You asked, we answer

Hey guys,

This is Holly. I'm one of the people in charge of the Teen Tix program. As you know, we ran a survey in the month of September, asking you to tell us about your experience with Teen Tix. A lot of you took it, and a lot of you had very nice things to say about us. Thank you! We love you, too.

We're also glad to see that so many of you are using your Teen Tix passes frequently and without problems. Hooray!

There were a few questions, comments, and confusions that came up over and over again in the survey, so we thought we'd address them here. Here we go:

1. "Teen Tix should go to 19!" It DOES! We know, we know. The Teen Tix website still says 18. Forgive us. But Teen Tix works for people 13 - 19 years old. We swear!

2. "Teen Tix should go to 21!" We understand how you feel, but we can only do so much. Teen Tix is for teens, and in order to best serve our teen members, we have to stay focused on that mission. However, there's no need to despair if you're turning 20. Most of our participating organizations offer substantial discounts to students and/or to people 25 and under. Oftentimes, those tickets are as cheap as $10, and you can buy them in advance! Check out their websites for offers, and keep seeing art.

3. "We should be able to buy Teen Tix in advance," "Buying tickets on the day-of-show is too inconvenient." Again, we know how you feel, but here's the thing: $5 is an incredibly cheap price to pay for most of what we make available to you. In a lot of cases, the person sitting next to you might have paid $100 or more for their ticket (and that still only covers a fraction of what it actually costs to produce the art). So, with that incredible ticket price comes some compromise. Our participating organizations are able to make $5 tickets available to you *because* you're buying them at the last minute (and we love them for it!) But if you do need advance tickets, you can still get them at a discounted price. Most of our participating organizations offer discounted tickets (sometimes as cheap as $10) to people under 25 and/or to students that you can buy in advance. So, the next time you are wishing you could plan ahead, check out the organization's website and see what kinds of youth discounts they offer other than Teen Tix.

4. "More music events!" We heard this a lot this year - more than we ever have before. So we just want to let you know that we're listening, and we'll work on it. In the meantime, remember that Teen Tix is good for Seattle Symphony's entire season, and all of the music events at Cornish College of the Arts, which include performances by top national and international musicians in Jazz, World Music, Chamber Music, and Classical Music. Also, if you're not going to The Vera Project, you're really missing out on one of the best things for teens in the history of the universe. Vera is a volunteer-fueled all-ages music and arts venue that focuses on people 14 - 24. The shows that they bring in include a lot of the pop, rock, alternative, and hip-hop music that we know you crazy kids are into these days. Their shows are not Teen Tix eligible, but the tickets are only $11 (or $10 if you're a Vera member.)

5. "Better website!" "Better calendar." All we can say is we know, and we're on it. We really appreciate your feedback, and we've tried to incorporate all of it into our new website design, which we hope to launch in the New Year. Also, note that, with the exception of the calendar and the sign-up form, pretty much all of the info from the website can also be found here on the blog.

We also heard a wide range of responses to our question about how to make the arts more teen-friendly: everything from Choose Your Own Adventure theatre where the audience decides what's going to happen via text message (we'll definitely pass that one along,) to pleas for less technology and more sitting quietly appreciating the art. Which just goes to show that teens don't all think the same way, and what's "teen-friendly" to one person might be highly "teen-unfriendly" to another. Which is why we have to keep talking to you guys and trying new things. Which we will.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for your time and your considerate, thoughtful, funny responses to our questions.

If you have a specific question that we didn't address but you'd like answered, BY ALL MEANS, send us an email (teentix@seattle.gov) or leave your question in the comments on this post. We will answer it. We promise.

Now, go get some art.

Holly