The present paper offers a comparative analysis of the motivation and the economical strategies of theatre patrons from the late 1780s up to the 1810s in the eastern part of the Habsburg Monarchy (Kingdom of Hungary, Kingdom of Croatia, Principality of Transylvania and the Kingdom of Galicia-Lodomeria). By reconsidering the range of ideal entrepreneurial theatrical types, such as court, noble, municipal and bourgeois commercial theatres, this study explores hybrid patronage strategies, revealing a complex set of incentives and multiple sorts of both private and public actors.