Comps: who gets free tickets, and keeping count

Sponsors, cast, crew and volunteers all deserve a seat. A comp list, a limit per show, and how to give them so they never crowd out paying families.

May 26, 2026 · 5 min read

The comp requests start about two weeks out. The sponsor who paid for the programs would like ten. The volunteer running the lights wants two for their parents. The choreographer's partner, the local paper, the venue's manager, a former teacher. Each one is a reasonable ask, and each one gets a yes in a hallway, a text or a parking lot.

Then it's Saturday night, a sold-out show, and forty people at the door say "I'm on the list." There is no list. There's your memory, two teachers' memories and a sticky note on the box office window. Paying families stand at the back.

Comps are a good thing. They thank people who earned it, and they put the right faces in the room. They just need the same care as the tickets you sell.

Who gets one

Decide the categories before the first request, write them down, and you'll never have to decide on the spot.

• Sponsors. Whatever the sponsorship includes, in writing. A $500 sponsor might get four seats to one show; a $2,000 sponsor eight, spread over two. Put it in the sponsorship letter so nobody negotiates in the lobby.
• Cast and crew. A theatre company's actors usually get one or two comps each, often for a particular night rather than any night. Dance and music studios mostly skip this: the performers' families buy tickets like everyone else, often first.
• Volunteers. The parent running the door all evening doesn't need a seat to that show. They need one to another show, or a comp for their partner to watch while they work. Ask which.
• Teachers and staff. One each, for a show they aren't working. More if they're choreographing and want their own family there.
• The venue. Read the contract: some halls require a few house seats for their own staff or management.
• Press, the photographer, the videographer. The videographer needs a spot, not a seat, and that spot usually costs you two or three seats of sightline. Budget it separately.

Who doesn't get one: a friend of a friend, anyone who asks at the door, and the families of performers. They're your best buyers, and a comp for one is a reason for every family to ask.

A limit per show

Pick a number before anyone asks, per show, and stick to it. Five percent of the seats is a reasonable ceiling for most community shows.

Say you've got four performances in a 350-seat hall. Five percent is 17 comps a show, 68 in all. That's plenty for sponsors, crew and volunteers, and it leaves 333 seats a show to sell.

What a comp costs depends entirely on whether the show would have sold out:

So steer comps to the show that won't sell out. "We'd love to have you on Saturday afternoon" costs nothing; "on Friday night" costs real money. Most people accept the show they're offered, especially if you say it nicely and early.

How to give them

Every comp is given the same way, whoever it's for:

1. To a name, for one show. Not "four for the sponsor": four for Bank Street Bakery, Saturday 2 PM.
2. With a reason. Sponsor, crew, volunteer, other. You'll want the count by reason afterwards.
3. Out of the show's capacity, exactly like a sold ticket. A comp that doesn't count against capacity is how a 350-seat show ends up with 380 people.
4. Confirmed in writing, with a deadline for names if the sponsor hasn't given them yet.

The wording for a sponsor, ready to copy:

Thank you again for sponsoring this year's show. We've set aside 4 seats for Saturday, June 13 at 2 PM, under Bank Street Bakery. Could you let us know by Friday, June 5 if you'll use them? After that we'll release them to our families.

And for a volunteer who asks for a seat to a show they're working: "You'll be on the door all evening, so let's get you a seat to Sunday's show instead. Two?"

Keeping count

One person holds the comp list. Not three teachers with good intentions. Every request goes to them, and nobody else promises a seat.

It's in the same place as the sales. If comps live on a sticky note and sales live in the ticket system, the system will cheerfully sell your last 17 seats and the door will have 17 extra people. Comps belong in the count the moment they're given.

Release what isn't claimed. A week out, anything a sponsor hasn't confirmed goes back on sale. Unclaimed comps on a sold-out show are the most expensive empty seats you'll ever have.

After the show, look at who came. If a sponsor took eight and four came, next year offer four and ask for names first.

Making sure they don't fill the show

The quiet risk with comps isn't one big giveaway. It's twenty small ones, each fine on its own, that together take the last row the families were going to buy.

A few habits stop it:

• Give comps before the family presale opens (more in a family presale), so what families see is what's really left.
• Never comp a show that's already sold out. Offer another one.
• Hold no more than you've budgeted. When a show's 17 are gone, the next request goes to the slower show, or waits.

In Caletan

In Caletan, comps are given by staff from a show's More, to a name, with how many and why: a sponsor, cast and crew, a volunteer or another reason. They take places like sold tickets, never more than are left, and the show's box office counts them apart from what's sold. The comps guide shows how.