What each membership level costs the club and what it returns, 2023 through 2025 — and the case for restructuring dues and reactivating lapsed members.
Membership fell by 57 over three years while the value of member benefits consumed rose by $116,000. Two of the four tiers now lose money on every member they add.
Platinum net contribution, 2025
−$108,765
Benefit consumed per Platinum member
$11,158
Total benefit given, 2025
$573,523
Members, 2023 → 2025
667 → 610
A net loss of 57, concentrated entirely in Basic.
Two numbers in this analysis are judgments, not facts. Set them here and every figure below updates.
100% — at 100% every free seat counts as a lost full-price sale. Lower it to credit the club for seats that would have gone empty.
0% — current rates: $250 Basic, $750 Sponsor, $1,500 Patron, $3,000 Platinum.
The single most consequential judgment in this analysis is the first slider. Below is the point at which each level crosses from profitable to unprofitable, at the dues rate currently set. Read it as: this level only loses money if you believe more than X% of its discounted seats would otherwise have sold.
| Level | Tipping point | Reading |
|---|
Net contribution is dues collected plus ticket revenue plus food and beverage, less the value of benefits given.
| Level | Members | Dues | Tickets | F&B | Benefit given | Net |
|---|
Bars right of the line earn the club money. Bars left of it cost the club money.
The gap between these two bars is the whole argument. In Basic the dues bar is taller. In Platinum it is a fraction of the benefit bar.
Membership and benefit value moved in opposite directions.
| Level | Members 2023 | Members 2025 | Change | Benefit 2023 | Benefit 2025 | Change |
|---|
The same figures divided by the number of members in each level — what one additional member of each kind is worth.
| Level | Dues per member | Seats used | Benefit per member | Net per member | Break-even dues |
|---|
Break-even dues is the annual rate at which a level would stop losing money, holding behavior constant. It is a ceiling on the argument, not a recommendation — members who consume 251 seats a year would not renew at that price, which is itself the finding.
Straight-line projection from the three observed years, assuming current dues rates and no change in member behavior.
A projection from three points is a direction, not a forecast. Its value is the sign of the slope: on the current structure, total net contribution declines while the value of benefits given continues to rise.
Members. Counted as unique customer IDs holding a paid membership in that year. Membership revenue is the sum of all dues recorded, which is slightly higher than members × rate because a small number of customers appear more than once in a year.
Benefit given. For each member ticket, the full non-member price for that same performance and price level is taken from standard "Reserved" sales, multiplied by seats, and the amount actually paid is subtracted. Where a performance has no standard sales, the median price for that price level in that year is used.
The counterfactual. Benefit given is a face value. It answers "what were these seats worth at the box office," not "what would the club have collected without the program." The slider above exists because the honest answer to the second question is a judgment the board is better placed to make than the data is.
Food and beverage. Only spend attached to a customer ID on a ticketed order is included, so member food and beverage is a floor rather than a total. Table checks not linked to a ticket buyer cannot be attributed to any level.
Ticket revenue is the base ticket amount, excluding convenience fees.