Interval ice-cream prices

I suppose there's always enough people to scalp for them to make plenty of money with the ice-cream. The rip-off prices put me off so that I rarely have one these days, except where the prices are more reasonable.

It is annoying when you feel they are trying it on with EVERYTHING. Not enough to have high ticket prices and booking fees and transaction charges, no let's also have rip-off ice-cream and drinks you need a mortgage to pay for. 

I never buy an interval ice-cream now. Far too expensive, and I’ve usually just eaten a meal before the show. Plus they’re always a bit on the melted side after spending an age queuing up to buy them, giving you very little time to eat them before the start of Act Two. I can’t bear the scraping that goes on for a couple of minutes once the lights go down.

But... an interval ice-cream does conjure up wonderful memories of childhood, when you’d be taken to the pictures by your mum and dad, and for an added treat you’d be given some extra pocket money and be allowed to walk all the way down to the usherette at the front, in the dark, and peer into the lit up tray she’d be carrying on a strap around her neck. And you’d pick a tub and maybe even a Kia-Ora orange juice. The fact that the Walls vanilla ice-cream tasted like wax, and the orange juice was like flavoured water made no difference whatsoever. You’d made the journey to the front on your own, and you were walking all the way back to your seat knowing that you were going to watch a Walt Disney film after the silky curtains swished aside.

Nobody seems to know why ice cream is particularly associated with theatres www.theguardian.com/stage/theatreblog/2011/jan/18/ice-cream-theatre-interval

I've paid £4.50 at the Bristol Hippodrome but not more than £3.50 at any West End theatre. Yes, they are expensive but I don't normally have any other food or drink there so it's part of the experience.

No ice cream on Broadway.

But if you are in need of calories, check out Juniors which is behind the Lion King, it does the best New York cheesecake on the planet.

If you need an Ice Cream fix, check out Ccldstone Cremery on 42nd Street, just past the American Airlines Theatre and opposite Madame Tussaud’s, awesome ice cream.

If I go to the theatre alone I never buy an ice cream but if with friends we always seem to have one. It's a kind of a treat for a special night out.
Agree about prices which are outrageous.
Mind you now worse than in cinemas where you have to take out a bank loan for popcorn and a fizzy drink.

ATG Manchester is £3.50 for 110ml or £4.50 for 180ml. Or a whopping £5.00 for a meagre 100ml of something called Oppo which I think is frozen yoghurt or something.

They must keep them in a super deep freeze here because when I see people having them they’re always rock hard and they’re jabbing away at it with those ridiculous spoons.

I’m usually sat near the sellers and confess to enjoying it when a novice customer gets served and is then asked for the best part of a tenner for two tiny tubs. You can almost see them recoil. Then the walk of shame when they come back to ask for spoons only to be told they’re in the lids 😬

I'm not 100% sure how much the tubs cost at Sheffield Theatres (about £3 I think), but those who do partake have the satisfaction of knowing they are supporting an enterprising local farm, located probably just five or six miles away, high on the hills.

Its not limited to ice cream though.
Average price of a 500ml bottle of water in theatres is £2.50 - a bottle the same size at a corner shop or local/express supermarket would be around 80p.
A slab of 24 bottles of water from a wholesaler is around £4.50 - per bottle thats 18p! - They're making about £50 every 24 bottles of water they sell.
It's insulting.
I always bring my own water and encourage others to bring their own drinks as a result.

Yep, it's also cheaper to buy ingredients in bulk in a supermarket than it is to go to a gourmet restaurant, but if you choose the restaurant, you're paying for convenience and service and overheads just as much as (if not more than) you're paying for the meal. If you don't want to contribute towards the additional stuff, then fine, bring your own water. If you can afford to pay theatre prices for your drinks (and most people really don't go to the theatre anywhere near as often as we do, so it does count as a rare special treat night out for the bulk of the audience) and are happy to contribute in that way, then go for it. It doesn't make you an idiot or a mug if you weigh up your options and decide you're fine with the pricier one.

(It does make the theatres ethically dodgy if they flatly refuse to let anyone weigh up their options and choose to bring their own water in though, especially on a hot day. And I suppose there's an option that overseas tourists may not be familiar enough with our currency and our prices to know what the cost difference is, but even without knowing exchange rates, they can still work out if they're being charged a large portion of what they've set aside for their holiday spending or if they're being charged a tiny amount compared to the number of pounds they have to hand.)

Not even Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey? 

Banana ice cream with banana shaped choccie chunks and NUTS. 

🍌 🍫 🥜🍫🍌🥜🙈🍫🙈🍌🥜🍫🙈🥜🥜🍫🍌🍌🙈🥜🍫🙈🙈🥜🍌🍌🍌🍫

what a shame, I’ll have to have yours!

I think it was Portsmouth Guildhall I went to see Joe Satriani. Three of us there, Mum asked me to get three ice creams, gave me a twenty. I came back with the three tubs and a fiver change. I'll never forget the look on her face (and on the faces of the people next to her when she turned the air blue complaining!)

Why are you all buying ice cream - isn't there a bar?

(One of the reasons I go to the theatre is being able to drink wine and mentally file it under 'generous act of charity to support the arts'.)

Ice cream or toilet.

Is there really the time to navigate the queues for both?!