To think that West End shows are not all as overpriced as some on here say?

[Carla786]

I definitely think that people are being priced out by col and this is very unfair. But I also think some posts on here about how unaffordable West End theatre is are exaggerated.
The Globe offers standing room for as low as £5 or £6. OK, it's not ideal as most of us would rather sit down but it does at least mean a lot of Shakespeare & some others is affordable if you're prepared to stand.

Then as to West End musicals : I think an issue here is that pps who cite them as unaffordable are trying to take a whole family, 2-3 or maybe more kids, as well as them & DP. This will be a lot harder than going on your own or with one other person, especially if trying for an Xmas show (though booking in advance might slightly lessen). It does vary based on show too : the most popular will of course be more likely to be sky high.

COL has obviously increased a lot, but I also wonder how affordable West End was in the past for family trips. I was born early 2000s and my mum was able to get a lot of cheap tickets very high up just for me & her. As a child her family didn't really do musicals or plays. In the 70s-90s, were big shows a lot more affordable for family trips?

So I suppose I'd say that I agree prices are too high for a lot of families, and this is wrong : but I'd also caveat that I think there are lot more affordable options than some posts on here imply.

Well to be fair, the person I went with in my 20s was her dad (we’re divorced now unfortunately) so it’s hard to know!

I did take her to the theatre a lot from a young age - to things aimed at children when she was small - so hopefully that helped.

Sorry image attached.

Yes, that was an AI overview so may well have been wrong..

I had a look at Theatreland website & they showed very high prices- otoh in December you can get tickets at the weekend, and then post-Dec 22, for £36.

The official website recommends booking for next year and shows £28 tickets in January, including some weekends. I don't know what kind of view, though.

@topcat2026The Royal Opera House has standing tickets too. I’d never pay £300 for any theatre seat. The reason prices get to this level is because they know there’s demand. Apart from my DD who lives in London, I don’t have any other friends who go to London. They like the local theatre. I prefer to see the best and go less frequently. I enjoy going a great deal and I’m less keen on touring shows that don’t have the original cast. My friends don’t care so they are happy with the local offering.

For us to see 2 big shows with 2 children it was £600. That’s was 8 years ago too. It was cheaper to plan months ahead with advance train and accommodation and tickets and stay overnight in a family room in a premier inn than the hassle of parking and 2 sets of train journeys. We were getting good seats as the travel and hotel were a major cost - damned if we got cheap seats when it was costing so much anyway. We did it once.

We don’t live in London. That’s why touring tours are so important. However, some of the best theatre I have seen is locally. The prices aren’t that different but associated costs are so much less. Don’t have to go to restaurants or book hotels or trains.

@Carla786i may try and get some for next year. I did get a win with Mrs Doubtfire in Bham though - £27 and I had looked at that in London so many times and was £££.

This is utterly ridiculous for so many reasons

Firstly, why "should" something that is by any rationale a non-essential, treat purchase, have to be affordable for "everyone"? We don't say that about other expensive things - nobody would argue that "everyone" should be able to eat caviar weekly and drive a Porsche and live in Kensington or is entitled to tickets for Oasis/Taylor Swift. It's a treat purchase.

Secondly, why "on a Saturday night"? Theatres can't afford to run from one performance a week - there's a reason the most popular days are the most expensive.

Thirdly, Many people can 'go to the theatre on a saturday night, to see a show they actually want to see, from a seat with a decent view' - just not every Saturday night. If it's expensive they just have to accept it's a once-a-year treat. Which always used to be the case, if you didn't live in London it was the norm to come up occasionally for a big weekend, see the sights, watch a show. It was never common for most people to pop up from Cornwall and Sheffield every other week.

It's a musical, not a human right! If you can't afford it you don't go, simple as. Theatres aren't charities - if a show is too expensive for you they'll easily find someone else to take your seat.

It should be accessible for everyone to go to the theatre on a Saturday night to see a show they actually want to see, from a seat that actually has a decent view.

I don’t get this at all. That’s prime
seats for a prime show on a prime day of the week. How is that ever going to be accessible to everyone?

What would they do, sell all the seats for the same price? Then who would buy the seats with a less good view, or on a week nights?

Or sell the less good seats for £7.50? How would they make any money?

This.

I haven't got to the end of the thread yet, but many of the posts that I've read so far have been very London-centric. If you live outside London, the 'tickets on the day' recommendations are useless. And if, heaven forbid, you live a serious distance away, a trip to see a show is a big thing, involving transport, hotels, and a fair bit of excitement. Why would you do all that only to get there and find your view obstructed, or be so far away that, as a pp put it, you might as well be watching it on your phone?

So yes, all this 'it's perfectly accessible if you can be bothered to research the cheap seats' only works if you live in London, can get to a weeknight performance at the last minute, after work, and are happy to have a sub-optional view.

The cheapest seat may only be a few rows but so are the most expensive seats. I have posted the Paddington prices and the most expensive seats are £180 for the majority of shows not 300+. It isn't cheap but the insinuation that you have to pay over 300 per ticket is unfair. There are seats in the stalls for under 100. Yes you have to book well in advance but thats because its new and popular.

Back in the day my friend used to basically live off a side hussle along side 8 shows a week to keep body and soul together because her skilled, professional, behind the scenes role paid a few quid per performance. While she isn't exactly rich these days she earns a living from the theatre alone. Each performance has to pay dozen of people and thankfully these days it has to pay them at the very least minimum wage.

(Also replying to @onceandneveragain )

Surely it just really depends on your values in life and where you stand.

Everyone can go to the Tate or the Natural History Museum on a Saturday for free, and have a rich cultural experience there, because they are in a category of cultural importance to our country and community that everyone should be able to access them. They could charge for entry, but the government protects certain things.

Some people feel differently and feel that theatre is less important and should be more of a commercial enterprise - that's fine.

But I believe that theatre should have some of the same protection as other cultural institutions. Obviously not that it should be free for all, that's not realistic, as there are many overheads.

But the profits made by some of the large West End theatres are absolutely huge and unnecessary, and to argue that £300 a ticket is reasonable just seems absolutely bonkers. It should be more accessible. The government could put a cap on how much theatres are allowed to profit from ticket sales.

And yes, on a Saturday night, because that's when a lot of working parents can actually do a trip to London or a big city to take their kids to the theatre. Everyone should be able to do that.

Anyway, I've had my say and any more replies I make on this thread at this point will just be repeating myself - it's OK if our opinions differ.

@KitchenColourandstyle they definitely have seats £300+ I’ve looked multiple times and been horrified I’m not insinuating its all, but it’s still ridiculous, it’s the Savoy and they also did when Sarah Jessica Parker did her play there. In fact the front rows were £500.

Doesn’t it come down to supply and demand. Demand is highest on Saturdays, so ticket are higher priced. Monday nights, less demand so cheaper tickets. Basic economics.

I know there are tickets that cost that much and I wouldn't pay that much. I booked at Christmas and had to plump for October to get dates that worked for us at a ticket price I was prepared to pay but it wouldn't have been less booked up if the tickets were cheaper. It's new, has broad appeal and great reviews but there are some people implying that because 4 rows of seat for weekend performances of one of the hottest shows in town are £300 that that is the cost of a West End show and the truth is there are hugely expensive seats but there are also perfectly responsibility priced seats too.

I remember my Mum having to wait years to see big West End shows back in the 80-90s because things like Phantom sold out for ages in advance and if you want decent but affordable seats now you still have to book up well in advance.

It does. But the question in the op is are the tickets overpriced and unaffordable for most and the answer is yes, of course they are.

I agree with everything @rockinrobinssaid and find it a bit funny people are arguing against that while going against their own interest.
In countries like Germany the theatre is supported heavily by public funding and they offer huge discounts to the unemployed, students, disabled, etc.
When you understand the benefit of that to the whole nation it is not hard to make it work.
It’s weird, in this day and age, that some people are so keen to justify it being only accessible to the rich.

If theatre is seen as a commercial profit-making business venture, then yes, of course.

But certain theatres/ shows could be re-categorised as important cultural assets, in the same way as certain art galleries and museums. Other countries already do this, as @greyweek says.

The government could choose to cap the immense profiteering of some of the large West End theatres.

“It’s weird, in this day and age, that some people are so keen to justify it being only accessible to the rich.”

But you don’t have to go to the West End to enjoy the theatre, and the West End is in London, where most people don’t live. Go to a regional theatre and tickets are alot cheaper. Become a member of said theatre, to get even more discounts and offers. Also, there’s cheaper tickets for under 25 year olds etc.

Plus the West End does have cheaper tickets!‘Kids week’ in the summer where you get free children’s tickets (for a month) and ‘The New year sale’ where tickets are cheaper in January and February.

Sorry to keep chiming in - my dd is actually taking her dad to this tonight!

She did offer to take me but I didn’t want to stand 😂

Thing is - theatre is really important to me - I go a lot and really enjoy it.

I just can’t see how it could practically be done so that everyone could afford the very best seats, best days, best shows regularly. I also think it’s in many ways devaluing theatre to say it should be cheap.

I’d love more subsidies for the arts but I’m not sure it’s happening any time soon or would cover what some posters seem to envisage.

I’ve always been someone who questioned whether capitalism was the best thing or an inevitable way to run society, but it is the way our society runs, so I dont think there’s any reason why theatre should be the one exception to a. Covering its own costs and then a profit, b. Different levels of service (in this case seats) costing different amounts and c. Supply and demand.

But also my main response on this thread is that in fact it is possible to go reasonably cheaply if you know how and want to enough.

Edit - Tate and national history museum are free to get in, but not free to see the “best” / highlighted exhibits. So an equivalent would be releasing a number of the cheaper seats for free, subsidised by the govt or similar, which I would think was reasonably doable. Or a few “first come first served” better seats - that could potentially be done but the lottery systems do work like that for a modest cost, rather than free.

Yes, I'm not convinced the West End is the place to focus concerns about arts accessibility.

As I said, they don't need to subsidise. All they really need to do is recategorise theatre so it is not seen as a commercial enterprise, and cap the amount of profit theatres are allowed to make from ticket sales to allow for overheads etc but not ridiculous profits.

This would immediately stop this practice of £200+ for the most expensive seats, which is pure profiteering.

I'm not talking about small local theatres which are struggling to survive, I'm talking about the large shows which are overcharging and really do profit hugely. It's not necessary.

But I'm repeating myself. I've stated all of this in previous posts so I'm going to duck out here.

Here's an example of how pricing has and is going mad.

They've today announced Richard E Grant and Christine Baranski in Hay Fever at the Wyndham's in the autumn.

There is a row at the back of the circle which is being charged at £75/£80.

These same seats went on sale for Rosamund Pike in Inter Alia after it's sold out run at the National for £22.

Supply and demand @IdentifyingAsAWoollyMammoth as well as covering costs and making profit. It’s called running a business. Those prices for those seats are fine.

While I didn’t go to that show I have seen shows from the very back of the Theatre Royal. This is nonsense.