279 posts
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Post by fossil on Oct 15, 2019 16:07:27 GMT
A slightly higher priced platform has just gone on sale
Neil Gaiman on The Ocean at the End of the Lane, Olivier Theatre 5:45 pm — Wednesday 18 December 2019
£31 – Full Price including a signed copy of the book £7.50 – Priority Member NO BOOK £10 – Under 18s / Children NO BOOK £15 – Full Price NO BOOK
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Oct 14, 2019 9:31:00 GMT
Park Theatre. 09 January, 2020 – 08 February, 2020 Online booking for this event opens at 10:00 on 17 Oct 2019
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Post by fossil on Oct 11, 2019 11:14:51 GMT
Open Air Theatre. Could happen anyway. Priority booking opened yesterday, hasn't sold anything like as fast as "Evita" last year (nor has "101 Dalmatians"). Prices are not unreasonable either - centre front stalls block is now £65, sides £59, back section £59, £48, £37, £25. £5 off previews if booked by May. The "premium" priced seats used to be a small number in the centre of the stalls, Now it is the whole central block. Understandable as they are all good seats and the price jump is not at all severe. Quick and easy public booking today. Number 3 in a very brief queue. Lots of availability and was pleasantly surprised to find all seats at quite a generous low price of £25 for geriatrics like me at midweek matinees so was able to book some excellent central stall seats.
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Post by fossil on Oct 4, 2019 16:57:39 GMT
A balance has to be struck between equality and safeguarding. Whilst I applaud the efforts of organisations like the Old Vic in pursuing an equality agenda and seeking to accommodate the needs of those with differing gender identities, they should not neglect the safety of the more vulnerable.
Foxa's school party example illustrates one example of where these new policies can have unintended consequences. One can think of many other examples. How would you feel if, for example, you had a 12 year old daughter and watched her going into a unisex toilet only to be followed by a forty year old male?
We can and probably should have unisex toilets but I feel a choice of unisex/male/female facilities needs to be maintained.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Oct 4, 2019 15:53:30 GMT
Agreed split ticketing is fine when you are on the same train but gets silly with a complicated journey and the added risk of missed connections.
I have just booked via the Opera North web site. This has a different selection of seats to that of the Leeds Playhouse and does not charge the Playhouse's £2.50 booking fee.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Oct 3, 2019 11:53:37 GMT
It should not cost that much on the train if you book Advance tickets. I have just checked a random date and tickets from Cambridge to Leeds are available for £19.30 each way. I use Trainline's Ticket Alert to email when the Advance tickets become available. They tend to be released about 12 weeks or so before the date of travel and they do tend to sell out quickly at the lower fares. I was looking 12 weeks ahead to get an idea of prices & the cheapest it was coming up with was £87 for the Saturday. Maybe all the advanced tickets already sold out as that Saturday is just before Christmas. I suppose I can only hope that that's the case & it'll be cheaper come February & May. Well I am retired with time on my hands so I thought I would take a look at what the problem may be with the train tickets. I also looked at alternative options. There are some but for your journey although cheaper are quite long journeys. I have just checked the trains again and advance tickets are available up to 13th December for Mon-Fri but the latest Saturday that has them seems to be the 26th October. I have had problems myself booking train tickets for weekends when engineering work is going on and it can be a guess as to when and if advance tickets are put on sale by the rail companies. An alternative is to have a look at what raileasy.trainsplit.com/ offers. This is a split ticketing web site. I put in your route for 23rd November and it gave this multiple journey route for £44.28 (inc. £7.58 booking fee): Cambridge (dep 06.05) to Ely Super Off-Peak Day Return £3.20 Ely to Nottingham Advance Single £6.80 Nottingham to Leeds (arr 11.15) Advance Single £7.50 Leeds (dep 18.11) to Wakefield Westgate or Kirkgate Anytime Day Single £4.10 Wakefield Westgate or Kirkgate to Sheffield Advance Single £4.40 Sheffield to Ely Advance Single £10.70 Ely to Cambridge (arr 23.03) You could also go by National Express coaches, changing at Milton Keynes for £29.90 but it does take about 6 hours!
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Post by fossil on Oct 1, 2019 22:31:09 GMT
^^ I sat around there for Into The Woods Dawnstar and it was absolutely fine. Is it your first visit? I don't think so. At least, I've been to the West Yorkshire Playhouse once & I gather it's the same venue under a different name! I saw White Christmas there a few years ago but then I was sitting in the central block. Unfortunately I've now looked at train tickets & it appears it's going to cost me nearly £90 to get from Cambridge to Leeds!! I'm sure it wasn't nearly that expensive when I went up last year. I may have to re-think this trip as that is a ridiculous price to travel to a place only 150 miles away. It should not cost that much on the train if you book Advance tickets. I have just checked a random date and tickets from Cambridge to Leeds are available for £19.30 each way. I use Trainline's Ticket Alert to email when the Advance tickets become available. They tend to be released about 12 weeks or so before the date of travel and they do tend to sell out quickly at the lower fares.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Sept 27, 2019 14:24:14 GMT
This is the first time I have had what amounts to a 51% markup on the base ticket price.
A newsletter from the producers of I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue gave the dates for forthcoming recordings of the BBC show with one at Richmond Theatre. Tickets to be £7.50 plus booking fee. This morning when tickets went on sale they showed as £9 including £1.50 restoration levy. Presumably the other 50p was just a markup? At checkout a further £3.65 transaction fee was added.
The two tickets I purchased should have totalled £15 but I paid £22.65.
Also, I don't know if this is a useful tip as I have not experienced the ATG 'countdown' before but this certainly worked for me. I knew demand would be high for the tickets when they went on line at 10.00am so I opened up another window showing a calendar view for the theatre. Clicking on the ISIHAC date before 10.00am did not show availability. However clicking again immediately the countdown went to zero let me see the seating plan showing all seats available from which I was able to select exactly the front stalls seats I wanted. After checking out I had another look at availability and nearly all the seats had gone by that time.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Sept 22, 2019 12:58:16 GMT
Quick question, during the member's period do they release a block of tickets as each set of priority booking opens? I'm on the second batch and want the £30 for Seven Streams. Just wanted to check as will be on first thing thursday hoping. I don't know if there is a particular pattern to ticket availability releases but during one of the recent priority members booking I had a look at several performances for the same shows. Each performance had the same pattern of front £15 seats available and quite a few seats were unavailable. I don't know if these unavailable seats became available during the next level of booking or had been already taken at the higher booking level. It does suggest seats are held and released for priority level bookers. I have seen further £15 front seats (the same seats for each performance) become available for productions after general booking has opened, sometimes some time later.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Sept 21, 2019 10:06:37 GMT
After frustrating experiences in the past of the National and RSC web sites releasing tickets I had reserved when their web sites became overloaded it was pleasing to note that a small venue can cope so much better.
I tried to book tickets for Nice Work If You Can Get It at the Arts Ed theatre school when booking opened at 2pm on Thursday. I kept getting error messages but managed to get two tickets into my basket but could not get the checkout to process the payment. However, the error message gave a booking reservation reference number and a message to phone the box office.
All tickets sold out very quickly and, pessimistically, I presumed I had lost the booking. However when I looked at my account page later it showed the tickets as being reserved until Saturday and to call the box office to claim and pay for the reservation, which I did.
If a small venue can hold the seats for 48 hours, why cannot the big venues tweak there systems to do the same instead of just 20 minutes or so, perhaps just at peak booking times?
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Post by fossil on Sept 13, 2019 16:13:22 GMT
That glorious waltz, and soliloquy, and dance break, oh, it's one of the all time classics. To wet your appetite further......
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Post by fossil on Sept 13, 2019 15:46:59 GMT
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Post by fossil on Sept 13, 2019 15:39:36 GMT
A seven hour production so only to be expected that ticket prices for The Seven Streams of the River Ota are somewhat higher - £125, £95, £75, £58, £30
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Aug 25, 2019 15:15:13 GMT
42nd Street is "sort of" back in London before Christmas. Not on sale yet but will be playing at the Upstairs at the Gatehouse Pub Theatre in Highgate from mid December for about a month. Professional production as far as I know. From one of London's largest theatres to one of the smallest (140 capacity), can't wait to see what they do with it ! A sort of "42nd Lane" I'd guess. If it is their usual standard, tickets will be gone very fast. Tickets for a Gala Charity Performance on December 12th are on sale. www.goldengiving.com/event/42ndStreet
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Aug 20, 2019 12:10:07 GMT
There are £15 front row seats currently on sale for quite a few dates towards the end of the run at the moment.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Aug 8, 2019 20:06:15 GMT
Thank you both for the travel suggestions. Yes, I was looking at Chiltern from MYB but on a weekday as then I can get the senior concession on my RSC ticket but can't leave my home station (south of London) until after 9 am. I will look at coaches and Saturday trains but weekends are prone to engineering work and the theatre tix are dearer. I though I would point this out in case you are referring to the Senior Railcard time restriction. For rail tickets to stations outside the south east area (i.e. Stratford-Upon-Avon) the morning senior railcard time restriction does not apply. I have used my senior railcard to travel (setting out at 7.30am) to Stratford for a midweek matinee booking from my local North London station through to Stratford via MYB for about £9 for an Advance ticket with the return journey being a few pounds cheaper. The last time I went I actually travelled to Leamington Spa for the outward journey as there is a greater selection of trains. There is then a local bus that goes from opposite the station to Stratford for which I use my senior bus pass. I find this useful to plan for connecting buses when travelling to theatres outside London. www.travelinesoutheast.org.uk/se/XSLT_TRIP_REQUEST2?language=en&timeOffset=15
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Aug 5, 2019 17:15:55 GMT
Romantics Anonymous would be an adorable Christmas musical at the Menier (I mean c'mon, Chocolate Factory!), though I wouldn't enjoy the ticket prices! This is a genius suggestion. That show was one of the most perfect trips to the theatre in the last few years and it would be a great fit for the space. As well as being a joyous show for christmas time. Romantics Anonymous will be touring in the USA next year. We can only hope for a UK tour as well. bbonyc.com/show/romantics-anonymous/
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Post by fossil on Jul 27, 2019 12:19:31 GMT
But you do get free sweets.
Although as the ushers are standing by the loos with the sweets I do feel they should ask "Have you washed your hands?" before allowing people to dip into the bowls of sweets.
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Post by fossil on Jul 25, 2019 17:04:31 GMT
I have been looking for a London venue - looks like a trip to the Empire in Walthamstow for me.
Also booking at Empire cinemas in Birmingham Great Park, Bishop's Stortford, Catterick, Garrison, Clydebank, High Wycombe, Ipswich, Slough, Sunderland, Sutton (Surrey), Sutton Coldfield, Swindon (Greenbridge) and Wigan
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Post by fossil on Jul 23, 2019 19:01:46 GMT
Yes, theoracle , every row is raked, and the view is good. Restricted views mean a rail in view, not much of a worry. The back row does have much less legroom than the others. All productions in that format are designed to be viewed from both sides, so the action plays equally. Thanks. Booked for November 2nd evening I would recommend the stage seats for shorter people (I am 5ft2in) I was very pleased with the rake when I had a stage seat for The American Clock and had an excellent view. I would book a stage seat again in preference to the regular stalls when these are available.
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Post by fossil on Jul 19, 2019 8:19:59 GMT
On the subject of credit notes, I don't know if anybody has already posted this information which may be useful if, like me, you have been accumulating theatre tokens which cannot be used to book on line. I keep getting these as presents, which is nice, but as I seldom phone or visit theatres to book tickets I have not been able to use them. I recently found that the NT box office will swap these for an NT credit voucher which can be used on their web site. I now have a healthy credit to use for the next booking period. Really? Now that is interesting. Was that in person or over the phone please? In person. I suppose you may be able to do the transaction over the phone with a voucher code/pin combination that you get with an emailed token but I have not tried that. I did try to use a paper theatre token over the phone once. This is where you scratch off a coating to reveal the codes. Unfortunately I scratched off the numbers as well. I phone call to the Theatre Tokens people got that resolved as they can give you the information from other codes on the token.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Jul 18, 2019 19:54:03 GMT
Where tickets are already on sale or advertised they are between £12.50 and £15. Durham, Bromyard, Tideswell and Milford-On-Sea are venues advertising the show so far.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Jul 18, 2019 19:30:13 GMT
On the subject of credit notes, I don't know if anybody has already posted this information which may be useful if, like me, you have been accumulating theatre tokens which cannot be used to book on line. I keep getting these as presents, which is nice, but as I seldom phone or visit theatres to book tickets I have not been able to use them.
I recently found that the NT box office will swap these for an NT credit voucher which can be used on their web site. I now have a healthy credit to use for the next booking period.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Jun 25, 2019 15:59:50 GMT
When I was very young I saw Cliff Richard and the Shadows miming some of their numbers in Aladdin at the Palladium in 1964. Not just the backing track but vocals as well. I seem to remember that it was obvious and badly done and I must have been quite indignant about it as it has stuck in my memory.
At todays prices though I believe there can be no excuse for West End musicals to feature any non-live music at all.
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Post by fossil on Jun 25, 2019 12:46:42 GMT
Q35 sorted. straight through on the phone, id recommend that. Perhaps I'm confused; when I had a look on TodayTix it looked as if this was being performed in the round i.e. the stage is in a different location? Correct. You can see the configuration here when you select a preformance www.todaytix.com/x/london/shows/16828-lungs
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Post by fossil on Jun 25, 2019 12:38:31 GMT
After a 75 minute wait I got a restricted view Dress Circle for £40 (B9). I am sure I have paid less for this seat in the past. Can anyone let me know if this should be cheaper and I should contact the box office?
I ask because curiously the seat next to B9 is shown in blue and is £65, yet if I look a few seats in to B12 which is also shown in blue this show a price of £90. Rows D and E show in green and are £55 except that the inner row D seats, still in green, show £65. Makes me think there may be something wrong with their web pricing setup.
After securing my ticket I had a browse around and there seems to be a lot of availability for the several dates I looked at.
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Post by fossil on Jun 25, 2019 11:18:13 GMT
Queue position 1225, wait time 58 minutes..... Wait time is still 58 minutes. Time is standing still.
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Post by fossil on Jun 25, 2019 11:05:22 GMT
Queue position 1225, wait time 58 minutes.....
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Post by fossil on Jun 20, 2019 9:31:18 GMT
Despite an email warning "Please note we are anticipating strong demand for tomorrow’s Priority booking, so you may be required to queue slightly longer than usual. We thank you in advance for your patience." I was 390 in the queue so not a long wait after all.
Got £15 seats for Three Sisters and good Pit seats for Oceans. Thank goodness for the OAP discount (£60 reduced to £30) as most of the Pit seats are £60 with the front and rear rows at £40. Only 102 Pit seats on sale at the moment with no side seats. I cannot believe that this reduced capacity (half the number that are on sale for one of the other Pit shows) is the final availability as I would think the demand for Oceans tickets will be very high. Presumably they do not yet know the final Pit configuration. I hope this does not mean my good row J seats near the front become not such good seats after all!
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Jun 18, 2019 16:09:57 GMT
For those wanting to book a talk, these are now on general sale for the new season. The price has gone up to £9 and no free tickets for the quiz for priority members this year.
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