Free Night of Theater 2009

In 2009 Free Night of Theater celebrated its 5th anniversary in over 120 cities from coast to coast on Thursday, October 15. 714 theatres offered over 65,000 tickets to more than 2,000 performances. The program continued to draw non-traditional theatre audiences. Of the 2009 ticket holders 77% had never visited their Free Night theatre before, 37% were under the age of 35 (59% under the age of 45), 24% were non-white and 37% had incomes less than $50,000 per year. Over the past five years the Free Night of Theater program has introduced almost 200,000 new theatergoers to the thrill of live performance.

Free Night of Theater 2008

In 2008, Baltimore, Chicago, Dallas, New York City, St. Louis and several smaller communities across the country, joined the program making it a truly national initiative. Free Night 2008 participants included Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Bangor (ME), Charleston, Chicago, Cincinnati, Cleveland, the state of Connecticut, Dallas, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Lexington (KY), Los Angeles, the state of New Jersey, the state of North Carolina, New York (NYC and statewide), Oregon ( Ashland, Eugene and Portland), Philadelphia, Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle/Greater Puget Sound, South Florida, St. Louis, Utah, Washington D.C. and the state of Wisconsin.

TCG continued to work closely with APASO organizations along with city and state arts councils to produce Free Night. We also introduced a city council as the first government organization to manage the local program. Free Night 2008 was presented by 650 theatres in more than 120 cities from coast to coast and offered more than 65,000 free tickets to 1,700 performances.

Free Night of Theater 2007

The Free Night of Theater 2007 program was introduced selectively into regions of the country that had not previously participated in the program, concentrating our expansion efforts in the Midwest and southeastern states. TCG continued its relationship with Association of Performing Arts Service Organizations (APASO) organizations to produce Free Night in local communities and introduced arts councils as management partners in 2007. Free Night 2007 was presented in over 70 cities, offering more than 30,000 tickets to 600 performances that were presented by 398 theatres from coast to coast.

Free Night of Theater 2006

Building on the success of the 2005 pilot program, Free Night expanded to include the pilot partners plus thirteen additional communities: the cities of Atlanta, Boston, Cleveland, Lexington, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Seattle and Washington, DC; and the states of Connecticut, Oregon, New Jersey, North Carolina and Wisconsin. Launched nationally on October 19, the 2006 campaign offered 35,627 free tickets to 522 performances presented by 387 participating theatre companies from coast to coast.

Free Night of Theater 2005

On Thursday, October 20, 2005, over 150 theater companies -- large and small -- in Austin, Philadelphia and San Francisco joined together to present the pilot program for Free Night of Theater. Reports from all three cities revealed that nearly 8,000 theatergoers attended over 120 performances on October 20. Also, as an unexpected result of the early success of the program, an additional 30 theater companies added post-October 20 performances to the Free Night of Theater event creating additional buzz that ultimately increased the image of the event as a hot ticket.