Have you booked your Panto? What is it and how much?

[UndertheCedartree]

Just out of interest!

I have just booked our Panto for 28th December. It is Beauty and the Beast. For myself and my 2 DC it cost £66 for good seats in the front stalls.

Our local theatre has a very expensive panto - it would cost double that for same seats. The difference is it always has a celebrity starring in the show and expensive pyrotechnics.

So we go to a nearby 'lower income' town as my 2 couldn't care less about a celebrity and there are enough 'wow' moments in the show we go to to keep them happy! They have popular songs, great dance routines, the same jokes every year, beautiful costumes and some kind of exciting special effects! We love it!

We used to love Christmas shows but the local theatres have all put their prices up massively, they don’t even do a family bundle tickets anymore for the Panto, everyone pays adult prices (or £5 off children in top priced seats at £47 each). I know they’ve all been shut down but even a 1 hour children’s Christmas play at a small local theatre is now over £60 for us when it used to be £40. Cheap seats are very limited for the Panto and an awful view to still have to pay £80 for the family for 2 hours.
Where are your wonderful local theatres doing these shows for reasonable prices… maybe we could travel?

Feel like a bit like a grinch but we won’t be going as usual this year, instead have tickets to a ballet tour for £30 for 3 of us and although not festive, it is at the start of December so will have to do.

I even checked the usual Christmas performances of local youth theatre groups in smaller venues as we’ve been to those before and they have been amazing. But they’ve gone up from £13 to starting at £22 a ticket now.
I do understand lockdown has been hideous for venues, but these prices aren’t reasonable. We’ve always supported live local theatre and always used to say local theatre was the way everyone gets to access it, even if they can’t pay for the big touring shows. I’m sad that it looks like that’s changing 😔

I'm in Newcastle, there is always a good choice of cheap seats in the bigger theatres (I never pay for 'good' seats, choosing cheaper restricted view ones, and have only once had a problem and that was with the people in front standing rather than the seat itself). There is also some good amateur options too. There can often be early booking discounts and I sign up to all the mailing lists to get in first as some theatres do a percentage of tickets at more affordable rates.