To think that West End Theatre is going to perish due to over pricing?

Worth pointing out there are decent budget options in big regional cities too. I'm not too far from Manchester and feel quite well provisioned. It's not the West End but there's lots of great stuff on. The Palace and Opera House have a lot of seats at £15 and £25. Granted, the former are restricted leg room- I'm five foot five so not a particularly large human and it's still a bit of a squeeze. But the option is there.

You will pay more for the really big names, was about £80 for one of the cheapos at Hamilton, for example. But if you want to go to the theatre for £15, there'll be options. I'm looking at some ballet tickets for that right now. What really is a shame is that some people can't even run to that.

It's not "elitist". If there's a show I want to see, I plan ahead, start saving and go when I can afford to. It's not that deep.

You definitely do not need to pay hundreds of pounds for a good view. We recently went to see Moulin Rouge. Tickets were £25 each. Yes we were up high, but they were fantastic seats without any sort of restricted view. We paid the same for Cabaret last year and again they were fantastic seats.

how is that not sustainable?

Tickets sell, most nights are full booked. It's hard to book last minute because it's usually too late to get a seat. That sounds like a successful industry?

Yes, I got that you wanted to go at Christmas, but going end of October is a way to avoid those prices and get the seats you want. Call it a holiday-season kick-off. And then do something cheaper in London around Christmas.

Try Central Tickets.

The producers of Elf The Christmas Musical will not ask for or expect government subsidies. They will make a nice amount of money.

There's plenty of really good theatre outside London that won't cost anywhere near to those prices. I agree that it's not sustainable but they will be bleating for tax payers help when they price themselves out of the market.

It is completely elitist, and yes, ultimately it will be the death of the theatre.
It’s ‘dynamic pricing’ and I loathe it.

What are these teacher discounts you speak of? 🧐

You can get £10 tickets every Friday at the National for performances the following week, which is one of the best bargains I’ve heard of for a long time. They also do reduced price standby tickets an hour before the start of each performance.

£180 isn’t a bargain (to me) at all, but a few tickets sold at that price to those who can afford them will help to pay for the production. The vast majority of seats there are £88 too, which probably is a bargain considering how many people are involved and the cost of the project. If you assume there are 20 actors then you’re paying them £4.40 each for their performance

Plus lots of people are fed up with too many toys so may get such tickets as a christmas experience.

I don't know - people come from all over the world to visit London year round. Perhaps they will buy the tickets as a blow out expenses as they're on holiday. Plus there are plenty of grandparents with cash swilling around-perhaps they will buy tickets for their GC. I imagine the people who have put the prices up so high have done so because they have some sort of algorithm or market analysis. All they need to do if they want more people in is to drop the price a bit anyway.

No, I still don’t agree with you so to add to my post earlier, in the early 00’s pretty much up until Covid, west end tickets were expensive for the good seats: £70 - £200. It’s never been a cheap activity, although there’s always been deals. As wages have gone up and will continue to go up it will always be an affordable treat to those of us on average incomes who love the theatre experience so I don’t think there’s been a change.

I’ve just looked and can’t see a ticket over £182. 🤔 and most stalls seats are £88. Can you look at different dates maybe?

Those prices are ridiculous, but they'll sell.

So, no, they're not going to perish. They going to make a whole heap of money from a short season of a Christmas show.

But there'll be loads of other great Christmas shows you can go and see for far less money.

Seats in the last few days of October are much cheaper. I just checked.

The people who run these businesses are not stupid. As with hotels & airlines, they set their pricing at levels which their analysis indicates their customers will be prepared to pay. This pricing will be based on data not guesswork. And if they get it wrong and the theatre is half empty, they will soon change their prices.

It’s ridiculous but it won’t be the death of the industry as there are plenty of people willing to pay. Unfortunately the vast majority of us will be priced out

I agree. I saw a streaming of A Woman of no Importance from the NationalTheatre and not only did I get the most perfect view of the whole production, but there’s always a great interval feature too - interviews or a historical topic connected with the play. Beats struggling to the bar!

And I’ve loved the streamed operas too. All this for £15 pre Covid!