"Elitist" theatre ticket prices

[KenAdams]

www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-65160984.amp

Sir Derek Jacobi has said that theatre prices are becoming elitist. I'm inclined to agree.

Prices are eye-watering now and I'm in the Midlands! Restricted view seats for £60! Some London shows are ridiculously priced.

Are you finding the same where you live?

Are they elitist?

Comparable with a ticket to Thorpe Park or London Dungeon or a music gig, none of which I would call highbrow.

Cheaper theatre tickets are (and have always been) available for matinee showings etc.

We go to the theatre a lot (at least once a month). Not usually West End big shows these days, we take our young DCs along so it's generally smaller theatres in North London, which tend to be cheaper. Artsdepot, Jacksons Lane, Little Angel, but also stuff at South Bank, Barbican and the Peacock.
We live in London, so not much extra cost in travel (from our zone 2 home) and don't have to pay for accommodation. Usually bring home made sandwiches and drink our own water for free, though we treat DCs to ice cream if available. I always try to get tickets close to the front, even though they're not top price seats (people say they don't like craning their necks if too close to the stage, but DCs are small and like to see things up close). But I won't book restricted view seats even if they're cheaper, it's too frustrating for the DCs, though I booked them when we used to go out as a couple pre-DCs.

I get PIP so often get a free carer ticket for DH, and have used early bird booking offers, plus some theatre offer mailing lists. Have seen lots of offers for West End shows so I expect I'll make use of them when DCs are old enough to go, and don't think we'd be paying top prices even for good seats.

This - also costs have increased significantly for theatres as for everyone else.

Derek Jacobi is right to flag the issue though, it will change who goes to the theatre and what they see. Prices in London theatre are so much more expensive then pre-Covid, I’ve really noticed it in the West End. And it’s a gamble to spend so much money unless a production is good, which I expect leads audiences to reliable and established shows rather than new writing.

Tickets are expensive in the west end, but there are some tricks/tips for cheaper west end tickets:

• kids go free week (actually a month) takes place every august. One child up to the age of 17 goes free for every paying adult. Tickets mainly go the day the booking opens (June) so set a reminder.
• the today tix app often has great deals for both current and new shows
• sign up to Official London theatre newsletters for latest deals. Also theatre tokens which last week gave away £25 tokens free courtesy of the national lottery
• the English national ballet also does a kids go free performance at Xmas
• for gigs, you can find cheaper tickets on official resale partner sites for the same day as someone can’t go/realises that they are not going to get 5x face value for their Stormzy tickets or whatever.
• some shows have a lottery or offer ‘rush’ tickets which is a draw for a set number of tickets (usually the stalls) per performance which are £25 or less.
• you can bring your own food and drinks into London theatres

I realise that this is quite London centric and doesn’t help if you are a family of 6 who all want great seats for Hamilton/The Lion King etc but if you are able to go last minute or there are only two of you, there are a few ways of going more affordably. It has however taken me years to understand how, hopefully the above might be of use to someone!

I love ballet too. English National Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and Northern Ballet all tour. If you can travel to London then you can probably get to a tour venue. Ticket prices are much better! And I was sat near Carlos Acosta when BRB opened Swan Lake at Southampton. We got other tours too, years ago I saw the Bolshoi in Southampton and we have the Kyiv Ballet doing one night soon.

@twolilacs - try for Friday Rush tickets at ROH. A limited number of reasonably priced tickets go on sale at 1 pm (I think) on Fridays for the coming week.

I do a lot of theatre (around 25 shows a year), I buy tickets from different theatres who I start at £10, £13 or £15. Occasionally they charge more for popular shows, typically £20-35 which is OK once in a while. It's s barely more than a cinema ticket.

We saw Hamilton in January and paid a total of £170 for four tickets in a box. £42.50pp and they weren't even the cheapest option. There were also tickets that were £250pp. You don't NEED to spend over £500, there is a choice of cheaper seats.

Streetcar Named Desire at the Phoenix. £125 restricted view, going up to £350 a ticket in the stalls
It's almost sold out on every night 🤷‍♀️

I agree they are expensive. Even with free child seats for some performances you are looking at £60 for our local theatre. More if there are no offers, by the time you add a few drinks and snacks that is £100 minimum.

Gigs I have been to over the last year or two have varied in price much more from £6 to £45.

These tickets do sound expensive - how do they compare to tickets for a good football match? (Sorry I know nothing about football).
At the Wigmore Hall where one can hear world class musicians, tickets cost between £12 - £40.

We paid around £120 for four tickets for Hamilton, so I don’t see why you would spend £500. I’ve also seen Wicked and Phantom for around £30. I’ve been to three London Philharmonic concerts at the Royal Festival Hall recently and paid £6 per ticket. I also saw Phaedra at the NT (excellent, can recommend!) and paid £6.50. I also saw 10cc at the London Palladium last year and paid £10. Unless you only want to see very popular and mainstream stuff, which always sells out, regardless of price, you can see good theatre and excellent classical concerts very cheaply in London. You just need to know where to look, and to sign up to mailing lists.

In person culture/entertainment is all becoming elitist, going by price. And they wonder why people stay home on their screens instead.

cinema tickets are around 18 quid in my country. When they were under 10 I didn’t mind seeing a shit movie once in a while. Spending that kind of money on a movie that is bad now honestly has me fuming. I used to go to the cinema a lot. Now I don’t.

This is a really helpful post, thank you!

I'm shocked at how cheap some of the regional theatres are. Our local theatre is expensive and books out quickly so we usually end up in London. Anything under £65/seat is 'cheap'.

We have had snacks taken from our bags and disposed of at London theatres (Harry Potter at the Palace theatre being one) so I assumed it was the same in all of them. I'll check the small print for each show next time!

Royal Opera House you can get “restricted view” which isn’t too bad for between £7-20 depending on the production. Went to see Madam Butterfly and enjoyed paid £11 each and it wasn’t that bad. Also many places do under 30s cheaper prices. See plays in Edinburgh in the new writing theatres for around £15 each max. More mainstream theatre can be extortionate though.

You can go to the ROH cheaply. Eg, there are tickets for Sleeping Beauty available now for £9. They won’t be the best views, but they are there. I go quite often and I’m on a low income. However, prices in general have gone up there too.

No quite tbe opposite. There are plenty of opportunities to purchase cheaper seats or to plan ahead and buy during theatre week.

My DH runs a theatre in a large city in the Midlands. People would think it’s a successful one. It is well known and has a great reputation. They are set up to try to do as much outreach and community work as possible.

It is literally on its knees. It’s so expensive to run and people simply don’t come in the numbers needed. They barely make anything on most productions. The pantomime seems to be the only thing that brings people in decent enough numbers. That’s why drinks and snacks are priced highly. They have to try to make money somewhere.

I personally think their ticket prices are too low (generally around £30 a ticket). They price them at that level to make it more accessible but the reality is that however much you try to give it broad appeal you will generally find that your audiences are predominantly made up of older middle class people.

Cinema can be more expensive. £15.30 for a basic adult ticket at my local cinema.

Actually taylors tickets were reasonable in the US, sure some were expensive in prime seats but plenty of more affordable seats- she could have definitely charged significantly more and still sold out every venue. She also performs for over 3 hours which is unheard of really.

I agree many theatre tickets are expensive but it costs a lot to run the building and then of course additional to actually put on the show. The small theatre here only carries on going through funding they're awarded by the arts Council and the like.

I'm seeing my first West end play this month for £25, cheaper than most gigs I go to.

I feel sad that we never went to "proper" show as a family with my now adult DC. For the price of 4 tickets in the West End we could go on holiday. But it's not new, this was the case 20 years ago.

We saw some good Am Dram productions and local shows.

Which one and how did you get the ticket? I've occasionally picked up one ticket last minute at that price, but not booking in advance for a group/family.

I agree cinema prices seem crazy too but they're not more expensive?

They start at £13 here, top price tickets are £120. Yes the £13 ones are inthe balcony but you can still see and hear. Cheaper than a football match