Abstract

This article is aimed to investigate the user willingness to pay and its capability of contributing a theatre company to reach the economic balance. To that end we carried out a sample survey submitting a questionnaire structured in two sections and with about fifty questions to 1200 persons. The questions were studied to get information useful to appreciate not just the economic value of the performance as a good, but also the users preferences and uses. A particular attention was paid to the state of uncertainty about the performance quality expected by the spectator and about the relative option value associated to the use value of the purchased ticket. A relevant result of the analysis, even in order to a price discrimination policy, is to observe that this option value is equal to a different willingness to pay according to the information implicit or explicit the spectator has.