Why have a Cover the cost ticket?
BBD|WT Development Director Rachel Oliver Young writes about why our Cover the Cost ticket option is so important in keeping live performance alive in Missoula.
There is nothing quite like the lights dimming and a curtain rising to pull us into the magic of live performing arts. In a world where so much of our entertainment lives on screens, live performance asks us to slow down, be present, and step into someone else’s world together. Each show is shaped by our physical presence interwoven with the performers’ magnetic energy and actions, creating an ephemeral experience that can never be streamed or repeated.
At Bare Bait Dance and Westside Theater, we believe these real, shared encounters are vital to Missoula’s creative life. They help us connect, reflect, and care for one another in ways that only live art can.
But good art doesn’t just appear when the curtain opens. It takes months, sometimes years, of rehearsals, collaboration, revision, and creative risk-taking. While much of the creative “marinating”, the dreaming and planning before rehearsals even begin, can’t easily be calculated into a neat box, each aspect of our work comes with a cost. Creating live performance takes paying dancers for their time in rehearsals AND onstage, as well as compensating guest artists, musicians, lighting designers, and stage managers. It includes rent and utilities for our intimate theater space, insurance and workers’ comp, marketing, and the front-of-house team who welcome you at the door.
That’s where our Cover the Cost Ticket comes in. This ticket reflects the actual cost of producing the performance if we relied solely on ticket sales to cover our production costs.
In our intimate 82-seat theater, even a sold-out run of 7 performances doesn’t cover these full expenses. If we raised ticket prices to match the true cost, a general ticket would nearly double, and we are committed to keeping live performance accessible. In fact, we’ve developed a UM dance discount on top of our student rate, and a low-priced Youth Audience Series, to broaden opportunities to engage with our bold, contemporary art form.
You’ll notice that the “Cover the Cost Ticket” varies by production, as each production is unique. Some productions have guests coming in from out of state for a week, during which we offer a flat artist fee. Other productions are 11 or 13-week rehearsal processes, with six company members and five additional guest dancers, and costumes needed for each dancer. Producing each performance incurs various costs, including box office support and our ticketing platform, credit card fees and Square fees, the expense of printing programs, stipends for lighting designers and stage managers, and hidden fees such as website maintenance.
Ticket sales alone don’t cover these costs.
Creating good art takes time. It takes care. It takes community, and our work is made possible through a patchwork of support: donations, grants, and sponsors.
When we ask for your support, it’s because the cost to create this art far exceeds what ticket prices alone can sustain, and we want to keep our ticket prices affordable and accessible.
Choosing the “Cover the Cost” ticket helps us close that gap. Thank you for supporting the full picture of what it takes to make dance happen.
If a Cover the Cost Ticket isn’t possible for you, would you consider rounding up or adding a small donation to your purchase?
If even a quarter of our audience added just $5, we would reach critical goals for the rest of the season. Thousands of people walk through our doors each year, and small gifts from you truly add up.
Your support helps us continue to pay artists, offer student discounts, host youth programming, offer community opportunities, support other artists and companies, and keep professional contemporary dance thriving in Montana. Thank you for being part of this community, for valuing live art, and for helping us keep the curtain rising.