Would you go to a play by yourself? Theaters are hoping so

Nearly 20% of Broadway theater tickets are now being purchased by solo attendees — double the rate from just a couple of years ago, according to audience data for the 2024-25 season from the Broadway League.

One major theater company is taking action.

ATG Entertainment, a live theater operator with venues across the United States, United Kingdom, and Europe, recently launched a “Solo Seats” initiative designed to make going to the theater alone feel less intimidating.

“We decided this could be an opportunity to design something specifically for those theatergoers, and maybe many others who may have been reluctant to attend on their own,” said Scott Kane, chief marketing officer with ATG’s San Francisco subsidiary, adding that close to 10% of the company’s local audiences have been buying single tickets over the past two years.

He’s also clear about what Solo Seats is not.

“This is not ‘singles night,'” said Kane. “If a meaningful connection happens, that’s a bonus. But at the end of the day, it’s really about being comfortable going solo to a show and enjoying it with people who have that same experience.”

Attracting newbies and old hands

According to ATG, 60 people signed up for the inaugural Solo Seats event — a recent weeknight performance of the touring Broadway musical The Notebook at San Francisco’s Orpheum Theatre. The $75 ticket included a discounted orchestra seat, a pre-show mixer with fellow Solo Seats ticketholders, and a complimentary drink.

Some attendees, like Maria Sakata, had never gone to a live show alone before. “I kind of love the idea of going to a show like how you would see a movie by yourself,” Sakata said.

Others, like Alejandra Monroy, were old hands. “I live within a walking distance,” said Monroy. “So usually I’ll just get a rush ticket. I just love seeing whatever is in season.”

Solo leisure boom

The initiative reflects a broader cultural shift.

Solo leisure is booming worldwide, as more people live alone, driven by rising economic independence, longer life expectancies, and growing individualism.

Social psychologist Bella DePaulo, who studies single people’s habits and is the author of the book Single at Heart, said the trend includes people vacationing and dining out alone in greater numbers, as well as buying single tickets to concerts, movies and shows. “More people are unintimidated by the idea of going out and doing things on their own,” DePaulo said.

Theater audience scholar Susan Bennett, professor emerita in arts at the University of Calgary, Canada, said theaters have an opportunity to capture a fast-growing segment of the market as they continue to struggle to rebuild audiences since the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Audiences haven’t come back in the ways that one would’ve hoped,” Bennett said. “That’s partly to do with being out of practice. It’s partly to do with the growth of streaming. And it’s partly to do with the general economic situation; people have less money for entertainment.”

The challenge with theaters taking advantage of the uptick in solo leisure activities, Bennett said, is that many people still think of attending live shows — and musicals in particular — as a couples or group activity. “Things like Mamma Mia! and Mean Girls are classic Girls’ Night Out,” she said.

Bennett said there’s a lingering stigma associated with going alone — especially for unseasoned theatergoers — and that more theaters should follow ATG’s Solo Seats example to make the experience more appealing.

“One of the tasks theater has is to sort of take away some of the perceived chance of embarrassment,” Bennett said.

ATG said its next Solo Seats event is a March 25 San Francisco performance of MJ: The Musical, and that it plans to further test out the concept locally over the next few months with a view to eventually rolling it out across the U.S.

Jennifer Vanasco edited this story for broadcast and digital.