Before the performance, the spectators will be given a booklet and an envelope with a questionnaire and six 10-ruble bank notes. After the performance, they will have to return the envelope with the filled in questionnaire. As to the bank notes, their presence in the envelope or absence will show whether the given spectator liked the play or not.
The pilot part of the experiment took place last December. The Hermitage Theater and the Vsevolod Meierkhold Center took part in it. The plays were staged by producers Mikhail Levitin and Valery Fokin. The first results showed that people are ready to pay more if they like the play.
The experiment was initiated by Professor of the Higher Economic School Alexander Dolgin. He argued his idea in the following way: "The culture markets inform society of all kinds of things: the number of theaters, how many performances they give, what the cost of a sandwich in the buffet is, the budget of performances, who sponsor them, and so on and so forth. But they do keep silent weather spectators liked this or that play or did not, and what kind of spectators liked it and what kind of spectators did not like it. An elementary exchange of consumer experience in culture is absent." The given experiment is called upon to answer this question. The leading Moscow theaters, the Vakhtangov Theater, the Mayakovsky Theater, the Mossovet Theater and Satirikon have agreed to take part in the experiment. They are ready to risk and to learn the spectators' point of view of their performances in such a cool and clear form.
