Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

Listen I am no fan of Harry Potter, watching the first movie which was on ITV, which I finding insufferable. I haven't seen neither play. My appetite hasn't been wetted as yet. But I do admire JK Rowling.

However Harry Potter isn't going anywhere, it will be like Phantom and Les Miserables and will play forever, it will always find a new audience. The speed of which it sells out, no longer is a press story, so that niche news story is relevant anymore.

You also need to recoup the cost for each show, which must be very expensive to put on and 4 shows are limiting, especially with all the special effects - so this will make it easier to recoup for each show, if 6 shows are on sale.

Yes as Matthew states there are the whiny "I Want It Now" audience, also you have tourists that come over and want to see this, also peoples' financial situations changes, so as the saying goes you make hay whilst the sunshine. Also if sales start to dip, economic downturn or quieter times of the year, you can revert back to 8 show.

If you had 2 sets of principal actors, do you really need 2 sets of swings and standbys for each one? The additional labour that would work through the night, would be new staff on a better salary to reflect their anti-social hours. The current staff would stay where they are, as you need people during show/day time to run the show, when problems arise.

It won't make it easier. At this stage in a show's life almost all the costs are variable costs: salaries, maintenance, rent, royalties, and various other things that rise and fall along with the number of performances or the number of tickets sold. If eight performances make a profit or loss then twelve performances make a 50% larger profit or loss, whether they occur over a week or a week and a half.
That would be a publicity disaster. The press would certainly push it as "Interest in the show is declining; is this the beginning of the end for HP&tCC?", and there's no way for the producers to fight that because it's accurate.

Also, you can't just train up extra staff and then tell them to turn up only when they're needed. If you want to keep them available in case the show picks up again then you need to keep them on the payroll, so you're paying them without getting any income in return and reducing your profits. If you don't keep them on the payroll then you need to train new staff, which is extra cost that also doesn't generate any income and reduces your profits.
Yes, you do need more swings, because you can't expect people to be available for more shows without paying them more money, even if they're not performing. And if people are having to work through the night on better salaries then the costs rise and the overall profitability of the show drops.

There are some types of show where it makes sense to have extra performances. Pantos often do this because they have a limited period of interest and if the production is popular enough they can do three shows in one day. But they do this because they only have a limited slot in the calendar to work with and because they know the set and costumes only have to last a few weeks. A show like Harry Potter is in this for the long haul. There's a reason almost all productions have a performance schedule with the same number of performances each week, and it's not because nobody ever thought of doing things differently.

You explained it better than I did but I would also add that what POL is suggesting is essentially a zero hour contract for the extra cast and crew which not only would they not accept but the various unions would refuse it as well.

Seat is gone. I'd confused myself and was on the ATG site, not Nimax, but it still didn't go through, and their customer service team didn't even muster an apology! I want to know why the HP site is so rubbish and drops bookings even when it's not a high traffic time. Very frustrating.

There's some on the 25th Jan too. And I''m hoping I've managed to book mine on the 14th - let's see if confirmation email comes through.

3rd visit on the 25th January, managed to snag two tickets for £15 each.

Won the Friday Forty! I think everyone forgot it was actually Friday as were are in that strange zone between Christmas and New Year where one never knows the day of the week!!! Yay!

Returned my ticket yesterday and checked on the website multiple times today where the website said no tickets available. Just received a phone call to let me know that the ticket never sold. Worth following up or no, do we think? I'm not that fussed as they were only the £15 ones, but still, I was expecting it to sell given that the website was saying that the show was sold out....

It might be worth a phonecall, I know some places have a 'we have to sell everything we have before we sell returns' but given it's down as sold out it makes you wonder that nobody at all was willing to take it?

I was there and they were offering one £15 ticket, but it was very quickly and happily snapped up. Everyone left after that assuming that was it, maybe we all left a bit too early?

We have tickets to see both parts on a Sunday in April. We are a family of four (with teenagers) visiting from the US. Any restaurant recommendations for an early dinner nearby? Should we try for reservations at The Ivy?