Theatres refusing to sell single seats

I know it's not the box office but i find that London Theatre Direct are very good at letting you leave single seats, i've never had an issue being able to do it on there. Hence why i use it a lot even though the tickets are usually higher in price. Also there is sometimes a bit of a trick you can do to enable you to leave a single seat eleswhere but i don't think i should go into it in case we have spies among us

I don't agree with this at all. There was one case I remember where there were some really good seats at the front of the stalls and some not as good near the back. Because it would leave a single seat we weren't allowed the front ones. It was almost punishing us for being an odd number of three rather than four people. I complained direct to the box office and they ended up letting us do it. The icing on the cake was that when we went someone was sat in the single seat - so it didn't go unsold like they claimed it would.


I understand they don't want to lose money or leave less seats for a bigger party but they are running the risk of turning ticket sales down as well as almost punishing single theatre goers. Although it's probably only a drop in the ocean to them.

Is there always an even number of seats in each row?

IIRC, what I read on this board or its predecessor is:

I did some research on this a few years ago, as this is one of those situations where people have an instinct for what they think will happen and that instinct is completely wrong.

Being good with computers, I wrote a theatre booking simulator. I programmed a selection of different auditorium layouts and then sold imaginary tickets to parties of varying size (but mostly couples) to see what would happen as the auditorium filled up. The seats weren't sold entirely randomly: there were rules to discourage fragmentation as the theatre filled up, and groups were never split up. The order in which people bought tickets was completely random, and I ran trials with and without a "leave no single seat" policy in place. The results were quite interesting.

To start with, there were never more than a very small number of unsold seats: a single-digit quantity. Unless the show's break-even point is 99% there's no commercial significance in the number of seats unsold. What happens is that as the theatre fills up you do get the odd row left with occasional single and rare double seats unsold, but then someone turns up wanting exactly that many seats and the gap is filled. The result is that holes in the seating tend to drift towards the back.

More significantly, the number and location of the unsold seats is critically dependant on the order in which people buy seats and shows no correlation with any policy about allowing single seats to be left. In some cases a "no single seats" policy resulted in fewer unsold seats, but in other cases with a different pattern of buyers the "no single seats" policy resulted in more unsold seats.

And that's just for a single performance. When there are multiple performances and people have some flexibility over when they see a show the number of unsellable seats falls to a single-digit number per week. There really isn't a problem here, except the one that shows create for themselves by pissing off their customers.

It's common sense - a popular show has enough people wanting tickets to fill single seats, an unpopular one has plenty of seats left for couples anyway, and refusing to leave single seats just means you will end up with embarrassing gaps in prime spots, because you're not attracting enough punters to fill the theatre anyhow. So then you'll have to upgrade people or hand out comps.

My favourite work around with Delfont Mackintosh is either call the box office and do a wheedling "oh but I only wanted one, I love that seat it'd be amazing if I could have it" or just switch to the mobile browser and get it that way.

Clearly some theatre management have not progressed beyond Noah's Ark - expecting all of us to come in two by two.

What REALLY bothers me is when it's a tiny but popular theatre. Really, Almeida? You don't want to leave a single seat alone for Ralph Fiennes playing Richard III? You HONESTLY THINK it's going to remain unsold? I had a hell of a time getting a seat for City Of Angels at the Donmar too for the same reason.

As  has been explained here MANY times before, probably since the dawn of time and even within this thread and yet again in the last few minutes, the bar is not against purchasing a single seat but is against leaving a single unsold seat. For example, you may be barred from purchasing just a pair from a block of three. So there's no discrimination against a specific group of people. Case dismissed.

I think its shocking. At my local theatres and at the Apollo Theatre via Phone I had no problem. Sadly now I cant make London so three single tickets will be going to waste as they dont take them back.

It's not just singles, families or groups of friends can be affected too if their potential booking leaves an odd seat.