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Post by Jan on Jul 31, 2017 8:13:13 GMT
Last week booking for Tempest @ Barbican in person I had the website availability open on my phone and was looking at the box office screen at the same time - they were quite different, many more good seats showing available in the latter. Confirmed my suspicion that seat availability shown on-line is fake news. Didn't know that the Barbican has sunk to this level, but common unfortunately happens a lot in the West End to show that the production is falsely nearly sold out (no one likes dissapointment do they), so theatre companies are taking money from their customers under false pretences, which should be illegal. Same way as when they show day seats available on a sign outside, but wait go to the box office and they are sold out? Interesting. One other stray observation, at one of the medium-sized subsidised venues the quality of the best available seats in the top price bracket I've got when booking on the first day of members-only advance booking have been notably worse than what I used to get on the first day of public booking - quite notably so, side circle instead of centre front stalls. I suspect they offload the less good seats on their loyal members. |
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Post by Backdrifter on Jul 31, 2017 8:49:34 GMT
It seems archaic now that any theatre still exclusively selects the seats online for you.
Regarding the Oxford piece, the director said some West End venues do the block-release thing. Do they? Which ones? I don't often go to the WE and have never encountered this. |
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Post by floorshow on Jul 31, 2017 9:12:52 GMT
Isn't it also increasingly common for regional theatres (and some WE) to outsource whole blocks of tickets to other vendors rather than stick to just their own BO?
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Post by Backdrifter on Jul 31, 2017 10:20:49 GMT
Isn't it also increasingly common for regional theatres (and some WE) to outsource whole blocks of tickets to other vendors rather than stick to just their own BO? Yes, where seats are available via agencies I think these will be from blocks that have been allocated to those agencies. |
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Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2017 11:37:41 GMT
In response to the Oxford Mail article and me ranting on Twitter, the Oxford Playhouse have clarified their new ticketing policy - www.oxfordplayhouse.com/news/a-few-facts-about-our-new-tickets-and-pricesSounds better than the initial information implied. Particularly - "The initial release of all shows will always include the cheapest price tickets. Every week-long show at the Playhouse goes on sale with £10 or £15 tickets available. If we ever start to run out of tickets at the cheapest prices, that’s when we release more seats further back. So you never have to wait for the cheaper seats. We will always make sure that early bookers have access to the most affordable tickets. " |
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Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 1, 2017 12:17:55 GMT
In response to the Oxford Mail article and me ranting on Twitter, the Oxford Playhouse have clarified their new ticketing policy - www.oxfordplayhouse.com/news/a-few-facts-about-our-new-tickets-and-pricesSounds better than the initial information implied. Particularly - "The initial release of all shows will always include the cheapest price tickets. Every week-long show at the Playhouse goes on sale with £10 or £15 tickets available. If we ever start to run out of tickets at the cheapest prices, that’s when we release more seats further back. So you never have to wait for the cheaper seats. We will always make sure that early bookers have access to the most affordable tickets. " The £10 tickets are the front row - which in the Playhouse is not a very comfortable experience. It is a relatively high stage and so the front row is often the last to sell (under the old system) because people just don't like sitting there. Some of the better value seats are towards the back of the stalls - and these are the ones they are holding back from sale because of this rather ill-defined term 'atmosphere' None of this answers the basic flaw that their booking system now creates - and that is that people can no longer choose where they want to sit from the outset of the booking period. The £10/£15 thing is a smokescreen to mask the fact that they are reducing choice. The vast majority of the tickets that go on sale from the outset are at the newly increased top price. They have rebranded the front row as cheap seats in order to help mask this fact. It is the midrange tickets that are now more difficult to get. I am afraid that the Playhouse's response is a classic example of trying to justify things by only presenting certain facts. Not good enough and the pressure to return to offering the full range of tickets from the start will continue to grow. |
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Post by TallPaul on Aug 1, 2017 12:19:03 GMT
"...the mid and lower priced tickets have all gotten cheaper."
This is in Oxford, for goodness' sake!
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