That theatre is entirely unaffordable for the average family?

[Florally]

I love theatre. I used to book for my family of 4 regularly and really enjoy it.

My kids recently saw a poster for ‘Christmas Carol Goes Wrong’ and loved the previous shows my the company so I thought I’d book it as a surprise.

It’s insane. If you don’t want to sit in the gods it’s basically £600 for a family of four minimum.

Who can afford that for one night out??

Am I missing something here?

It can get expensive but with careful use of sites like theatre monkey you can pick good view seats at lower prices. It has been harder to find really cheap deals since covid but they are out there.

Watching a live theatre production on screen is a brilliant affordable option. You still get all the build up and get to see behind the scenes.

www.ntlive.com/

Back to the Future matinee today. 3rd row from the front in the stalls are £35. On today tix app.

I’m one of those people who at this stage in my life and living out of London, I want a good seat and for me that’s in centre stalls. I’d rather not go than sit high up or have a restricted view. There is just no way to get certain seats cheap, for west end and for popular shows. I remember before Covid tickets were £79 - £120. Still, at least prices aren’t as crazy as they are on Broadway e.g $921 to see Denzel Washington and Jake Gyllenhaal in Othello. I’d like to see Inter Alia at the National in August and £110 seems reasonable (but I know it’s a government subsidised venue).

Kidsweek - in the summer, you can get children’s tickets free for every adult ticket you buy. Think it lasts more than a week.

https://officiallondontheatre.com/kids-week/

Back to the Future is a superb show to take kids to, and especially those who don’t like musical or the theatre. The lighting effects are amazing.

Saw ‘Just for One Day’ in London recently. I had stall seats for around £75. Superb musical and worth seeing (I think the guidelines are 12+ due to swearing, mainly Bob Geldof using the F-word).

I’m always shocked how much some of the top tier football clubs charge for their seats.

NT live is a great evening out - still the buzz of seeing the production with an audience, and the best seat in the house wherever you sit.

We've had Rsc tickets for £30 this year, and live up north so plenty of great theatre, and music at the Glasshouse and regional theatres at good prices.

I do think the prices some of the big West End shows charge are ridiculous - there's a lot of hype surrounding it.

We’ve got front balcony seats for £20 each for CCGW. There are large screens for those with restricted view so you don’t miss the detail. Likewise Comedy about Spies £25 each. You can check the view on theatremonkey.

You can register for RSC and NT under 25/30 schemes to get discounted tickets for their productions, even those running at other theatres like Our Neighbour Totoro and Matilda. We also got our dc £10 tickets for Macbeth at the Donmar Warehouse last year which were immediately behind our full price seats.

There's nothing wrong with sitting in the God's.
It's what I can afford and I like it.
I was actually pleasantly surprised at how affordable the tickets are, personally, by comparison to a lot of other things lately.

But it’s not £600 ‘minimum’ for a family of four. They have seats from £25 up to £152. So at most it’s £608 for a family of four at minimum it’s £100.

Are theatre tickets over priced? Some are absolutely. I wouldn’t pay £152 for a single ticket and some west end shows are even more for the ‘good’ seats. But there are a couple of things to consider. UK theatres are under funded and still recovering from two years of lockdown. UK theatres all still manage to hold seats at reasonable prices and most too have cheap ticket schemes for students and such. Be pleased you don’t live in New York, Broadway costs are astronomical!

Going to the theatre doesn’t require you to buy the best seats in the house.

I go to the theatre at least once a month, often more. A lot of that in London, where I don’t live and so which requires extra expense and time. I don’t spend very much on my tickets at all. A few ways of shopping cheaply:

• Look at cheaper seats, if you want a centre view but don’t want to spend a fortune, consider going a few rows further back;
• Consider going higher up, I’ve generally found that you get a better overall view from higher up than in the stalls, which can often struggle from being at or lower than the height of the stage and aren’t often particularly struggle with being on the same or a similar height to the row in front;
• Think about choosing restricted views are often not at all bad, and many theatres now have photos of the view you’ll get (note: avoid the play Sterophonic at Duke of York’s, my first failed restricted view in years, I sat looking at a wall and ended up leaving!);
• Book early! Nothing beats it as you get a better choice of seats. I follow most theatres on email/ social media as well as theatre press such as The Stage and What’s on Stage, also, often signing up for early access doesn’t cost;
• Don’t use third party ticket websites, book direct with the theatre;
• Be flexible with dates. Still lots of availability for the play you want in January; and,
• Consider alternatives. The big London shows might have limited availability and elevated prices, but smaller local theatres are often cheaper and less busy. They also struggle more so it’s nice to support them. They are also other slightly different alternatives such as The Little Angel Theatre which has been going for decades and does the most incredible puppet shows. Was set up by Joe Wright’s parents (film director: Pride and Prejudice, Atonement, etc) and you can still sometimes see his mother building puppets in the workshop next door to the theatre.

VIP packages and the best seats in the house are always going to be very expensive, it’s how they help subsidise the cheaper seats.

But, here’s the thing, you don’t need to buy the VIP package to enjoy theatre.

It’s like complaining at the cost of a flight to New York, because you’re only looking at 1st Class, or those people that spent £1000’s of pounds of VIP packages for Taylor Swift.

You do not need to buy the best seats in the house with added VIP packages to enjoy a show. And using the cost of these as an example for how expensive theatre is is unfair.

That makes imersive experiences like Lapland UK seem cheap. £600? LLUK is cheaper

I lived in London for many years and was a regular theatre goer. I also understand inflation. But the price increases over the past five years have, largely, been massive. Prices aren’t going down. It just makes me sad that theatre going is increasingly going to be a hobby for the rich, exclusively.

Absolutely. (As with many sectors) there has been a dreadful concatenation of circumstances that have massively impacted theatres and the arts, with covid shutting theatres and the Ukraine war pushing up utility costs and the general above inflation rise in living costs. And at the same time Government support for the arts has dropped of a cliff. There are three solutions;

• theatres must support themselves wholly, in which case ticket costs rise significantly and theatre no longer becomes something for ordinary people and certainly not for students and the poorer in society;
• the arts are seen again as a vital thing for us all, and something to be proud of - just look at our theatre heritage! - and is supported properly again by government subsidies (which is why anyone who cares at all needs to be making an out cry and signing every petition going, etc); or,
• Theatres close. Unfortunately, theatre costs an awful lot to make and run. ‘Just charge less’ is not a sustainable and viable solution.

It's a treat. The last time we went as a family was a decade ago to see Matilda. Even then, it was approx £70 each (for good seats) in Birmingham! I decided it was cheaper to visit family one weekend than to visit London to see it.

Nowadays, DH & I go by ourselves. We went to see Six back in January (relatively cheap/good value) and did it as a day out. (Drove to end of a tube line to save money cos off peak return train tickets were significantly more than a day's car parking ticket plus tube).

Hi OP. I agree the theatre is expensive. However, I remain a big fan. Many good theatres will give good options if tickets are booked really early and if you join a membership scheme. My children are now older and we go a number of times a year to the National Theatre or Barbican. There are some great shows on offer, but you need to buy tickets pretty much as soon as they come out to get the cheapest.

You’re not wrong OP. Our local theatre (in the north of England) was advertising an amateur production of Les Mis and they were charging £60+ per ticket. I’m not paying £250 for my family to watch a glorified school play!

No point buying cheap seats. We went to see Hamilton and sat in the gods, it still cost an arm and a leg and you couldn’t really see anything (not to mention uncomfortable). My dd has subsequently seen it closer up and said it transformed her experience of it. If it’s a special day out and a treat you want reasonable seats.

We’ve had some good TikTok deals with our kids but that’s it. Wanted to take my dd to see the No.9 stage tour but just could not afford it at £75 a ticket. We just won’t go to the theatre any more.

We've taken our DC to the West End but it's so expensive now. Yes it is possible to find cheap seats sometimes, but when you have some limitations on date that makes it more tricky and honestly, while I don't need the best seats I don't want to have a poor view either.

We've started to go to our local theatre much more. Tickets are affordable, seats and views are always good, and travel costs are negligible. I feel it's much better value for money.

We saw this recently and the DC absolutely loved it
www.shoddydetective.com/

I agree with theatremonkey being a great tip for lower prices.
another reason I don’t like paying for top price seats is the rake is often least in the centre stalls in the older theatres, and I’m short. I also don’t like investing so much in one play. If I don’t particularly enjoy it, or have a tall person right in my sight line, I feel I’ve invested too much in a great view of one show only so I’d rather spread the cost a bit!
never found TodayTix particularly cheap — can usually get the same seats directly for less. But then I am generally thinking I want to see something specific rather than shopping for a deal.

Wow! Our local city (small cathedral city) playhouse is £40 per adult (evening) £34 per adult (afternoon) for front row stalls. Saw the Da Vinci code this year it was superb.

Someone else mentioned it, but some cinemas do live showings of the National Theatre, Royal Opera and Ballet and the Met Opera in New York. The tickets are around £20. I saw a fantastic "The Barber of Seville" live from New York for £21 recently.

Christmas is the most expensive time to go and anything with a big star in it will be expensive, but even something like the London Palladium pantomime is cheaper in January.

we just search for deals and go to what has affordable tickets - we live in london so can go any dates which is handy

there was london theatre kids week on the 10th june and it was free kids tickets with a full paying adult ticket - so we always wait for that and book 2 shows for school holidays

there might be still some tickets left (not sure that show you want is in it though)

But yeah in general the prices are crazy - like my daughter wanted to go to theres a bear in my chair -(shes only 4) it was around 45£ a ticket for a 1 hour kids show!! we didn't go in the end

We recently went to a local private school production of Les Mis (which I've seen x 2 in London), tickets were £8 each and it was utterly amazing. Really really atmospheric. I know you lot will scoff but I enjoyed it more than the London performances.
They even had a full orchestra and a beautiful bar with pre orders and no queues.
Could local productions be an alternative?

They are much cheaper if you wait till they tour and go and see them up north. For very good seats you would be looking at more like £200-300 for a family of 5.