To think the price of tickets for theatre are insane

[Chopbob]

I was looking to booking Beauty and the beast on stage in Manchester for my dd birthday, but omg-how expensive!!!!!
Whilst they offer a very small number of tickets for £20 each (a tiny number, all restricted views) the tickets start around £40 each and go up to £100. For a children's show. In Manchester.
A family of 4 would be looking at £160-£400 for one, single kids show.
AIBU to think this is completely insane? Or am I completely out of touch?

[quote Porcupineintherough]@mummykel16 well you should get on in there then. Sure there's plenty of room in the market for a company that could put on a high quality musical for £25 a head. Knock yourself out![/quote]
I didn't notice that was the question I responded to, ah well.
I also don't know what subsidies each place gets but I'm sure it helps lighten the load

@RaoulDufysCat I’m not going to argue the toss as clearly both of us are supported by the industry (and it’s a small world).

However I still think 100% that theatre is elitist, partly due to exorbitant prices and partly the kudos from working in the industry that enables people to be paid over the odds.
You certainly don’t have to study for years like a doctor or lawyer. It’s a trade skill plus simple experience.
And yes, I get calling electrician to do work is expensive. Generally they don’t ask the public for support or claim that they are necessary for arty esoteric reasons though.

Commercial theatres don’t get subsidies. The ones run as educational charities do. Some did get special covid related help but as a rule they are not subsidised.

There’s usually a pretty big cast and back stage crew etc to pay so considering the amount of work that goes into a big show I think it’s reasonable. Not cheap but why would it be cheap? We’re going to see Hamilton in London with our 3 dc and it’s cost £500, Les mis in Bristol was about £350 for 5 of us. Pre dc we used to go to London and see what the half price ticket booth in Leicester Square had available (there used to only be one but now there’s a few and the deals aren’t as good).

An average am dram show with full orchestra, mics and good lighting and you're looking at not having much change from £20K for a week's run.

Obviously spreading a longer run reduces some of that as things like costume are reused, but the cost of the staff, licensing and venues are still there.

It's massively expensive to put a show on unfortunately and a lot of them will be recovering from covid and the associated issues.

There's kids week on the west end where kids are free on a lot of shows. Worth keeping in mind for those who're otherwise priced out. And a website called "view from my seat" lets you check individual seats to see just how restricted a restricted view really is.

@WhatAHexIGotInto

I took DD to see Hamilton last week. It cost £190 for the tickets which is ridiculous. It was our joint birthday present though and we loved it but bloody hell it's expensive.

10 years ago, the top price in one of Cameron Mackintosh’s theatres was £80. Prior to the pandemic, those prices had more than doubled. The wages of his staff, energy prices, rates, consumables etc have not doubled, yet his personal wealth in the Times Rich list rose nearly £300 million to £1.1 billion.Go figure.

As long as people keep paying the extortionate prices they will keep charging them and putting them up. They will lose customers though by touring all the shows like Phantom, Les Mis, Hamilton. People won’t take trouble to travel to London to see them, they will just wait for them to tour. Once you have a show in a hundred different venues you just dilute the anticipation and thrill of seeing a ‘big’ show.

[quote lightisnotwhite]**@RaoulDufysCat I’m not going to argue the toss as clearly both of us are supported by the industry (and it’s a small world).

However I still think 100% that theatre is elitist, partly due to exorbitant prices and partly the kudos from working in the industry that enables people to be paid over the odds.
You certainly don’t have to study for years like a doctor or lawyer. It’s a trade skill plus simple experience.
And yes, I get calling electrician to do work is expensive. Generally they don’t ask the public for support or claim that they are necessary for arty esoteric reasons though.[/quote]
The prices are high, yes. The prices are high because you need lots of highly skilled people to produce one show.

I do agree that there are a lot more people capable of becoming, for instance, a stage manager or a production electrician compared to a doctor/lawyer.

However, production electricians and stage managers are absolutely not being paid the same as doctors or lawyers! They're being paid OK for a job that doesn't require much further or higher level education. However, they are also being required to do a lot more and take a lot more responsibility than other jobs that require the same level of education (shop assistant, estate agent, waiter etc).

Plus actually, no idea what your experience is, but I did (in addition to my degree) extra qualifications in eg pattern cutting and my DH has qualifications that would allow him to be an electrician in any setting. Which, in fact, he did have to study and pay for and which require a better understanding of electricity than, say, A Level Physics.

Kudos doesn't pay the bills.

@lightisnotwhite

I'm surprised you aren't more up to date on the whole hotel/subsistence thing if you're also someone whose livelihood is the industry.

If you book far ahead enough you can often get them cheaper. I agree booking a month or so ahead the costs are painful. But seats that cost £180 right now can cost £31 if you book now for July.

It's annoying but being organised in this case can make it more accessible

AND

Guys,

We're theatre technicians.

We are NOT rich.

We are mainly just ordinary people.

If you don't pay for the tickets, more of us are out of work.

That's, of course, life.

But we see today some guy at Pinewood lamenting the skills shortage for an industry that enriches us by millions each year: www.theguardian.com/media/2022/feb/19/acute-skills-shortage-threatens-british-film-studios-production-boom

The same applies in theatre. If you don't pay for the stuff, the stuff won't happen. And paying for it involves actually lots of training for junior staff because this is a job you can walk into out of school and train on the job to be able to access more interesting and better paid roles.

I don't think we deserve any more consideration than any other profession or job (though the lack of support for freelancers in the pandemic was pretty fucking crap) but I do think we need to have some recognition that this is something we as a country are really bloody good at. We need to support what we are doing well, don't we? Why wouldn't we?

[quote lightisnotwhite]**@RaoulDufysCat I’m not going to argue the toss as clearly both of us are supported by the industry (and it’s a small world).

However I still think 100% that theatre is elitist, partly due to exorbitant prices and partly the kudos from working in the industry that enables people to be paid over the odds.
You certainly don’t have to study for years like a doctor or lawyer. It’s a trade skill plus simple experience.
And yes, I get calling electrician to do work is expensive. Generally they don’t ask the public for support or claim that they are necessary for arty esoteric reasons though.[/quote]
I'm really angry about this actually. What are these arty esoteric reasons? Over the pandemic, DH accessed approx £500-700 per month for furlough payments. I was employed and did not need furlough but my job is lower paid. We really struggled. DH would normally earn at least £1000 a week. We had absolutely no other help and definitely no other govt help. We had to rely on our savings when all the theatres were shut and DH could not work.

At no other time in the last thirty years (since we became adults) has either of us needed any other state support or public support or anything other than just paying for our own stuff with the money we've earned.

Just to set the record straight.

We went to see 2 outdoor productions in the summer, with professional actors. £10-18 per ticket, wonderful and very covid safe.

"working in the industry that enables people to be paid over the odds." Ha ha ha ha ha.

Most theatre techs now need at least a degree or equivalent in a related field if they want to progress at all, not to mention the constant on-going training to accommodate massive H&S changes, constant tech advancements etc. It is not just a "trade skill with simple experience"; people specialise and train for years and are expected to understand and cover others specialties to an incredibly high standard too. To give you an idea of how many crew a show will have, it's averagely three per actor on stage. It's a job that few outside the industry actually understand.
The pandemic has decimated the freelance sector as many left to do other, far less skilled jobs, then realised they were better paid with shorter hours (no more 70+hrs weeks), weekends off, no anti-social hours. Theatres are competing with each other now in terms of pay because there are so few crew left in the industry and the pandemic highlighted how woeful the salaries were.

Ha! All the people saying “it’s not a kids show”. It’s Disney’s Beauty and the Beast based on the Walt Disney cartoon Beauty and the Beast!

I took my kids at 7 and 11 thinking they'd love it and they were bored shitless . They enjoyed both versions of the movie and they've sat for shows at disneyland / pantos etc so it wasn't the story or the fact they just can't sit. It was just a pretty boring performance imho with annoying actors - the exceptions being Be Our Guest which was incredible and Lumiere who was pretty good.

I think all three of us were desperate to leave at the interval but nobody wanted to admit it.

Not worth the money we paid and I honestly would say it's not a kids show.

Based on this I just looked for Beauty and the Beast tickets , Manchester, for a saturday, £155 each!!!!!

The arguments for the cost are sound as any industry. However, the price I'm paying for tickets is almost double what it used to be & a lot of people aren't going because of the cost and are very vocal about it on SM.

The fact is it's an unnecessary expense & people either can't afford or won't pay the prices. If I hadn't already promised DD as her birthday gift I'd have said hell no, I'm not paying that! Hence why they're still advertising heavily. Plenty of seats left. People will wait & buy cheap on the day instead.

I wanted to take my kids to see Hamilton when it was showing in Cincinnati but it would have cost about $1,200. Which is about £882. I can't say that it's not worth it though because I'm sure a lot of time and effort goes into a production like that. It turns out the kids didn't want to see it that badly so I was able to get a matinee seat for myself in Columbus for $155.

Well if a production electrician is earning a minimum of £1000 a week, that may explain some of the ticket prices.

Prices have rocketed way faster than inflation. It used to be an affordable treat, now taking the 4 of us to a show is several hundred pounds, for a couple of hours entertainment.

I just want to give a plug to the Unicorn theatre.

www.unicorntheatre.com/events/marvins-binoculars

It's the largest children's theatre in the UK. I know that a trip is going to be more expensive if you have to travel to London but the prices are definitely a lot less than the big name productions.

The Albany Theatre (Deptford) has a fantastic scheme where you can buy a ticket for a child so they can put on free performances for 5 and 6 year olds in Lewisham. I don't know exactly how it works. I just bought tickets for a show and was asked if I wanted to add on a donation.

@throughtheair

But everyone please please do investigate what community theatre you have locally. No you won't be able to see west end shows but if your DCs are little there's so much lovely stuff around.

this is how we go to the theatre a few times a year, we do a show at Christmas which isn't the big panto with an ex Corrie actor but the small theatre company with 3/4 people.in it & costs £10 a ticket.

Yesterday we saw grease performed by the local youth theatre group in the local theatre, of course it isn't as good.as the West end but it's £10 a ticket and N ice cream at the interval.is £1. DD doesn't care which version she watches and neither do we, we just love the theatre

Best typo I've seen for ages.
I too think it's just too much. But what can you do?

@TheYearOfSmallThings

What strikes me from reading this thread is that the market for am dram productions must be growing steadily. Tbh I've never considered them unless someone I knew was performing, but I'm now thinking I should open my mind to them.

I went to one for the first time recently. They were doing a play of the book my 10yo dd had just done at school. It was very good and would happily go again.

Id recommend a circus performance instead. Kids happy and entertained- tickets about £20 each so I didnt feel ripped off, didnt have to show my vaccine status to get in... best part was at the end- 5 men on motorbikes riding around upside down inside a cage!

The National Theatre in London is cheaper than the West End.