answer depends on distribution of willingness to pay in remaining theater-going population, & how much differentiation there is in quality of seats in a given theater. shows can set vastly diff prices for diff quality seats (and do) rather than leave some unsold; challenge is…
https://twitter.com/felixsalmon/status/1385217882188038145
...making sure low-priced seats are still unattractive enough (far back, partially obstructed etc) that they don't entice the higher-paying customers to buy them rather than splurge on good, expensive seats. (this is a challenge airlines, etc. face too of course.)
If not enough differentiation in quality, and huge differences in willingness to pay, then possible that shows would set prices high enough to leave some seats empty in order to maximize revenue.
Of course if theaters are still capacity-constrained because of covid (as they are now) there were necessarily be seats unsold by law!
Important point on ways to sell more seats while preventing theatergoers w/ high willingness to pay from buying cheap tix -- make cheap tix harder to find or use 3rd-degree price discrim (e.g. TDF only available to select groups like students, retirees)
https://twitter.com/EdwardEinhorn/status/1385227288040689677
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