Teatreneu is an independent theatre company which has seen an alarming decline in its audiences due to the economic situation and the increase in taxes on arts performances.

After finding that older systems such as conventional advance ticketing had lost their effectiveness and ruling out charging on a voluntary basis as too subjective, the conclusion was reached that the only way to build up audiences and raise the average ticket price was to come up with a new formula.

This is how Pay Per Laugh was born: the first comedy theatre where you only pay for the laughs you get. To do this we installed facial recognition software in each seat to detect every smile and count them. Instead of paying in advance for comedy with no guarantee of it being minimally funny, we thought of paying at the end and only for the laughs you got, at 0,30 euros per laugh.

A way of encouraging people to come to the theatre while avoiding the anxiety involved in making the right decision at a time when people cannot afford the luxury - never a truer word - of getting it wrong.