155 posts
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Post by synchrony on Sept 1, 2016 11:00:37 GMT
I’ve seen 21 shows this year, of which 17 were musicals and 4 were plays. 14 of these were in London.
So it averages as around 2-3 a month. But I would commonly see all of those in a single weekend to save on journey time and train fares, so only go down to London about once a month.
As a kid, we went far less often and it was more of an event. I remember dressing up for the theatre, whereas I’d never bother doing that now. I suppose I don’t feel the major excitement that I did then. But I appreciate different things in a show now, and still enjoy it just as much.
This excludes Edinburgh completely, at which I saw 36 shows in 7 days (11 musicals, 25 plays/other). Admittedly I did start to flag slightly, but there were still only 3 or 4 things that I didn’t appreciate seeing. I think it was because in London I tend to stick to musicals, whereas at the Fringe I take the opportunity to see a much wider variety of things which keeps the excitement up. There are still at least 4 shows that I regret missing. I couldn’t keep that pace up for much longer than a week though.
When I'm away on holiday I can't say that I miss theatre much. Too much else going on.
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2016 11:15:13 GMT
For me, it depends where and why I've gone on holiday. If I've gone to New York to see shows, then I accept that as my primary reason and I don't mind not making so many other outings. I will do other things, but I won't get up early in the morning or plan anything too far out unless I can definitely get back in time for my show. Am I missing out on all those tourist activities I don't do? No, because they're not the reason I've gone to New York.  But if I've gone somewhere and my primary purpose isn't theatre, then I might try and sneak in a visit to wherever my local theatre is, but I'm not especially fussed if I don't manage it. |
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2016 11:31:25 GMT
For me, it depends where and why I've gone on holiday. If I've gone to New York to see shows, then I accept that as my primary reason and I don't mind not making so many other outings. I will do other things, but I won't get up early in the morning or plan anything too far out unless I can definitely get back in time for my show. Am I missing out on all those tourist activities I don't do? No, because they're not the reason I've gone to New York. But if I've gone somewhere and my primary purpose isn't theatre, then I might try and sneak in a visit to wherever my local theatre is, but I'm not especially fussed if I don't manage it. Same, if I'm in New York Theatre is one of my main reasons for going, so it's an integral part of the holiday. Same for breaks in London. Other places I don't seek out theatre, but if I happen to be somewhere and something is on that I want to see (I'm thinking mainly short UK breaks, say a tour that didn't come near me was there, or the local theatre is a good venue) then I might spend one night at the theatre. If I'm elsewhere, say in Europe then no seeking out theatre doesn't really feature. I've never actually done Edinburgh, mainly as logistics conspire against me, but also I shy away a bit because I feel I'd find it a bit too much-I'm terrible with crowds and I feel like just that much theatre over a prolonged period would be an overdose. One year I will go to find out though. |
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1,319 posts
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Post by londonmzfitz on Sept 1, 2016 12:38:58 GMT
I've just worked out I've seen 3 shows a month since the beginning of this year (27 shows, 3.38 per month). This doesn't include Miss Atomic Bomb where I had a ticket and just couldn't be bothered, or The Go-Between where I had a ticket and they cancelled the preview and I just couldn't be bothered to rebook.
The "couldn't be bothered" bothers me! I love going to the theatre, but I think lately the buzz has gone for me. I'm booking more for first nights or last nights to add to my buzz. Weekdays are better for me as I live and work in London. Too often I've booked a show for a Saturday and got the "oh god do I have to go" buzz rather than the "I cannot wait"! buzz. And some of my shows have been revisits - Sunset Boulevard, Funny Girl, Kinky Boots.
Still got 10 shows booked up to the end of this year (not including Aladdin in October which I can no longer go to as I've got to be out of London, or Lazarus which I booked before I decided to go away over the same period).
I've decided that I'm no longer going to book on a whim as I have before. Need to get my mojo back.
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3,575 posts
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Post by showgirl on Sept 1, 2016 13:37:11 GMT
Well done, tom89, for starting this thread, which is proving so interesting and popular. At first I mistook it for one about ticket prices, but talking about frequency of theatre trips is fascinating.
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11 posts
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Post by arlette on Sept 1, 2016 13:44:41 GMT
It really depends on the person for what is to frequently to go. I for myself would love to go more to the theatre but I am just a student. Not alot of money and I live to far from big theatre's as I live in a small town in the Netherlands. When I do go here it is not so frequent because of the distant. I love West end productions because they are in english and in my opinion better then the alot of Dutch productions.
So when I go to London I see alot in a small time frame. My goal is to go once a year and have succeeded so far. It just a pity I won't be able to see alot of limited runs. My family and friends think it is too much when I go to London. But eh it is your hobby, you get to decide whether it is too much.
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1,102 posts
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Post by zak97 on Sept 1, 2016 14:49:30 GMT
With starting university in London this month, I'll be hoping to see shows at the theatre a bit more often. For me, it's a been a show once a month, or at least once most months - but that has been mainly due to the cost of trains. Realistically, on a student budget, I doubt I'll be going once a month, but as someone who isn't mad about clubbing, I'll be hoping to maybe go once every other week if I can, definitely by dayseating and finding the cheapest tickets whenever possible, and finally getting the chance to see some of the fringe shows or long running musicals that I've always passed at seeing purely since there's a limited run I'd rather not miss.
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4,156 posts
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Post by kathryn on Sept 1, 2016 16:06:01 GMT
With starting university in London this month, I'll be hoping to see shows at the theatre a bit more often. For me, it's a been a show once a month, or at least once most months - but that has been mainly due to the cost of trains. Realistically, on a student budget, I doubt I'll be going once a month, but as someone who isn't mad about clubbing, I'll be hoping to maybe go once every other week if I can, definitely by dayseating and finding the cheapest tickets whenever possible, and finally getting the chance to see some of the fringe shows or long running musicals that I've always passed at seeing purely since there's a limited run I'd rather not miss. As a student in london you'll generally have the opportunity and flexibility to take advantage of the cheaper tickets, so you may end up seeing more than you think! There's some really good cheap schemes around - NT entry Pass, Donmar Young and free for their Shakespeare trilogy, Donmar front row, Royal Court Monday nights for £10, Jamie Lloyd's £15 Mondays on many of his shows. For fringe stuff you could join Audience Club and see a lot of stuff for just a small booking fee. Oh, and it's not theatre, but www.bfi.org.uk/25-and-under is worth signing up for. |
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Post by jgblunners on Sept 1, 2016 16:17:13 GMT
Entry Pass is fantastic, I've been really impressed by the NT providing that. If you're into Opera/Ballet, the Royal Opera House also do a student scheme, and of course there are plenty of shows that do student discounts.
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1,102 posts
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Post by zak97 on Sept 1, 2016 16:19:18 GMT
With starting university in London this month, I'll be hoping to see shows at the theatre a bit more often. For me, it's a been a show once a month, or at least once most months - but that has been mainly due to the cost of trains. Realistically, on a student budget, I doubt I'll be going once a month, but as someone who isn't mad about clubbing, I'll be hoping to maybe go once every other week if I can, definitely by dayseating and finding the cheapest tickets whenever possible, and finally getting the chance to see some of the fringe shows or long running musicals that I've always passed at seeing purely since there's a limited run I'd rather not miss. As a student in london you'll generally have the opportunity and flexibility to take advantage of the cheaper tickets, so you may end up seeing more than you think! There's some really good cheap schemes around - NT entry Pass, Donmar Young and free for their Shakespeare trilogy, Donmar front row, Royal Court Monday nights for £10, Jamie Lloyd's £15 Mondays on many of his shows. For fringe stuff you could join Audience Club and see a lot of stuff for just a small booking fee. Oh, and it's not theatre, but www.bfi.org.uk/25-and-under is worth signing up for. The Shakespeare trilogy is definitely on my list, if I can get tickets, as I especially want to see how the perform 'The Tempest' having studied it for A-Level and read about the many elaborate original stagings of the play. The Royal Court and Jamie Lloyd schemes are something I had forgotten, so thanks for that, and I'll need to keep an ear open for plays that may be up my street. One thing I hadn't heard of is the NT entry pass? |
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1,046 posts
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Post by jgblunners on Sept 1, 2016 16:23:11 GMT
As a student in london you'll generally have the opportunity and flexibility to take advantage of the cheaper tickets, so you may end up seeing more than you think! There's some really good cheap schemes around - NT entry Pass, Donmar Young and free for their Shakespeare trilogy, Donmar front row, Royal Court Monday nights for £10, Jamie Lloyd's £15 Mondays on many of his shows. For fringe stuff you could join Audience Club and see a lot of stuff for just a small booking fee. Oh, and it's not theatre, but www.bfi.org.uk/25-and-under is worth signing up for. The Shakespeare trilogy is definitely on my list, if I can get tickets, as I especially want to see how the perform 'The Tempest' having studied it for A-Level and read about the many elaborate original stagings of the play. The Royal Court and Jamie Lloyd schemes are something I had forgotten, so thanks for that, and I'll need to keep an ear open for plays that may be up my street. One thing I hadn't heard of is the NT entry pass? £5 tickets to every show at the National, usually some rather good seats. They go quickly for most productions though! |
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1,102 posts
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Post by zak97 on Sept 1, 2016 16:24:50 GMT
The Shakespeare trilogy is definitely on my list, if I can get tickets, as I especially want to see how the perform 'The Tempest' having studied it for A-Level and read about the many elaborate original stagings of the play. The Royal Court and Jamie Lloyd schemes are something I had forgotten, so thanks for that, and I'll need to keep an ear open for plays that may be up my street. One thing I hadn't heard of is the NT entry pass? £5 tickets to every show at the National, usually some rather good seats. They go quickly for most productions though! Oh, and also how does The Audience club work, I'm slightly confused by their website? But if it seems there is a lot more cheap theatre around than I had initially thought I could possibly do two big shows and one small production per month. |
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4,369 posts
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Post by Michael on Sept 1, 2016 16:37:41 GMT
I'm seeing much less theatre this year than in the last years: By the end of the year, I will "only" have seen 69 shows, compared to 97 in 2015 and even 107 in 2014. It's not that I've lost interest in theatre, I simply struggle to find shows that interest me enough to justify flying over to the UK.
Last year had Memphis which I loved (27 times, wish it had been much more often), and 2014 had the Wicked and Rock of Ages UK tours and, in the first half, Willemijn Verkaik in Wicked in London.
And 2016? Very few of the shows currently running interest me (absolutely no interest in Bodyguard, Kinky Boots, Lion King, Motown, Phantom, Les Mis), and I'm even actively avoiding some of my favourite (long-running) shows because of certain cast members - and I tend(ed) to see them an unhealthy amount of times each year. Heck, there are even two months this year where I (will) have seen no shows at all (May and October).
Here's hoping 2017 will be better - if only there were more upcoming productions to look forward to than School of Rock. Fingers crossed for the Memphis tour to eventually happen...
As I'm not living in the UK, I have to fly over for my theatre fix. So when I'm in the UK anyway, I usually make the most of it and see as much theatre as possible and fill every theatre "slot". Usually, it's only for a weekend though (flying over Friday afternoon, returning home on Sunday) so that I don't have to take time off from work (I work flexible hours so I can easily leave work Friday at noon-ish).
New York is somehow similar to London. I'm not wasting any precious theatre slots, but as I've been there much more seldom than in London, I fill the rest of the day with sightseeing (there's still quite a lot to see - I'll definitely be visiting the 9/11 and Guggenheim museums during my upcoming trip in December).
I also try to combine my other vacations with theatre. I wanted to see the Newsies US tour a few more times, so I looked through their tour schedule and found St. Louis and San Diego as tour stops. Never been to the first and wanted to return to the second for quite some time, so I booked trips to both to see Newsies and for sightseeing and exploring the cities.
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4,156 posts
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Post by kathryn on Sept 1, 2016 17:20:48 GMT
Oh, and also how does The Audience club work, I'm slightly confused by their website? But if it seems there is a lot more cheap theatre around than I had initially thought I could possibly do two big shows and one small production per month. Audience Club is basically a seat-filling club. You pay their small membership fee (which is donated to charity), put some money in an online kitty to book tickets with, and then they post up shows you can get tickets for (generally in the next week, although new shows can be added during the day), and you just pay a few quid booking fee. The tickets will be allocated by the theatre when you collect at box office, and you can't complain about where they put you, but they're generally not bad seats - the point is to make the theatre look full for the paying punters, and create a good atmosphere. They generally don't get many West End shows, but they do get lots of fringe stuff and classical music concerts, and sometimes comedy, too. They do insist on you following their rules - basically, you must either show up to collect tickets or cancel your ticket if you can't make it, no refunds if you cancel, you must be polite to box office staff, you can't complain about your seat, you mustn't tell anyone your seat was a comp from audience club, and you're not allowed to talk about which shows you saw through them. They do have a habit of sending annoying shouty emails whenever anyone breaks one of those rules, but if you can put up with that you can see some good stuff for very little. |
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4,361 posts
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Post by shady23 on Sept 3, 2016 7:54:02 GMT
I live in Newcastle so tend to binge watch shows when I am down in London. I probably see more in London than I do locally as there hasn't been much touring locally that I have fancied.
Unfortunately the trains down are more expensive now Virgin have taken over the franchise.
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But if I've gone somewhere and my primary purpose isn't theatre, then I might try and sneak in a visit to wherever my local theatre is, but I'm not especially fussed if I don't manage it.
