To think these theatre prices are outrageous?

[takeharry]

Currently looking at HAMILTON tickets, now I understand they have a ‘star’ casting in Leslie Odom Jr, original broadway cast but FIVE HUNDRED fucking pounds? For one ticket?

There are a few £250/£275 tickets left but the vast majority left are £500.

AIBU to think there should be some sort of regulatory body to prevent this kind of bullshit pricing?

£1k for a couple to have an evening at the theatre

That doesn't make it right.
It's like "dynamic pricing" for Oasis tickets. It's blatant profiteering. The arts should be accessible for everyone.

100% this. My daughter is going and is paying nowhere near these prices

It's shocking that a bag of sugar used to be 7½p & now it's £1.10!
Things have gone up. Overheads etc etc. If nobody buys those tickets, they'll rethink it but somebody probably will. As stated elsewhere, when tickets come on sale, there are much cheaper ones available. I'm an opera fan & always look longingly at ticket prices that are well within my budget when they come out but don't go for other reasons.

There is something going up over time like sugar and then there are theatres charging ridiculous prices for tickets.
It's not the same thing and is driven by greed as much as anything else.

It is accessible, though. There are lotteries, rush tickets, limited-view seats, SRO, discounts, resale drops, cheaper dates, and cheaper sections. “I can’t get the exact seat I want, on the exact date I want, at the exact price I personally prefer” is not the same thing as “theatre is inaccessible."

But why all those things as opposed to more reasonably priced tickets in the first place?

No idea why so many people are being arsey OP, you seem to have attracted the people who’d argue black was white just for the sake of it. Big name or not, supply and demand or not, £500 is taking the piss. But, one thing I’ve learned, never underestimate how much money plenty of people have to splurge on random stuff.

Because “reasonably priced” according to whom? A Tuesday balcony seat, a limited-view seat, and a Saturday-night center orchestra seat are not interchangeable. Those cheaper options exist specifically so people aren’t forced into premium pricing. The expensive seats help subsidize the production and the lower-priced access points. Pretending every ticket should be priced the same or cheap across the board ignores how expensive live theatre is to run.

Calling theatre “random stuff” is probably why this argument is going in circles. To you it’s a random splurge. To other people it’s the thing they care about and budget for the same way people budget for concerts, vacations, clothes, restaurants, etc. You don’t have to think $500 is worth it, but other people spending their own money differently than you would choose to isn’t automatically outrageous.

Are you saying that all theatre tickets should cost the same? That's not reasonable surely. A third-row stalls seat with lots of legroom should surely cost more than a balcony side view seat? The latter will be more affordable and that will be the price point for some people.

I saw an unbelievable cast in The Cherry Orchard on Friday for a bargain price of £34 – cheap because it was a preview (actually the first night) and thus a few blunders might be expected (tho in fact it was ace).

Later in the run and sitting in better seats with more legroom and close to the stage will cost as much as £95. Is that "reasonable"? For some, to see Kenneth Branagh, Bill Pullman, Helen Hunt, Alfred Enoch up close, it’s more than reasonable. For others it’s way too much.

For some for sure £34 is too much. I am not stupid and I am well aware that I am lucky to be able to afford that. I love live theatre and prioritise it over, I dunno, a new car or a £5k holiday abroad every year. @Gengha would call the theatre tickets random stuff perhaps, but for me, it is a treat to look forward to and enjoy.

Yes, I think that’s been a subtle theme here. People effectively devaluing other people’s meaningful experiences. And in one case assuming (bizarrely) that those of us who spend on theatre tickets are lying.

Proportionally it’s way more than sugar though. My friends and I were able to afford proper good seat Phantom tickets in about 2005 for £40. They’d be £200++ now easily if not more. That’s more than inflation!

Exactly!
It's more greed than inflation.

You could not get really good seats for that show back in 2005 for £40, booked in advance. And I'm talking middle or front stalls, which now cost £135 - £225.

It's driven by the fact that some will pay these prices. If noone did, they wouldn't charge them. There probably wouldn't be as many shows either.

I'm American, but orchestra tickets on Broadway were around $90 in 2008. They've gone up, sure, but nowhere near as dramatically as a lot of other things. A cup of coffee has basically doubled since COVID alone. Pretending theatre is some uniquely outrageous victim of inflation while ignoring everything else just isn't a serious argument.

YANBU. It’s a joke. Like everything these days!

There’s also the issue that Broadway has been far slower to recover audience numbers since COVID, compared to London, to the point where Broadway producers are opening shows in the UK first, partly because of tax incentives and lower costs. Not just in London , either. I think The Devil Wears Prada opened in Plymouth.

The lower costs and UK tax incentives are real, but Broadway attendance has essentially recovered. The 2024–25 season was the second-best attended in its recorded history. And The Devil Wears Prada didn’t originate in Plymouth. It premiered in Chicago, was reworked, then used Plymouth as a pre-West End tryout.

And is that a good reason?
Because some can afford to pay extortionate prices then that's what is charged to everyone?
So it's ok if the theatre just becomes the preserve of the wealthy?

Yes they are ridiculous prices. Last time I went to the theatre (in the West End, May) I paid £45.

Not interested in Hamilton anyway, the music is not my cup of tea. DDs played some of the music in the car when it came out. I would find it like being hit over the head for two hours.

Again, as noted before by PPs, these prices are not charged to everyone. These specific seats at this short run, are available at this price. Cheaper seats were also available and in fact the OP bought some.

But in general theatre tickets and concert tickets and actually tickets to watch football are all way too expensive these days and so often exclude ordinary working people.

But for some reason many on here just don't want to admit or accept that. 🤷‍♀️

The only way this would actually be a logical argument is if the owners were allowing seats to go unsold rather than sell them at a reasonable price.

In the vast majority of instances this isn't the case. Demand outstrips supply. There are enough people who want to and can afford to pay hundreds of pounds to see Taylor Swift/Coldplay/Oasis or Rachel Zegler or Leslie Odom Jr, or Man United, to sell out the venue.

Therefore why does it matter whether the criteria for getting a seat is money based rather than any other form of exclusion? Either way, not everyone will get what they want.

Or, to make it as simple as possible, a theatre can only seat 500 people. If 1000 people want to see that show, then even if you allocated the tickets for free via a random lottery, 500 people are going to be disappointed.

Actually, even if you gave the tickets away, there would still be people who couldn't come, whether it's because of ill health, because they live too far away, because they can't get time off work, can't get a babysitter, or would still need to pay for hotels and travel and can't afford that. You could equally say it's not fair that people living closer to London have more opportunity to see shows, or people who have flexible working patterns, or people in good health.

Life isn't fair. Not getting something you want because you can't afford it isn't more unfair than any other means of restriction.

Why should "the ordinary working person" be entitled to watch a premier league football match or have a good seat at a megastar concert, but people don't apply the same argument to owning a designer handbag or a Porsche? They are all luxury purchases that you can live without. Why is it acceptable to whine if you can't afford some things, but not others?

Because it's good for society generally if cultural events like the theatre are available to all.
And this isn't about whether "life is fair" or not - obviously it's not - it's about theatres charging high prices out of greed and simply because they can.
But I imagine someone will now say that theatres are barely scraping by and so have to charge huge prices...

This is one of those circular arguments that are just quite tedious so I will bow out.

I think the prices are outrageous. You don't.