Sunday In The Park with George - Savoy

Who really knows? UK Producers don't publish production accounts like the US. Surely if the logic is that Company didn't do well towards the end, charging two or three times the amount for a production bordering on the same amount of obscurity isn't justifiable by any means.
Also, I'm not sure 'staggered' is a fair term to use. When I was checking seating plans in the final months, seats were still moving and prices still fairly unmoved. Don't think they ever closed the Grand Circle off, etc.
And if it was a financial failure would Elliot & Harper really be taking it to Broadway?

I mean of course higher prices wouldn't solve an issue of poor ticket sales (for Company), but my point is that sometimes we should have to expect to pay more for these shows because they need the money to earn back the investment.

I don't know how the economics of these shows work in the West End - but in NYC, despite the high ticket prices, with few exceptions no one is making large amounts of money in this business because the costs to mount and run these shows are just so high. People think it's 'greedy producers' but with few exceptions, it really isn't. The majority of shows in NYC (and I expect Company's transfer will be yet another) either close at a loss or make a very small profit. I assume it's a similar story here.

To me these oozes of entitlement. 10 pounds? So you think you should basically have a free seat in the stalls for every show? It doesn't seem fair on the people making the investments..how will they ever make it back if people only want to pay 10 or 20 pounds? Nor is it fair on the other audience members who have to essentially subsidise your 'free' ticket.

Why? I don't get a discount on my Harvey Nicks' swallows' nest soup just because I eat it every day.

Perspective, please. It is something quite a few shows have done successfully over the last few years, including the Michael Grandage season at the Noel Coward and the Kenneth Branagh season at the Garrick. Everyone here loved it and made extensive use of it. Other productions have done similar pricing too that we have all made use of - Photograph 54 with Nicole Kidman, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, etc... with many of us getting great seats at a great price because of this community we are all a part of.

If ticket prices keep increasing into an average in excess of £100, personally I think there should be subsidised affordable seating, yes. Almost every show does it anyway, with lottery tickets and day seats - but why should the cheapest seats be restricted to same-day purchases?

This thread has discussed the disadvantage of buying tickets (almost) a year advance as having a higher ticket prices that we all expect to drop once the show is up and running. Why shouldn’t there be an incentive of heavily reduced seating for the early bird? Why shouldn’t there be some bargain be had, if a theatre is charging upwards of £150 a ticket for stall seats?

To avoid confusion, by regular theatre goers, I refer to all of us that watch the industry heavily to remain in the know about what is up and coming and going on sale. It is the regular theatre goers that suffers, that is very possibly being priced out by producers hoping tourists will pay the higher prices they’re setting, and it is us hoping tickets will drop once a production gets going.

Reducing a row of say 20 seats per show in a location of the theatre that isn’t the back of the highest level - bookable way in advance - should be a thing imo.

Aren’t tourists being ripped off anyway?

The pricing point I mentioned is exactly the same as it was for the examples I mentioned. The Michael Grandage season, for example, was £50 for all five productions, if booked at the same time or £15 each if booked separately. It was the same price in the same seat location (back of stalls and back of dress circle) for all five productions, and seems to have had no adverse implications.

I refuse to believe that industry costs have increased in the last few years to a point where a top price ticket of £65 now needs to be sold at £100+. Particularly on long runners that have certainly recouped. I also therefore refuse to believe that reducing around 20 seats to £10-£20 has a huge implication for the bottom line.

Offering around 20 seats at 10-20 won't impact the bottom line because others are willing to actually pay the price needed for the show to survive. If shows offer this maybe that is a good thing and we should be grateful, but I don't think we should feel we are entitled to it. I constantly find that as theatre goers we apparently 'love' the theatre, but we apparently aren't willing to contribute much to pay the bills for the actors, rent, directors and producers who all make it a reality for us. 

Theatre is big money - but how much money does it need to make, and subsequently, how much above the break even price are we paying? To bring in a sales total of £250,000 a week, a show needs to sell around 8000 tickets at £31.25. I understand it’s expensive putting a production on and there are numerous things that impact on ticket sales, but even selling half that and having a sales value of £125,000 a week is nothing to be sniffed at, and should be able to cover all expenses comfortable.

Of course I’m being incredibly simplistic, but when you start to think the average cost is £100+ a ticket for Sunday (to bring us back on topic) you have to wonder what exactly the profit margin is and whether or not you’re being ripped off paying that full price or not. I mean, I’m sure Sunday could sell out 12 weeks at £31.25 a ticket, collect its £3,000,000+, pay everyone and surely still turn a profit.

I think you’ll find no one complained about that. There has been a discussion about the overall cost of tickets, and a suggestion made that all productions could easily have a row of 20 seats in the stalls or dress circle at a reasonable rate per performance, from the on-sale date, like other recent west end productions have done so rather successfully (and utilised by this board).

Also, plenty of a-list, oscar winning actors have been in performances in the west end for £20 or less over the last decade. Even the recent Maggie Smith play had tickets in the stalls for £15.

I'm aware of what the discussion has been about, thank you.

Maggie was at the Bridge Theatre, a little different from The Savoy. Most West End superstar appearances have been expensive - Glenn Close in Sunset, Bradley Cooper in The Elephant Man etc.

At the end of the day, as others have said, it's a business and they want to make money, not just 'enough' money. Yes it can be construed as greed, but it's the nature of the beast. And again as others have said, it's still leagues cheaper than Broadway.

I can't really understand all this fuss about ticket prices. This is a limited run with American stars who will command salaries and costs higher than you average. The limited run has limited time to recoup costs and make a profit, after all it is a business when all is said and done. As others have said no one is forced to buy a ticket and there are cheaper tickets available. Anyway that's my say in this rather heated debate as Mrs Merton would have said!