EXPLANATION OF THE “AZTEC LOYALTY MEMBER” [ALM] PROGRAM, OUR PRICING POLICIES, FEATURES, BENEFITS & RESTRICTIONS.
We've been walking a very difficult line for OVER 20 years
balancing our 4 equally important priorities:
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Continue to increase the largest catalog of Live-Orchestra Musical Theater Performance & Rehearsal Tracks in the World.
Performed by our second-to-none Aztec Showtrax Studio Orchestra, we'll spend up to $40,000 on a single show to record, mix, and master the full orchestrations exactly as the Composer intended them to be played!
We’ve stated many times that our goal is to have 500+ shows!
We don’t want there to be any show that one of “Our” Theaters wants to do that we don’t have a Track for.
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We proudly state that we’ll put our Studio Orchestra up against anyone in the world! You may even hear the term “Better Than Broadway” thrown around from time to time.
When a new musician is invited into one of our studio sessions, one of the "veterans" will inevitably pull them aside and tell them:
"Broadway Music is some of the hardest music you'll ever play, and Aztec doesn't let you get away with anything! …You have to play every note, in every style, exactly as it's intended.
If you can play for Aztec and be invited back over and over, you'll be the best musician in every studio session you get booked for by anyone else."
But as you can guess, being a professional musician isn’t the most secure career choice in the world. Some companies may pay their musicians for their studio time only, while others may not pay for their studio time at all, but promise them a % commission for the shows they play on.
Our goal has always been to DO BOTH! We pay our musicians for their valuable studio time, and then it’s always been our goal, once we recoup our production costs, to take a % of every rental and split it amongst the musicians who played on that show - even if it’s only a small amount. The residual income can make a huge difference in their lives, and we feel it’s an important way of taking care of them and making sure they’re willing to continue to pay for us.
And we want our Theater Companies to know and to be able to say that professional musicians are being paid for their production, even if our musicians aren’t necessarily on-site.
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…and take care of our families who continue to let us do this crazy niche work that we love so much!
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Our pricing process starts out with the same type of formula the licensing fees are determined by - using the specifics of your production, # of Performances, # of Seats, Ticket $…
…but then as we said, we want to give the best pricing we possibly can that still works for us.So we have a few "relationship" based pricing incentives that we look to apply as often as we can.
Our base "Retail Rate" for our Lower Level Educational Pricing typically starts at $1,750 and for Community, Semi-Pro and Professional Theatre Companies starts at $2,750 and adjusts based on the specifics of your production.
...BUT we want you to be clear what "Retail Rate" means.
We always provide a 1st Time/ New Client with a significant 1x pricing adjustment and we then explain that the 1st Time Adjustment can be converted to a permanent Aztec Loyalty Member [ALM] price and remain their future price point IF AND ONLY IF they come back and rent the Very Next Show that they perform that we have Tracks available for rent.
We need them to understand that if we're going to give you a pricing adjustment the first time, it's so that you can get to know us, understand ALL of the value that we work hard to provide, not just comparing our tracks to anyone else's tracks, but also our uniquely simplified and effortless process, our INCREDIBLY "Producer-Friendly" usage policies AND all of the extra trainings, services, network and marketing assistance we have developed through the years.
We want our new Theatre Friends to be excited about the freedom and flexibility we provide with our tracks compared to anyone else's and how we actively strive to make your life easier, your production process easier, and ultimately make the end result of your Production even better.
We hope that when you come back next time, you understand everything that goes into why you're paying what you're paying with us and that you're happy to do so because you get WHY WE DO WHAT WE DO and are just as willing to support us as we are to support you!
THAT'S THE PART THAT MATTERS THE MOST TO US!
We need you to understand why we do what we do and not just think, "hey there's a company that just builds tracks, and why do you have to charge this price when you've already got it in the catalog?'!"
Well obviously that would be fine if we didn't have a desire to build more tracks for YOU to use!
We may be able to take someone from $2750 down to $1,500 and give them a significant adjustment if they're gonna do 2, 3, 4, 5,...10 shows with us every year.
In that instance, at the end of that year it's worth that much more to us, they're worth $5k or $10 or $15,000 and the loyalty, and the repeat business, and the referrals and all of the value that comes from them - we're building a relationship.
OUR “QUICKPAY PROGRAM” was created out of
our commitment to serving this 1st Priority!
THIS BUSINESS IS 100% ABOUT BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS!
We work very hard to support the Global Theater Community in the best and as many ways as we can and we know with 100% certainty that the Producers and Theater Owners who take the time to get to know us understand that and they in turn are willing to support us in return.
Otherwise we'll find some kid that's got a keyboard and knows how to use a computer to make some basic "sampled" tracks!
That's NOT what we do with our Musicians & that's NOT what we do for our theaters!
The most important thing to us is that they understand our business SO they understand that we're in business to serve them the best we can!
Based on that, we can only go so low in our pricing and even then we only provide those pricing incentives for those who show us the courtesy and support that we're anxioys to reward.
If someone comes to us ONE TIME, we don't know if we're gonna see them again, they don't care at all about who we are or why we do what we do, all they know is that amidst their 1,000 item to do list is to get music for their show, and hey! there's a company with music for their show - GREAT that's why we have Retail Rates for them to come and try it out, but there's no respect or further relationship on their part, so what is our incentive for lowering it?
It should be $1,750 or $2,750 or whatever. We spent over $47,000 building Thoroughly Modern Millie - and you're welcome to rent the same Full Scale Professional Orchestra for 5% of the price it would take you to have them.
Obviously, we're happy to give them a small 1x % off, but they have to understand that we're not giving pricing incentives just because they're gonna "talk us down on it!"
That's not how it works for us! We want to give them the lowest price possible, BUT IT HAS TO WORK FOR US!
So hopefully that makes sense to the people that want to understand our pricing and how it works.
So Unfortunately we have to do we have to do and we've worked very hard in 17 years to NOT BE a take-it-or-leave-it business, but unfortunately there's certain times were occasionally people just can't afford what we need to charge and we do the best we can and it's still not enough.
Hopefully this makes sense.