vase magnetized. This made the vase able to break in the same way and put back together show after show. Another amazing feat of 3D printing for the stage was for a production of Don Pasquale by Donizetti at the famous opera house, La Scala. The designer wanted the lead soprano to fly over “Rome” at the end of the first act in a rare 1950s convertible Lancia Aurelia B24. There was no way to secure or build this real car, nor be able to make it “fly” on-stage while holding an opera singer. In 85 hours, the Lancia Aurelia B24 was printed with everything it intended to do. It rolled on-stage, the doors were able to be opened, the engine “smoked”, and was able to fly with the opera singer over “Rome”.

Scale Model Set Design

When designers for a production present their ideas, they will often use online renderings and some kind of physical scale model to showcase their ideas to the director, producers, and other designers. It can be tedious putting together a scale model of a set design because everything is miniaturized and details that small can be hard to get right. Remember making those shoebox book reports in elementary school? Well, this is pretty similar with just more precision in the scale. It was hard then and is hard now. If a designer only presents an online rendering, it can be difficult to get a sense of the space that only a physical model can provide. Many designers have been solving this problem by utilizing 3D printing for their scale models. They are able to create what they need for their design, including all the specific details that could never be captured by building it by hand. If the director wants to change an element of the design, the designer can just update the 3D model file and reprint the new version which saves a lot of time and allows for quicker turnaround. Additionally, if a designer is not comfortable building new digital 3D models, many files exist online for things that may be standard design elements like chairs, stairs, tables, and doors. It is important to use this technology only when it saves time, money, and improves the quality of our work. While the printing of these items may take hours, the supervision it requires is minutes, freeing up lots of time.

3D Printing in the Entertainment Industry

As 3D printing is slowly integrating into theatrical design processes, it has been wildly adopted by one of the largest entertainment industry franchises, Disney’s Marvel Studios. They are utilizing this technology to make props and costumes across many movies. In Iron Man 2, the entirety of Robert Downey Jr.’s Iron Man suit was 3D printed and painted. In Avengers: Infinity War, Chris Hemsworth’s hammer used for Thor was 3D printed in 34 pieces that were perfectly sized for his dimensions. Additionally, the costume of Queen Ramonda of Wakanda in Black Panther and the armor costume for the character Korath in Guardians of the Galaxy were both 3D printed. Hollywood operates on a very tight schedule and wasted time is lost money. If a director did not like the look of a prop or costume or something broke, it would take multiple days to have the problem resolved. With 3D printing, the model can be updated and reprinted in a matter of hours.

3D Printing in Construction

Up until now we have discussed 3D printing on a relatively small scale, however 3D printers are starting to be used to print large-scale structures, like houses. The material being printed is most often concrete out of 3D printers that are too large to fit in your standard theater workshop. There are a ton of pros to using 3D printing in construction like speed, waste reduction, design freedom, and a reduction of human error. A building can be made in a matter of days and since 3D printing is an additive process, a lot of waste is reduced due to the structure being built layer by layer. With all the benefits this technological advancement offers, there are still some challenges when considering utilizing 3D printing in construction. For example, to adopt this technology on construction sites it comes with a high cost of purchasing or renting the equipment, as well as coordinating the logistics of moving the equipment to the construction site. Other challenges are labor shortages of people specifically trained with this technology, quality control, and regulations. As any new technology enters an industry, it takes time for it to be widely adopted and implemented in a safe, controlled way. Using 3D printing on this large of scale is still new and will take some time to work out the challenges.

The First 3D Printed Scenography

Now we know that 3D printing can be used to build large structures like buildings and house, can this be applied to theatrical scenography or Broadway theatrical sets? Well, this technology has not been commonly used in this way yet, however one Opera Theater in Rome may be the first to have experimented with this. In their production of Fra Diavolo by Daniel Auber, the scenographer created a small-scale model of two deformed historical buildings with large facades, windows, doors, and terraces. The opera teamed up with a 3D printing company to have this printed at a large enough scale to fit their theater. The design had to be split into 223 pieces to be printed on 5 printers. The process took three months to complete. The pieces were transported from the warehouse they were being printed to the theater where they were assembled. The printers met their deadline and there was no error made that couldn’t be quickly fixed.

Conclusion

3D printing is making its way into the theatrical world, as well as the entertainment industry in very practical ways, however it will take some more time to see this technology being utilized to build Broadway theatrical sets. Many New York City workshops do not have the space to store a printer with the capacity to print at such a large-scale, nor is it a possibility to purchase and store multiple printers to be able to break the print project up in pieces. Additionally, fore-fronting any technology into a new ability costs a lot of money because it is not readily used. Purchasing equipment, training enough labor to utilize the equipment, and regulating it with different theatrical unions all take a lot of time. So, while I do not see this technology being utilized in this way anytime soon, I do see a future where this becomes more normalized with the possibility of one or two New York City scene shops specializing in only 3D printing. Until then, I believe it will be more common to see theaters and universities that own their own 3D printer and theater tech students being trained on how to create and support a theater’s 3D printing capability.

References

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