Myron Martin discusses Smith Center’s fifth anniversary, subscriptions and scalpers
It’s difficult to believe that there was a time as short as five years ago that The Smith Center for the Performing Arts didn’t exist Downtown standing tall and proud and delivering dozens of Broadway shows and other theater previously unavailable to valley residents.
“That’s perhaps the ultimate compliment for us,” Smith Center President Myron Martin told me. “It means we’ve become a very real part of the Las Vegas community. But, yes, it’s hard to believe that we’ve been open five years. We look back, and the stats indicate that we’ve hosted more than 2 million guests so far, with 350,000 students.
“It’s been an extraordinary experience for all of us who have had a chance to work here. I think that our patrons are saying the same thing, that The Smith Center has been able to create opportunities for them to experience some extraordinary things.”
On Tuesday, The Smith Center will celebrate its fifth anniversary with a concert featuring surprise guests. Adam Kantor (“Fiddler on the Roof,” “Rent”) and Betsy Wolfe (“Falsettos,” “Bullets over Broadway”) are the MCs. The evening also is set to feature singers Jessica Fontana, Santino Fontana, The Rio headliner magician Teller and composer Frank Wildhorn.
Myron continued: “We couldn’t be happier with our fifth anniversary because Broadway is the longest road in America. On our opening night, our cast featured some of the most talented people on Broadway.
“We thought that it would be a nice way to punctuate our fifth anniversary by inviting a number of our friends from Broadway to come and be a part of it and entertain our supporters. Keith Thompson is going to conduct a wonderful orchestra for us, and we’ll hear some great music.”
I asked Myron to cast his mind back to when the founders sat in the boardroom: “When was the turning point that all the people on the board went from fretting about the future to knowing that The Smith Center had turned the corner and delivered something special? How long did that take? When did you know it was going to work?”
“There were a few moments that helped me realized that, a few points that I realized we dreamt really big and had these amazing ideas of what The Smith Center could become, and the reality in fact was better than the dreams we had,” he said.
“It was opening night when all of Las Vegas came out dressed in their finest, that humongous paparazzi line, with the biggest names onstage performing and that show being aired not once but three or four times nationally on PBS. That experience really was spectacular.”
“The next one for me was the first five-week run of ‘Wicked.’ The fact that we sold out a long run like that not only said to us but to our friends around the world, especially in New York, that The Smith Center was in fact what we all hoped it would be — and more. It was a place that not only can provide great experiences but also guarantee a certain number of tickets sold. There’s been a few more, but those are two of the bigger ones.”
The fun facts are staggering:
The first Broadway Las Vegas Season was announced in 2011. Now into its fifth year, annual subscribers is at 11,059. More than 2 million tickets have been sold for 1,906 performances. Two national tours have been launched from The Smith Center: “Kinky Boots” in 2014 and “Motown The Musical” this year.
PBS has telecast two nationwide broadcasts: the opening-night special “From Dust to Dreams in 2012” and Alan Cumming’s night at Cabaret Jazz in 2016. The premiere of The Smith Center’s first original musical, “Idaho! The Comedy Musical,” was last July and followed Teller’s reimagining of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest.”
More than 360 volunteers have amassed 33,546 hours. More than 85,000 valley students and teachers have participated in classroom sessions presented by local, regional and national artists, with 8,650 Southern Nevada teachers participating in professional development by Kennedy Center Teaching Artists.
More than 5,700 school buses have transported students to The Smith Center. And one statistic that really makes the news and noise is that the Carillon Tower bells at The Smith Center tower have run an extraordinary 21,750 times!
In addition to Broadway’s brightest stars onstage with other guests Tuesday, there will be an exhibit in the lobby, “50+ Reasons Why We Love The Smith Center,” with contributions by theatergoers. It is without doubt that The Smith Center has truly arrived on the Las Vegas scene, made a powerful impact, is here to stay and will get better every year.
That has created the double-edged sword of sold-out performances and ticket scalping. Myron is well aware of the problem, and for the first time The Smith Center directors are looking into the situation and pursuing ways to rectify it.
“We’re having internal conversations,” Myron told me. “It’s kind of a what happens if every single Broadway seat is sold on subscription? We think that it’s quite possible this year because having a season ticket guarantees you a seat for ‘Hamilton.’
“In fact, I’m hearing people talk about re-envisioning what it would be like to be part of The Balcony Club to sit in the balcony for Broadway shows because tickets are so affordable there. For the price of one ‘Hamilton’ ticket on Broadway, you can come and see nine shows, including ‘Hamilton,’ at The Smith Center.
“It’s pretty incredible when you think about the value of getting to sit in the balcony and see so many shows. It’s a little off what you’re writing about, but there are two things that we’re working through right now: One is the possibility of selling out all the shows on subscription, and the other is working through challenges that could come with ticket scalpers for ‘Hamilton.’ There will be scalpers attempting to grab any leftover ‘Hamilton’ tickets.
“The whole country is working on scalping issues. Fortunately, the Feds passed a law in December outlawing electronic bots that buy up all the seats before the public even has a chance to turn on their computer. We’re still working through trying to make tickets available to local people who want to come and see the show first.
“We are work really hard at it, so it’s not too early for us to start talking about making sure that people buy tickets directly from The Smith Center website because we’re hearing too many stories of people buying from websites that they think are the official website, but they’re not.
“They’re out there pretending to be our venue, yet people find out that they’re offering tickets they don’t have. We’re working on secondary ticketing and ticket scalpers, so people should be aware that they should make sure that they go to The Smith Center box office directly and not to a third party in order to avoid getting scalped.
“It may be a sign that The Smith Center has arrived as a real prize in the community. We have Smith Center tickets showing up on scalper websites all the time. It’s a real problem. We’ve had occasions where two sets of people showed up with the same electronic tickets.
“We’ve had a case of someone being promised on some website orchestra seats, and they get here and discover that their tickets are in the balcony, and they thought they had bought them from us. But they didn’t and they were mad at us when in fact they purchased tickets from a third party pretending to be us. There’s nothing they can do about it when they bought from someone who bought these tickets secondhand.
“It’s a national problem that our industry is starting to pay particular attention. By the way, I’m not against secondary ticketing. Like many others, I have bought a dozen tickets on Stubhub for sporting events and shows that were sold out. What I’m against is someone selling tickets they don’t have, and I’m against people pretending to be someone they’re not. We’re really looking into this and pursuing how to rectify it.”
A key player in the city’s support for The Smith Center, which included a donation of land for the center and Symphony Park, was former Mayor Oscar Goodman. Oscar said: “It was always our goal to have the finest performing arts center imaginable. The city didn’t hesitate one second as far as giving 1,000 percent behind the idea.
“The Smith Center has contributed to our becoming the world-class city that we want to be.”
