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Royal Ballet booking for Winter 2018/19


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Does anyone know please how to view the online seating plan and prices for ROH performances in the Winter season? I thought I remembered being able to view this information a few weeks ago, but can no longer access it, whether logged in as a Friend or not. I have been wondering if it is now revealed in stages as booking opens for each level of Friend in turn? Alternatively is it just a technical hitch?

Edited by Josephine
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If you're using an elderly device like my 6 year old iPad that can't be updated to the most newfangled versions of operating systems and browsers anymore, you might find that the interactive seating map stopped working a short while ago - it's too advanced for antiquities now. Thankfully that doesn't interfere with actual booking, and the seating map is working just fine on any reasonably up to date device.

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Not on my slightly over 3-year-old device, it isn't :(

And those interactive seating plans are absolute rubbish - and I presume there's no easy way of saving them for ease of reference?  Short of taking a screenshot for each individual price, I mean.

 

Incidentally, how do you get at the ISP once a programme is on sale?

 

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8 hours ago, Bluebird said:

Go to the production page. For example, here's the one for the Patineurs mixed bill:

 https://www.roh.org.uk/mixed-programmes/les-patineurs-winter-dreams-the-concert

 

Click on "Not on Sale. Find out more" and the interactive chart will appear

Thank you Bluebird for replying. This is exactly the route I have used successfully in the past. Unfortunately now after clicking 'Not on sale / find out more' the page no longer shows me the interactive chart or any form of seating plan/price information.

 

Thanks also Coated and Alison for comments. I'm viewing on Samsung Galaxy S8+, which previously gave me seating plan access as stated above. I have not had access problems on any other organisation's web site, but only with this feature on the ROH pages.

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2 hours ago, Josephine said:

Thank you Bluebird for replying. This is exactly the route I have used successfully in the past. Unfortunately now after clicking 'Not on sale / find out more' the page no longer shows me the interactive chart or any form of seating plan/price information.

 

Thanks also Coated and Alison for comments. I'm viewing on Samsung Galaxy S8+, which previously gave me seating plan access as stated above. I have not had access problems on any other organisation's web site, but only with this feature on the ROH pages.

The seating plan gives blocks of prices but it is not coloured so you can see precisely which seat costs what - I think it needs to be more specific.

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7 hours ago, alison said:

Incidentally, how do you get at the ISP once a programme is on sale?

 

With Winter Booking now opening, when signed in and if booking is open for your category of Friend membership, the website shows 'Buy' rather than 'Not on sale etc' so information on prices and actual seat availability is displayed as in previous booking periods.  That might not meet Alison's point as prices/availability are shown for the five parts of the house (plus wheelchair spaces) and I don't know if there's an accessible overall plan for each production.

 

When signed out, I could follow the 'Not on sale' link and get the pricing information so I'm not sure what's happening for Josephine and others.

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I'ma Friend but when I go to my homepage there is Autumn, not Winter, booking information...when I try the link above and login, it says 'This link doesn't work' or something helpful.

So, as on many previous occasions, if I want to check casting, I end up looking at ballet forum instead! ( Thanks ballet forum- but it is a bit absurd..)

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1 hour ago, fashionista said:

The seating plan gives blocks of prices but it is not coloured so you can see precisely which seat costs what - I think it needs to be more specific.

 

Yes.  I want to be able to see at a glance where I can afford to sit, so that I can make a decision on what works best for me.  And given that not all seats are released immediately booking opens, if the ISP is lost immediately booking has started that is unhelpful, to say the least.  I was expecting a proper seating plan to be online somewhere, as they do for the Hochhauser seasons, and as they did until this year for the booking booklets.  This is totally inadequate.  Plus, of course, once seats start selling there is no way of telling on the normal booking pages what greyed-out seats cost.

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4 minutes ago, alison said:

Plus, of course, once seats start selling there is no way of telling on the normal booking pages what greyed-out seats cost.

 

Apologies in advance but when booking for a performance, I'm not too interested in what tickets might have cost if they are no longer available.  I'm more interested in the prices of available seats.

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Of course.  I'm just saying that once booking has started there appears to be no way of getting an overview of the price bands any more.  Unless there is actually a banded PDF file somewhere which I haven't spotted yet?

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49 minutes ago, alison said:

I'm wondering that, too.  My only thought is that it would be a PR disaster.  Can you imagine the result if all those Friends/Patrons found out they turned out to be paying over the odds for unpopular programmes?!

 

Isn't it a question of choosing the certainty of booking a seat when booking opens against the possibility of a lower price in the future and less choice of seating (unless nobody books) - this is already the case when discounted tickets are sometimes made available.

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I  think the ROH website  is pretty good in terms of information on seating and booking at present. Pricing is another issue of course, but I do like the abilty to buy an advance Friends  package for a discount. My strategy for the coming season is to try to cover "essential viewing" in advance  packages, and fill in later with additional  performances as and when the opportunity and inclination arises...

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20 hours ago, alison said:

I'm wondering that, too.  My only thought is that it would be a PR disaster.  Can you imagine the result if all those Friends/Patrons found out they turned out to be paying over the odds for unpopular programmes?!

Where dynamic pricing is used in theatres, there's generally a price guarantee - 'book early and this is the lowest price you can ever pay but prices are likely to go up'. It's generally used as an incentive for early booking. In which case Friends and Patrons would be the ones to benefit the most; it would be the general public which would be disadvantaged. 

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So, what would happen if loads of seats remained unsold?  Would they not be able to reduce the price?

 

Incidentally, paranoid that I am, it has also struck me that there's no guarantee that prices are (initially) the same for all performances :) 

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On ‎06‎/‎09‎/‎2018 at 01:03, alison said:

Not on my slightly over 3-year-old device, it isn't :(

And those interactive seating plans are absolute rubbish - and I presume there's no easy way of saving them for ease of reference?  Short of taking a screenshot for each individual price, I mean.

 

Incidentally, how do you get at the ISP once a programme is on sale?

 

 

Bangorballetboy somewhere else posted a link to a PDF of the Autumn seating which was exactly what I was looking for.  EDIT: Here, seating-plan-price-mapping-tool.pdf, in fact.

I'll have a hunt for the Winter version sometime.

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52 minutes ago, alison said:

So, what would happen if loads of seats remained unsold?  Would they not be able to reduce the price?

 

Incidentally, paranoid that I am, it has also struck me that there's no guarantee that prices are (initially) the same for all performances :) 

 

I think discounted prices are much more likely than putting up prices as performances sell out but there's no knowing in advance what won't sell.

 

As regards different prices for performances, apart from some special opening evenings for some seats, prices have not varied for evening performances, for example I've never known Fridays or Saturdays charged at a premium.  Matinees used to be cheaper but that seems no longer to be the case - a fairly recent change.

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Wasn't there a time some years ago when Fri/Sat was actually cheaper, presumably reflecting the fact that a lot of businesspeople went to the ROH?  I don't think I'm hallucinating ...

 

And there are still matinee discounts for Mayerling, Bayadere and Nutcracker.

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1 hour ago, alison said:

Wasn't there a time some years ago when Fri/Sat was actually cheaper, presumably reflecting the fact that a lot of businesspeople went to the ROH?  I don't think I'm hallucinating ...

 

And there are still matinee discounts for Mayerling, Bayadere and Nutcracker.

 

You're not hallucinating, Alison.  Fridays and Saturdays were definitely cheaper around 2002/3.  I remember taking advantage of this concession on a number of occasions.

 

As for the loss of matinée discounts, this has only just happened.  They were there in the Autumn season but are no longer there for the Winter season.

 

Edited to say I've found an old booking leaflet from 2002.  I've scanned it and wasn't able to attach it to this post but it has worked in the following post..

Edited by Bluebird
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24 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

 

You're not hallucinating, Alison.  Fridays and Saturdays were definitely cheaper around 2002/3.  I remember taking advantage of this concession on a number of occasions.

 

As for the loss of matinée discounts, this has only just happened.  They were there in the Autumn season but are no longer there for the Winter season.

 

Edited to add that I've just found a booking leaflet from 2002.  I've scanned the price chart and will see if I can attach it to this post.

 

The attachment didn't work on the previous post but it seems to work on a new post.  The weekend reduction didn't apply to Nutcracker but I clearly remember getting weekend rates for Mayerling in the same season.

2002  ROH Price Chart screenshot.JPG

Edited by Bluebird
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Thanks Bluebird.  I'd forgotten about the weekend discount years ago - I wonder when it ended?.

 

As regards matinees, yes the discount seems to have ended in the Winter period (we shall see what happens in the rest of the year as there's been no announcement as far as I'm aware that there won't be any reductions for matinees).  But the rate of discount had already received a fair amount of discussion as in the Autumn period the discount was very variable, ranging from 20% to no discount at all if I recall.

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7 hours ago, alison said:

So, what would happen if loads of seats remained unsold?  Would they not be able to reduce the price?

With dynamic pricing you've got to be pretty confident that demand is high! 

 

Of course, when airlines, hotels, train companies etc do it, they put prices up and down as they wish. Theatres COULD do this - they just generally don't because it would encourage a pattern of late booking, which is the opposite of what they want.   

 

In theatres, dynamic pricing is generally used to enable venues to put prices UP to maximise high demand. 

Edited by RHowarth
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