Oklahoma! - Young Vic / Wyndham’s

Painless booking process, two sets of lucky dip tickets booked - last preview and last show

On the subject of ticket pricing. I have just been looking at matinee tickets. Prices later in the run seem to be £10 higher. Those I checked up to 8th June are £58. Later matinees are £68. The main show page continues to show prices up to £58.

I also booked in January and am also not a member  but at that time all I did was choose a date and a price - which was £20 in zone C at the end of April.. I got a code (a letter and three numbers) to identify my seat  I've heard no more from that booking as of now so no idea where that seat is located.

On Saturday full seat choice was available but only Friends could book, with the option of paying the £50 Friends membership to complete the booking which I declined. Then from midday today public booking opened including the £10 Lucky Dip tickets and the £20 seats in stalls row C which on the face of it are the best deal compared with other pricing.  I grabbed the first two I found plus two Lucky Dips for an earlier performance

I went for a £40 seat and have been allocated the fourth row on the side in a "high seat" which the Young Vic Box Office tell me "have a full back and a foot rest, so no dangling legs. There are no arm rests as it is a long bench, which is padded and very comfortable."

They also say there are no plans to abandon their policy of putting seats on sale before seating configurations have been agreed, which is disappointing. If there were good management in place, they would prioritise discussions on set layout during the initial dialogue with the director and set designer. If they had any regard for the needs of paying theatregoers, they would hold off sales until such discussions had concluded. If they are not capable of doing that in a timely manner, they shouldn't be in the business.

Of course, some other theatres are also guilty of making late changes to configurations, and having to move people who have already booked, but, with wise, experienced people in charge, these things should not happen.

I emailed asking for my seat allocation. Was very happy to see a seat I got for £20 in the prebook is in the stalls and near ones that are now £58. Assume everyone who prebooked will have a similar bargain. 

Thanks for replies. I will also email. I still think it's a strange set up if there's a need to send a message to get a seat allocation

It's always been like this at the Young Vic. The main house, in particular, is a fully flexible space - perhaps unlike some of the other spaces which do have flexibility - which is a 'stretched' octagon with corridors running around it. There are possible entrances all round from these corridors, which are sometimes FOH and sometime backstage. There are no 'standard formats' which might be tweaked for a particular show. The seating is modular benches - or sometimes completely different seating - which can be put together absolutely anywhere. I have been there many times, and its one of the magical things about seeing the space and how you enter it so transformed that you often feel you are visiting a new venue. That's the flexibility they give the director and designer, and its one of the few venues where the audience seating is an integral part of the design process.

The downside of this of course is that 'exact' layouts cannot be finalised until much nearer the show, and obviously much later than the lead in time for putting shows on sale. Its easy to say surely they should know earlier, but it's all the finite details like how many seats in a particular row, what are the aisle seats, is there enough clearance here or there in gangways to satisfy licencing, what spaces are accessible / flat etc that are only known much deeper in the design process.

That said, I'm sure that there are improvements they can make, such as how and when they communicate with bookers once the seat plans are signed off, given the comments on here.........

Hope mill started by having different layouts for different productions but eventually switched to the same layout with minor tweaks for everything. And that allowed them to move from unallocated seating to specified seats. Not as much artistic freedom for creatives but at least punters know where they’re sitting when they buy.

But while space might be infinitely configurable, how many options are there really? Every show doesn’t merit a new and unique seating layout, enough productions have been staged for them to have learned the ins and outs of a thrust versus a traverse or round. Everything beyond that is fiddling with a row of on stage chairs or cabaret tables all of which can be added as ticket options later. If they’re going in to every production with a blank piece of paper then they must be wasting a great deal of time and costly resources which no doubt end up on the price of the tickets. Sounds potentially like a lot of creative “faffing” and ultimately too much choice becomes a prison in the end.

I paid £20 and have also been allocated a high seat on the side, possibly same row as you. From other posts on this thread the seats allocated don't appear to directly link to price paid.