‘If I can set my own price for tonight’s show I will pay more after watching it!’ – evidence from Pay What You Want experiment

In a field experiment conducted in cooperation with city theatres in Warsaw, we allowed some of the visitors to pay whatever they wanted for tickets. Half of these visitors were asked randomly to make a voluntary payment after (instead of before) a performance. We found a significant positive difference between payments made after and before the show. In a specially designed survey we captured factors that may potentially explain this difference: the visitors’ general expectations towards the performance and different aspects of the audience experience.