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Post by showgirl on Oct 10, 2023 14:23:58 GMT
Also missed out as working so only now at lunch & not a single £30 matinee seat left.
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Post by lichtie on Oct 10, 2023 14:52:54 GMT
I was lucky - had a 10 minute break in my all day meeting at just the point I cleared the queue at 1015 (which I'd surreptitiously joined previously...) Got a cheap seat at the back which is fine for me.
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Post by Rory on Oct 10, 2023 15:09:47 GMT
It's just so crap that everyone has to resort to getting seats at the sides and at the back.
Why should we all put up with being priced out of getting a half decent seat anymore?
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Post by Sam on Oct 10, 2023 15:12:59 GMT
My friend and I have decided to hold off. £65 for the back row was just too much at the moment.
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Post by Rory on Oct 10, 2023 15:16:35 GMT
My friend and I have decided to hold off. £65 for the back row was just too much at the moment. It's outrageous.
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Post by Marwood on Oct 10, 2023 15:50:39 GMT
I had forgotten the tickets went on sale today until lunchtime, and by then there were no cheap seats left on the dates I looked at, there seemed to be some variation between the top prices on certain days, and I had to pick my own seat because otherwise it just threw random crap at me but I bit the bullet and have git a second row seat for midweek in January (I’m going more for Serkis than Harrelson, I saw Harrelson in On An Average Day with Kyle McLachlan about 20 years (which was ok but not staggering from what I can remember))
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Post by Being Alive on Oct 10, 2023 19:10:17 GMT
It's a small 400 seat studio. They're big (in two cases) MASSIVE names. There were cheaper options if you were quick. I expected tickets to be far worse than they are.
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Post by keyspi on Oct 11, 2023 5:28:12 GMT
I've not been to this venue before, but it appears that studio 3 is raked and studio 2 (where this takes place) isn't, which is a shame since I got tickets for the furthest row in the back. Here's hoping the stage is high enough
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Post by alessia on Oct 11, 2023 12:01:37 GMT
Has anyone been to Riverside recently? The last time I was in the main space was Happy Days back in 2021 and I am pretty sure the floor was flat, no rake, with laid out chairs - much like the header picture on this page. riversidestudios.co.uk/studio-2/I was there on Tuesday and the first six-eight rows (I did not count them) are on a flat floor (I was in third row and I felt lower than the two rows in the front, actually, but it must have been self-suggestion). But maybe that changes with the production. I could not find £30 tickets when I checked so I left it there. OH NO - I just have to hope I will see something :-(
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Post by mkb on Oct 11, 2023 15:59:34 GMT
I've not been to this venue before, but it appears that studio 3 is raked and studio 2 (where this takes place) isn't, which is a shame since I got tickets for the furthest row in the back. Here's hoping the stage is high enough That's incorrect. Studio 2 is very much in a raked configuration for the current production apart from the first few rows on the flat. The seats are interlocking ones like you might find in a school assembly hall. It's a budget venue with pretentions apparently to West End tout-levels of pricing.
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Post by theatrefan77 on Oct 12, 2023 0:31:58 GMT
A few £30 tickets in row B now available for most performances. Just booked mine
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Post by greenswan on Oct 12, 2023 1:06:32 GMT
Expensive and discriminating against single theatre goers. I guess I won’t be able to see this one.
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Post by showgirl on Oct 12, 2023 3:25:45 GMT
Agree. I have now found a couple of dates with £30 seats available but in pairs when there's only one of me. What are single theatregoers meant to do - try to resell the second seat privately or what? Plus the system adds £1.50 per seat so that's £63 upfront for a 90-minute play. Sure the producers and venue won't care as it will sell, but nul points for inclusion.
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Post by harry on Oct 12, 2023 7:23:41 GMT
Agree. I have now found a couple of dates with £30 seats available but in pairs when there's only one of me. What are single theatregoers meant to do - try to resell the second seat privately or what? Plus the system adds £1.50 per seat so that's £63 upfront for a 90-minute play. Sure the producers and venue won't care as it will sell, but nul points for inclusion. Thanks for this heads up - lots of dates now seem to have one pair of £30 seats in the second row towards the side. I wonder if these have been added ahead of the main public onsale today. I saw this show at the fringe a few years ago and it’s very entertaining in a pulpy way but the general ticket prices are LUDICROUS. £65 is a huge price for a fringe production of a short 1-act play and there are hardly any seats even at that price. Basically the vast majority of seats at £120+ and it makes me despair for the future of theatre. What people with normal jobs and normal financial pressures have that sort of money to spend on doing something fun on a weekday night after work? It just reinforces the nonsense that theatre is only for the “elite”. My only hope is (as was the case with me and clearly others on the board) people in general look at those prices and refuse to book, and they have to be lowered closer to the time.
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Post by Dave B on Oct 12, 2023 7:48:22 GMT
A few £30 tickets in row B now available for most performances. Just booked mine Thank you for the heads up, I've just managed to book. Like showgirl and greenswan, quite annoyed by the 'you cannot leave a single seat'
I had held out hope that there would be more £30 released with the general sale later today but a bird in the hand....
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Post by Sam on Oct 12, 2023 7:59:21 GMT
A few £30 tickets in row B now available for most performances. Just booked mine Thanks for this, just booked!
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Post by harry on Oct 12, 2023 8:21:07 GMT
…so it looks like a lot of the £30 seats held back so they can claim “tickets at all prices were available for the general public onsale” have been snapped up by TheatreBoard members with presale links but who refuse to pay the silly prices. I guess it’s good that genuine theatre lovers are getting to see it but I wish there was some way to engage the industry in a proper discourse about the state of prices here and all over London rather than us all having to feel blessed just that we managed to get our hands on some of the unfairly tiny handful of affordable tickets.
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Post by mkb on Oct 12, 2023 10:01:42 GMT
A few £30 tickets in row B now available for most performances. Just booked mine Now I'm mad. I paid £90 in the pre-sale because all the £30 ones had gone by the time I reached the front of the queue, only for people who didn't sign up to be offered additional £30 availability. Coupled with the inability to buy single seats when only two adjacent are available, I'm really starting to loathe this venue.
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Post by alessia on Oct 12, 2023 11:09:49 GMT
A few £30 tickets in row B now available for most performances. Just booked mine Now I'm mad. I paid £90 in the pre-sale because all the £30 ones had gone by the time I reached the front of the queue, only for people who didn't sign up to be offered additional £30 availability. Coupled with the inability to buy single seats when only two adjacent are available, I'm really starting to loathe this venue. Yes me too, wish I'd waited for more cheap seats to be released. I paid £65 which is way more than I would normally :-( It better be good
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Post by zahidf on Oct 13, 2023 21:42:59 GMT
£30 today tix lottery for this. Full details TBA soon
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Post by marob on Oct 13, 2023 22:19:28 GMT
Already on todaytix…
Who dreams these schemes up? Why would anyone think it’s a good idea to only notify someone they’ve ‘won’ one with such short notice?
I think the way the Crazy for You one works is the way to do this, or else they’re largely useless to anyone travelling from out of town. But at least there’s no glow sticks.
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Post by Dave B on Nov 27, 2023 9:28:48 GMT
Guardian interview with the three leads.
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Post by wiggymess on Nov 29, 2023 14:43:41 GMT
Edit: now sold.
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Post by Jan on Nov 29, 2023 17:17:03 GMT
…so it looks like a lot of the £30 seats held back so they can claim “tickets at all prices were available for the general public onsale” have been snapped up by TheatreBoard members with presale links but who refuse to pay the silly prices. I guess it’s good that genuine theatre lovers are getting to see it but I wish there was some way to engage the industry in a proper discourse about the state of prices here and all over London rather than us all having to feel blessed just that we managed to get our hands on some of the unfairly tiny handful of affordable tickets. The Riverside Studios gets no ACE subsidy. Furthermore the non-profit trust that runs it is bankrupt and administrators have been appointed to run it. For that reason they must, as a requirement of the administration, generate as much income as they can. The alternative, which still might be the outcome, is they stop operating entirely. So you actually are blessed to be able to get tickets for this at all.
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Post by nottobe on Nov 29, 2023 17:25:51 GMT
Based on the interview on the one show it seems this production came to be due to the actors strike in America and Harrelson being sent the script and being free to do it. Seems the ball only got rolling in September hence why going to the Riverside Studios as every other west end theatre this sort of production would go to was already booked.
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Post by Rory on Nov 29, 2023 17:34:07 GMT
Based on the interview on the one show it seems this production came to be due to the actors strike in America and Harrelson being sent the script and being free to do it. Seems the ball only got rolling in September hence why going to the Riverside Studios as every other west end theatre this sort of production would go to was already booked. So that explains why it's not in the West End then.
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Post by harry on Nov 30, 2023 14:07:09 GMT
…so it looks like a lot of the £30 seats held back so they can claim “tickets at all prices were available for the general public onsale” have been snapped up by TheatreBoard members with presale links but who refuse to pay the silly prices. I guess it’s good that genuine theatre lovers are getting to see it but I wish there was some way to engage the industry in a proper discourse about the state of prices here and all over London rather than us all having to feel blessed just that we managed to get our hands on some of the unfairly tiny handful of affordable tickets. The Riverside Studios gets no ACE subsidy. Furthermore the non-profit trust that runs it is bankrupt and administrators have been appointed to run it. For that reason they must, as a requirement of the administration, generate as much income as they can. The alternative, which still might be the outcome, is they stop operating entirely. So you actually are blessed to be able to get tickets for this at all. I’m not sure I’d go as far as blessed. Perhaps if the recent governments hadn’t valued the arts quite so dreadfully we wouldn’t be in a situation where arts venues are being run by administrators with no time for the value of art beyond the price tag. What I can’t bear more generally is that it’s not that long ago that a ticket costing £100 was a news story. Now you pay £85-100 for a “Band A” seat which is usually actually about the 4th or 5th price band after premium seats and seats that can only be bought as “packages” which means your “Band A” seat is usually right off to one side or 15 rows back. It feels completely unsustainable as people make fewer and fewer theatre trips per year and so much pressure is placed on each trip being something extraordinary rather than feeling like you can take a risk on something. But that’s not for this thread. I’m looking forward to seeing this having seen it in Edinburgh and thinking “this is good but it would be *really* funny if they did it with a genuine Hollywood start playing the Hollywood star”. And I’m very pleased to see it for £30.
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Post by Jan on Nov 30, 2023 15:00:28 GMT
Perhaps if the recent governments hadn’t valued the arts quite so dreadfully ... That's not true though. To recover from Covid more than £1.57 billion extra funding has been distributed via the Culture Recovery Fund just since 2020 and ACE funding for the next 3 year period is £446 million per year up from £407 million per year in the previous period. So you can see that government funding has been extremely generous. It's more that audiences have valued the Riverside Studios dreadfully, and that was self-inflicted. It is interesting that the narrative that there have been cuts in arts funding is widely accepted even though it isn't true. Same for the NHS of course.
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Post by harry on Nov 30, 2023 19:29:55 GMT
Perhaps if the recent governments hadn’t valued the arts quite so dreadfully ... That's not true though. To recover from Covid more than £1.57 billion extra funding has been distributed via the Culture Recovery Fund just since 2020 and ACE funding for the next 3 year period is £446 million per year up from £407 million per year in the previous period. So you can see that government funding has been extremely generous. It's more that audiences have valued the Riverside Studios dreadfully, and that was self-inflicted. It is interesting that the narrative that there have been cuts in arts funding is widely accepted even though it isn't true. Same for the NHS of course. We’ll have to agree to disagree here Jan. To me the recovery fund was an emergency cash injection to avoid the entire industry collapsing and everyone working in it being without a job and claiming off the state. The 46% real terms cut in arts council funding from 2005 to 2022 (not to mention those ads suggesting ballerinas retrain to work in IT and the like) shows a complete lack of understanding in the true non-monetary value of art.
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Post by Jon on Nov 30, 2023 19:46:33 GMT
I'm no fan of the current Government but you cannot blame them for the Riverside Studios' financial problems. ACE and DCMS can't prop up trusts who didn't spend money properly.
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