cavycapers Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 After intending to take my friends to the Mariinsky's Swan Lake, we finally decided it was just way too much money, even for the cheapest seats and happily booked for the ENB's Romeo and Juliet at the Royal Festival Hall instead, where we were able to get the best seats at a fraction of the price it would have cost us at the ROH. It may be wrong to be gleeful in this situation, but I think that the small number of seats that have sold at this point might be an indication that it is just priced too high and that others may have balked at the idea too. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 I've amended the title of the thread to be more relevant to the subject matter. The ENB tickets have been on sale for the best part of a year but you were still able to buy some ... so perhaps that is indicative of something too! 7 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coated Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Small number of seats? I haven't bothered counting, but I wouldn't call the number of seats sold small. It's far from sold out yet, but it's also not on for another 3.5 months and non-balletnuts don't tend to book ages in advance. The prices are too high for my liking, though I'd be surprised it they don't end up with a fairly full house eventually. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bruce Wall Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 33 minutes ago, Coated said: Small number of seats? I haven't bothered counting, but I wouldn't call the number of seats sold small. It's far from sold out yet, but it's also not on for another 3.5 months and non-balletnuts don't tend to book ages in advance. The prices are too high for my liking, though I'd be surprised it they don't end up with a fairly full house eventually. I bet you anything it will be at capacity, Coated. It's SL after all. Moreover, it's the Mariinsky in London's ROH ... and the tourist quotient will be at the height of its summer throng with - this year at least - no competing ballet company in London sight. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Q Fan Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 And the French usually Eurostar it over too! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavycapers Posted April 30, 2017 Author Share Posted April 30, 2017 I suppose I am comparing it to the speed with which the seats sold for the Ashton triple bill. I was embarassed last year when my friends were obviously shocked by only being able to see part of the stage, despite having payed a lot of money. They asked if we could have better seats this time, and I was again embarrassed to have to ask them for approx. £140 a ticket for stalls, stalls circle, middle balcony, etc. I am sure all the tickets will sell, as going to the ballet on a summer's evening when you're on holiday is divine and there is no competition from other companies, but compared to the usual prices, it doesn't represent good value for me, and I shall be enjoying two or three other productions for the same money. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Yes, it's steepish, indeed it is - but- 140? Really nice amphi seats are 80- with a completely full view, and less good ones at only 48- but again a full clear view of the stage. I don't think that's TOO outrageous for the full Mariinsky company and orchestra, when I think of the rather poor stuff I have sometimes seen at other venues with a cast of 6, electronic music and all manner of distractions...it's all relative... 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aileen Posted April 30, 2017 Share Posted April 30, 2017 Well, to put the Mariinsky's prices in context top price tickets for some of the RB's productions have been £127 recently and the RB/ROH receives a substantial grant from ACE. I don't have a burning desire to see the Mariinsky this year and so I'm not prepared to pay top whack for tickets but they are probably not excessively expensive given the costs of bringing a full company of dancers plus a full orchestra over to the UK. Having seen a few plays in London recently featuring a handful of actors live ballet performances accompanied by live orchestras seem good value to me; plenty of tickets for popular plays in London are approaching £100 these days. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 (edited) 9 hours ago, aileen said: Well, to put the Mariinsky's prices in context top price tickets for some of the RB's productions have been £127 recently and the RB/ROH receives a substantial grant from ACE. I don't have a burning desire to see the Mariinsky this year and so I'm not prepared to pay top whack for tickets but they are probably not excessively expensive given the costs of bringing a full company of dancers plus a full orchestra over to the UK. Having seen a few plays in London recently featuring a handful of actors live ballet performances accompanied by live orchestras seem good value to me; plenty of tickets for popular plays in London are approaching £100 these days. True; which is why I almost never go to the theatre nowadays. When I was a young adult, you could go to performances in the West End quite cheaply (in the cheap seats, obviously) so I went all the time. Now it has to be a rare treat. Whereas the ballet tickets I get are still affordable (normally max c £28 and often a lot cheaper). Strange. But no, I can't afford the Mariinsky either, whether or not their prices are justifiable. Edited May 1, 2017 by bridiem 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLOSS Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 I think that we have to remember that the contract will be in dollars. The price includes not only of the cost of bringing the company over, and ballet companies are incredibly labour intensive organisations ,it also reflects the drop in the value of sterling against the dollar since last year's referendum. I think that we have to accept that reasserting "our right to govern ourselves" is likely to prove even more costly in the future and that the current price hike is merely the first manifestation of this.Next year the prices for the visiting company are likely to be considerably more expensive. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 Good point Floss! Visiting companies in the school summer holidays will be a no-no for me now. Having got a ticket for a matinee, I have now discovered that I have to put Chip-dog in kennels for a minimum of 4 nights during that period! I have booked the 4 nights but will only be using 2 of them ... an expensive outing for a day trip!!! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 I remember thinking something similar about the speed of Bolshoi ticket sales last year: of course I was wrong. The Hochhausers know what they're doing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 It would be interesting to know the cost of hiring ROH per night, the expense involved in such a huge operation must be staggering and the prices really aren't so high compared to other forms of entertainment in London. Currency fluctuations are a red herring as I assume some hard negotiations are entered into considering the weak state of the rouble. Interesting that the Russians have gone back to the dollar, perhaps they too buy into the theory of the Euro's imminent collapse. The company remains one of the world's finest, I for one have never baulked at paying for quality. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavycapers Posted May 1, 2017 Author Share Posted May 1, 2017 I guess we're maybe all coming at this from a different perspective, according to our income.... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penelopesimpson Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 I took a young friend to Woolf Works this year. She had never been to a ballet before and it was wonderful to watch it take hold of her. It was my treat and she was worried about the cost. The week before she had been to see Olly Murs (no, me neither but apparently he was runner-up on X Factor) and she and a friend had paid £100 per ticket for standing in an arena. Compared to the value on offer at ROH where you get a beautiful building, choice of bars and eateries, free cloakroom and lovely facilities, an orchestra and, oh yes, a ballet, and she couldn't understand why ballet and opera are seen as elitist and the province of rich toffs. 12 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mary Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 2 hours ago, cavycapers said: I guess we're maybe all coming at this from a different perspective, according to our income.... It's only once a year: it's a special treat. If it were like that all the time, it would be well beyond me.... 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beryl H Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 Agree, the excuse I always use is that I never have a holiday as such and these 3 weeks are my summer holiday treat, plus I feel I have to have a half decent seat to make the journeys worthwhile. I have cut down a bit this year, and have mixed £48 and £34 tickets which makes a better average, but I still feel guilty about spending so much! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Johnpw Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 The thread title has a certain ambiguity. Too high? Too high for individuals to pay? To high for what is offered? Clearly individuals will answer the question differently depending on income, essential expenses and priorities for inessential expenses. I'm inclined to doubt it's too high for what's offered, given the cost of hiring the Opera House and transporting and accommodating all those people (dancers and orchestra) for three weeks. And presumably the Mariinsky and the Hochhausers hope to make some money too. They are putting on three full-scale, large cast works. The top price for the recent Sleeping Beauty was £130 and that is a price subsidised by tax money and private sponsorship. I don't know if a Mariinsky tour gets Russian government support or sponsorship by Russian companies or individuals ("Calling Mr Abramovich"?) but, in any event, their top price of £150 isn't outrageously steep compared with RB's. I think similar price differentials operate at every level. There are cheaper seats as with RB productions. I don't know about currency fluctuations. I think top price at the Bolshoi last year was £145 so a £5 increase seems not out of line with ROH/RB seasonal price increases When booking opened, I took a deep breath and bought tickets for all productions. In the end, I don't begrudge it because I want to see them, as I did the Bolshoi last year, and I know it would cost me much more to go to St Petersburg and Moscow. I'm just glad they still come. I find I'm now going less to the opera so there's a certain equilibrium (or that's how I justify it to myself!) 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 I used to be rather vocal about the cost of tickets at ROH. You could see wonderful dance at Sadler's Wells and around the country often for less than half the price of, for example, a ticket in the stalls. Then I found out how much it costs to see a premier league football match in the UK... Additionally, over the last couple of years the cost of tickets outside London have increased, reducing the differential. Then I discovered the cost of tickets for West End shows had increased considerably since my hey day of theatre going in London. I believe the top price for Hamilton is £200!!!! Yes, the tickets for the Mariinsky are expensive, but not hugely more than the top prices for the very popular full lengths like Sleeping Beauty and Swan Lake. But when you consider what you are getting and compare with other shows that are on a much lesser scale, it makes the ticket prices understandable. I have splashed out on one ticket. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penelopesimpson Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 Exactly the point I was making Janet re. tickets to pop bands. Thing is, theatre tickets have caught up. Friend was astounded at the price of seats for Lion King which were way up in the gods. I think both ballet and opera at ROH are just about the best value going. 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cavycapers Posted May 1, 2017 Author Share Posted May 1, 2017 (edited) I think that I was coming at this from the perspective of having been very embarrassed last year when my friends paid a lot of money to come with me to see the Bolshoi, and we had to take it in turns to see more than half of the stage. It is hard to explain to non balletomanes why it is good value. Edited May 1, 2017 by cavycapers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted May 1, 2017 Share Posted May 1, 2017 2 minutes ago, cavycapers said: I think that I was coming at this from the perspective of having been very embarrassed last year when my friends paid a lot of money to come with me to see the Bolshoi, and we had to take it in turns to see more than half of the stage. It is hard to explain to non balletomanes why it is good value. I know the ROH is listed, but time and again, I have felt embarrassed at the price for a restricted view, when I have taken other people. At RB prices, it is just about acceptable, but at the Russian prices, it seems a huge amount. I can understand why the prices for a full orchestra, set, costumes etc is so much, obviously. Ps Johnpw, the choice of title of the thread was not mine. i amended the title to try and be more relevant to the content of the thread, as mentioned in my first post on this thread. If anyone can think of a better title please let us know and I will change it again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted May 2, 2017 Share Posted May 2, 2017 I do note, though, that there's no reduction in prices for the mixed bill, which there has been in the past. Wonder if that will make the tickets more difficult to sell? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penelopesimpson Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 First performance of Anna Karenina is nearly sold out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MAB Posted May 3, 2017 Share Posted May 3, 2017 Seeing as Vishneva is dancing I'm not surprised. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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