Lisa Speedling Consulting

A-Train Membership Cost Analysis

What each membership level costs the club and what it returns, 2023 through 2025 — and the case for restructuring dues and benefits and reactivating lapsed members.

Prepared for the Dakota board · Draft for review


The short version

A-Train membership fell by 57 guests over three years — all of the loss in Basic, which dropped 71 members, while Patron and Platinum each grew by 7. Over the same period the number of free member seats given rose 23%, from 9,368 to 11,549.

Membership change, 2023 → 2025

667 → 610

Basic −71 · Sponsor 0 · Patron +7 · Platinum +7

Free member seats given, 2025

11,549

Benefit given, 2025

$533,904

Net member revenue, 2025

$623,904

Where the money goes. Basic and Sponsor members consume less than the benefit they are entitled to — 1.6 free tickets against an allowance of 2, and 6.3 against 10. Patron and Platinum have no allowance at all: their benefit is unlimited, and in 2025 they used 95.5 and 218.6 free seats per member respectively. Two levels holding 65 of 610 memberships account for $473,000 of the $534,000 in benefit given.


All levels combined

Every A-Train level together, for the year selected in the rail. All figures are members only — no non-member ticket or food and beverage revenue appears anywhere in this report.

Members

610

Gross member revenue

$1,157,809

Dues plus member ticket and F&B purchases, before benefit.

Benefit consumed

$533,904

Net total

$623,904

Gross less benefit consumed.

Cost per member

$875

Benefit consumed divided by members.

Net per member

$1,023

Average across all four levels.

Combined A-Train totals by year. Benefit is shown at the current valuation setting.
YearMembersGross BenefitNetCost per member Net per member

Year and level detail

Pick a level to see its own figures. The year comes from the rail, so you can hold a level and step through the three years.

LevelMembersDues TicketsF&BGross BenefitNet

Model a change to dues and benefits

This section is anchored to 2025 behavior and is independent of the year rail. Set a dues increase and a free-ticket allowance for each level and watch gross revenue, benefit given and net revenue move. Member counts start at the 2025 actuals and can be stepped up or down.

Two questions the board has to answer

100% — yes, always. Every member seat counts as a lost full-price sale. Lower it to credit seats that would have gone empty.

0% — no. A cap only stops the giveaway; no new revenue counted. Raise it if they'd keep coming and pay 10% off. Each card shows what that assumes they'd spend.

Gross revenue

Benefit given

Net revenue

Change vs current policy

Per year, 2025 behavior.

Where each level flips

Break-even dues is the annual rate at which a level stops losing money under the allowance and assumptions currently set. It also appears as a gold marker on each level's dues slider above, so you can see how far the setting is from break-even as you move it.

LevelDues now, avg per memberBreak-even dues Net per memberReading

Net contribution per member

Based on 2025 behavior and the modeled member counts above — step the counts in the level cards and these figures move with them.

Gain (+) Loss (−)

Total net revenue at the modeled member counts

Dues collected against benefit consumed

The gap between these two bars is the argument. Uses the year in the rail, at current policy.

Dues collected Benefit consumed

What changed, 2023 to 2025

Membership and benefit value moved in opposite directions.

Change from 2023 to 2025 at current policy. A rise in benefit given is shown in red because it is a cost.
LevelMembers 2023Members 2025 ChangeFree seats 2023Free seats 2025 Benefit 2023Benefit 2025Change

Where this trends

Straight-line projection from the three observed years at current dues rates, allowances and member behavior.

What "net" means in this chart. Net member revenue only. It is the sum of A-Train dues collected, plus ticket money those members actually paid, plus their in-venue food and beverage purchases, less the value of the benefit they consumed. No non-member revenue is included, and no club costs other than the membership benefit itself — this is not the club's bottom line, it is what the A-Train program contributes.
Observed 2023–2025 Projected 2026–2028

A projection from three points is a direction, not a forecast. Its value is the sign of the slope: on the current structure, net member revenue declines while benefit given continues to rise.

Key

Members
A-Train members holding a paid membership. Counted as unique customer IDs within the year.
Membership revenue
The sum of all dues recorded.
Member revenue
Includes tickets and F&B purchases — the money members actually paid, on top of dues.
Gross member revenue
Membership revenue plus member revenue, before any benefit is subtracted.
Benefit given
Benefit is calculated from non-member ticket prices at the same price level, and reported discount applied (10% or 100%).
Net member revenue
Gross member revenue less benefit given.
Cost per member
Benefit given divided by the number of members at that level.
Current benefits, as published
Basic $250 — two member tickets a year for performances $50 and under, 10% off tickets (limit two per artist), 10% off food and beverage. Sponsor $750 — Basic benefits plus ten member tickets a year. Patron $1,500 — Basic benefits plus unlimited member tickets for performances $50 and under. Platinum $3,000 — Basic benefits plus unlimited member tickets for performances $100 and under, with additional or higher-priced tickets at 10% off.

Method and data notes

Two corrections applied to the source data. The 2023 and 2025 transaction exports each contained a single food-and-beverage row of roughly $7.8M and $7.5M — grand-total rows captured during export. Each year also contains about 20,000 rows with no customer attached, which are anonymous table checks. Both are excluded here. Figures computed by summing those columns directly will be materially overstated.

Benefit is counted only on A-Train price codes. A member buying at the standard price contributes no benefit. House comps and non-member promotional codes are excluded, so this is A-Train benefit specifically rather than all discounting.

Full price for a member seat is the median price paid by non-members for that same performance and price level. Where a performance has no standard sales, the median for that price level in that year is used.

Membership revenue is the sum of all dues recorded, which is slightly higher than members × rate because a small number of customers appear more than once in a year.

Food and beverage includes only spend attached to a customer ID on a ticketed order, so member F&B is a floor rather than a total. Table checks not linked to a ticket buyer cannot be attributed to any level.

Ticket revenue is the base ticket amount, excluding convenience fees.

Modeling seats above an allowance. When an allowance cuts a member's free seats, the remainder is treated as purchased at the 10% member discount, per the club's published rule. The second slider controls what share of those seats is assumed to be bought at all.