Theatres refusing to sell single seats

An individual brave box office employee freelancing in defiance of corporate policy. The Delfont MacKintosh enforcers have probably already been round to talk to them with a copy of this thread ..... 

Phoning the box office used to also be a way of avoiding the on-line queueing system when public booking opened for popular plays, particularly at the Almeida. However I see now this loophole is being closed at the Donmar and they open phone booking several hours after on-line booking for their new seasons. 
 

This is not quite the same issue, but I see that the Hampstead Theatre is now designating certains blocks of seats as Student/Under30s only. They always limited the seats that offered a concession rate, but now you can no longer select these seats at full price. This means that if you have one person in your party who qualifies for the concession rate, the rest of the party cannot sit next to them. Quite bizarre.

UPDATE:  It might just be a configuration glitch, because on other shows/dates, the FULL PRICE option *is* appearing against seats with concession rates enabled.

I've noticed something recently regarding single seats, not sure if it's new or if I just haven't spotted it before. Instead of showing all seats and refusing to sell single seats, some booking sites will outright change the seating plan to hide the seats they don't want you to have. So if you select that you want two seats, then change it to one, a lot of the seats on sale will just disappear.

Tried to book a single seat for ‘My son’s a queer’ online.
Usual rejection as not booked ‘enough’ seats. Called premium line box office. Sniffy lady made out they were doing me a huge favour ‘on this occasion we will do it..’ ‘producers find two seats sell better’
There were a fair amount of seats left in a fairly smallish venue. Would producers/theatres rather sell one or have two empty seats instead?
They managed to ‘lose’ the call after I asked this very reasonable question. Couldn’t be bothered to call back. I was only using up a voucher and it’s not my preferred venue (even less so now)
Someone told me a single seat hack to ‘book two and just remove one at checkout’ so I guess it worked out in the end. The box office did manage to reinforce the stigma single theatre going often evokes.
When will theatres wake up and realise a significant number of people do solo theatre.. Surely some sales are better than none? I’m sure Rob Madge and other actors would rather have a full theatre of singletons than an empty one.

I had a right nightmare booking for a touring show a few years back because of the single seat thing. I did the hack everyone usually does and it all worked out but I couldn't understand why this is still such a big thing?

I guess the reason it happens is to pack the maximum amount of people in but also maximise the amount of groups; more time spent talking about the show for word of mouth, more money spent in the theatre, more money spent around the theatre. If there's a seat in the middle of two others, or you've booked and left a single seat, you're possibly turning away a duo trying to book a show, and the idea is to maximise profits. But it is stupid.

Is the issue here that you weren't allowed a book a single seat? Or that you weren't allowed to book a seat that leaves a single seat remaining which the company believes is less likely to sell?

I can see their logic, because I can imagine couples, for example, leaving single seats between them and the people next to them:

If you have seats in a row: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, and seats 1-4 are booked already and someone and their partner want to book two seats, they're probably going to try and leave space between them and the group and try to book seats 6 and 7, rather than 5 and 6. If this happens all over the theatre, this causes a problem. It's frustrating, but I can see the logic in trying to prevent it.

It becomes annoying for me, as a solo theatre goer, if for example a show is close to sold out and there are ONLY a few pairs left dotted around. In that case I can't go at all because I can't book any of those seats without leaving a single. As it gets closer to selling out, they should remove the rule.

I think most ATG venues reduce the price of their remaining single seats a few days before. The price varies though.

Several times I have encountered a situation where there are three seats together left in a row and I have been unable to book two of them as it would leave a single ticket. It would only be possible to book them if one required three tickets.

I assume that this can only arise if there are an odd number in the row.

The theatre would prefer to wait for three people to fill them rather than have a definite two bookings.

I tried as an experiment to see if I could get one of them as a single leaving two together but it wouldn’t allow that either, being determined to sell all three or none!

I can understand stopping this. Purposely trying to leave a seat when there’s plenty of choice is different in my eyes to not being allowed to buy a single seat

I almost always find, when booking a theatre or airline seat, that opening multiple browsers to reserve unwanted seats until the seat that you actually want is made available, works.

It also gives me a rosy glow after to have defeated the system.

Here's another angle from my experience yesterday. I wanted one single seat to "Standing at the Sky's Edge" in the evening. I could take my pick of many as over 1/4 of seats were unsold. I tried the usual route (Today Tix rush for £30) and was unsuccessful. Relatively few tickets available for singles or pairs and they all went quickly. I waited a couple of hours to see if more would be released, knowing I had TKTS as a back up. There were six central seats together in row M which are pretty perfect for this show, as it is better to be a little further back. Releasing that Today Tix were not releasing any more Rush seats, I went back to TKTS to find that some absolute plum had booked two tickets in the centre of the six seats (leaving two pairs either side). Yes, you've guessed it, I didn't get to see SATSE because TKTS system won't allow singles to be bought if it leaves a single. So the show lost a £45 sale as a result. If the software was smarter, when tickets are discounted it would autoamtically bump pairs/singles to the end of a section of six seats rather than allowing a sale to "split" the row.

My own view of sites like TKTS is that if they are genuinely offering discount opportunities, restrictions should be lifted to allow anybody to buy any seat anywhere in any permutation or volume. It seems like TKTS tickets are ringfenced and go off sale on other sites, which is a pity as it used to be to so simple just to open the "official" website for a show, select one or more seats for purchase and then to go to an alternative site to buy the desired single seat.

Aside from it being my final opportunity to see Standing at the Sky's Edge, I always feel when missing out on seats that producers/theatres are cutting off their noses to spite their face when it is literlaly three or four hours before the performance.