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ROH: Winter season public booking 2018-19


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I was just disappointed with the poor choice of seats left.  It also shows there is a distinct need for more matinees!!

Seems all the priority bookers got there first. I think they need to look at the whole booking system because Joe Public is not getting a fair crack at the whip. 

I got 1 DonQ where I wanted and I had to book a cheap seat for Les Patineurs which will do, but it really is not where I wanted.  Thankfully I got an Insight ticket for DonQ. 

As I had wanted to see 5 DonQs and 2 Les Pats due to the high prices and lack of seat choices I ended up with only 1 of each.  It seems ROH got its wish to exile regulars. Meanwhile I will  now use the time and money to patronise other companies elsewhere.  

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Apparently it was because they were making changes to the website which had caused “a couple of issues” (I’ll say!) 

 

When I offered feedback that the old website was fine actually and the changes had just made everything glitchy and difficult to use, I got the reply that the aim is for the new website “to reflect the excellence of your experience when you visit the building”...😳

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4 minutes ago, Don Q Fan said:

I was just disappointed with the poor choice of seats left.  It also shows there is a distinct need for more matinees!!

Seems all the priority bookers got there first. I think they need to look at the whole booking system because Joe Public is not getting a fair crack at the whip. 

I got 1 DonQ where I wanted and I had to book a cheap seat for Les Patineurs which will do, but it really is not where I wanted.  Thankfully I got an Insight ticket for DonQ. 

As I had wanted to see 5 DonQs and 2 Les Pats due to the high prices and lack of seat choices I ended up with only 1 of each.  It seems ROH got its wish to exile regulars. Meanwhile I will  now use the time and money to patronise other companies elsewhere.  

 

I have never seen so few decent seats available for general booking as I did this morning.  For Patineurs on 18th December there were 5 seats left in the stalls, 5 in Stalls Circle, NONE in Donald Gordon.   I can’t manage Amphi so never look there.  Quite shocking.

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Very longwinded booking today, possibly due partly to having to cross-check the castings.  I suddenly realised I only had 3 minutes to complete my booking, and was only partway through Two Pigeons, so paid for that lot, then realised I hadn't marked off which 2Ps I'd already booked, and my new purchases weren't yet showing up in my account, so I couldn't double-check!  Pretty much turned my nose up at Don Q, apart from a couple of not at all good standings - sorry, Powers that Be, but if you seriously think I'm going to pay £19 for a seat with a 60% viewing restriction you've got another think coming!

 

But can someone tell me, since for once I actually got in at 9 am on the dot, no queuing: given that the ROH has to hold back 20% of tickets for the general public, how it can be that there is only 1 ticket left in Stalls Circle for the first night of Les Patineurs at 9 am?  I assumed the 20% was distributed evenly throughout the house.

 

Oh, and the "sorry, that ticket is no longer available" box seemed to be oddly difficult to get rid of this morning!

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1 minute ago, Anna C said:

 

I have never seen so few decent seats available for general booking as I did this morning.  For Patineurs on 18th December there were 5 seats left in the stalls, 5 in Stalls Circle, NONE in Donald Gordon.   I can’t manage Amphi so never look there.  Quite shocking.

 

I wonder if the website problems have affected the time at which they release the public allocation of seats.  The seats for the Steven McRae Insight event were clearly released after 9am (see my post in Ticket Exchange and Special Offers)  Maybe seats for Main House productions suffered the same fate?  

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17 minutes ago, alison said:

But can someone tell me, since for once I actually got in at 9 am on the dot, no queuing: given that the ROH has to hold back 20% of tickets for the general public, how it can be that there is only 1 ticket left in Stalls Circle for the first night of Les Patineurs at 9 am?  I assumed the 20% was distributed evenly throughout the house.

I've just posted the following in the Winter Season Casting thread:

 

"I wonder if the website problems have affected the time at which they release the public allocation of seats.  The seats for the Steven McRae Insight event were clearly released after 9am (see my post in Ticket Exchange and Special Offers)  Maybe seats for Main House productions suffered the same fate?"  

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I also had a frustrating experience today. I'm a Young Friend so did most of my booking earlier this month - I wasn't planning to see Les Patineurs initially but changed my mind a few days ago and thought I'd wait for public booking to see what's available. I'd wanted to see a couple different casts, and there was plenty of availability for one, but nothing at all in the stalls or stalls circle for the other. I'll look out for returns I suppose, but still very odd. 

Edited by miriskusnik
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1 hour ago, Don Q Fan said:

I was just disappointed with the poor choice of seats left.  It also shows there is a distinct need for more matinees!!

Seems all the priority bookers got there first. I think they need to look at the whole booking system because Joe Public is not getting a fair crack at the whip. 

 

 

I’m  not sure how the general booking can be any fairer over the priority bookers but I’d love to know exactly what page you are supposed to look at to constitute ‘being in the queue’. I was on my chosen Don Q performance page at 0830 but still end up being 494 in the queue come 9am 

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I've had a hugely frustrating morning trying to book. After about 30 minutes my home internet went down so I had to rush off to the local library. Once I got logged back in my basket was empty so I had to start all over again. Then after about 50 minutes the ROH just logged me out saying I was timed out. There was no 5 or 10 minute warning this was going to happen which I put down to the libraries antique computers. By this time my home internet was working so I got back home only to find my basket was empty yet again. Fortunately I'd written down the seats I'd originally selected and was able to find most of them again. As others have said it was a struggle to find seats I wanted at a price I could afford (Don Q side stalls circle was a complete no no for most performances) which made the whole process even longer. I'd just about finished when I realised I only had a minute left to pay!! So it wasn't the library pcs that were at fault. The ROH mustn't message you to say your time is nearly up which I think is very poor as most people are concentrating on selecting seats not looking to see how long they've got. Anyway I just managed it but was left feeling stressed and exhausted.

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I have been incredibly lucky as didn't go to the website until 11.30! And booked successfully the three performances I had planned to!!

 

The only problem was my IPad which for one performance even though there were seats in front Amphi still available I couldn't get any of them to take no matter how hard I pressed or enlarged etc!! When this happens I wonder if someone else is in the process of booking the same seat but hasn't completed the booking ....so it's still showing?? Or does a seat come off the display as soon as someone starts trying to book it?? 

Anyway I selected the Balcony instead in the end and the seat worked there ....front of so quite pleased with that.

 

The other performance on Dec 20th only had higher up Amphi which I can't do any more so had to do Balcony for that one but pleased that none of seats were more than in the £60's price range as somehow was expecting to pay a lot more this season .

For example my frontish  Amphi cost £43 and I've paid £60 plus in the same area before.

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2 hours ago, Anna C said:

When I offered feedback that the old website was fine actually and the changes had just made everything glitchy and difficult to use, I got the reply that the aim is for the new website “to reflect the excellence of your experience when you visit the building”...😳

 

The sort of response that makes me reach for a sick bag...

 

Whatever they're trying to achieve with the new website, its most important function is to list correct information about performances and facilitate the booking of them. The old site was fine for this; if the new site can't achieve it (or not yet) then it shouldn't have gone live.

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7 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

The sort of response that makes me reach for a sick bag...

 

Whatever they're trying to achieve with the new website, its most important function is to list correct information about performances and facilitate the booking of them. The old site was fine for this; if the new site can't achieve it (or not yet) then it shouldn't have gone live.

 

Absolutely.  I did remind them that with websites, “if it ain’t broke” is something that they should have remembered before making changes.  What an absolute dog’s dinner.

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Not "World Class" as they expect us to pay top prices for and say such disrespectful things about regular customers on limited budget trying to get the best possible cheap seats like that new Marketing moron!! If it ain't broke ie old system - then dont pay some expensive yuppie a fortune to mess it up for hundreds of visitors who now can't find essential casting info

Edited by jules_skichick
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I'd be very surprised if any stalls circle standing turn up on public booking day - they have already been snapped up by friends etc then students who should be limited how many they can have as some then sell most of them on to others - first time in more than 18 years of enjoyable Royal Ballet watching that I have not bothered to waste my time trying to book a few tickets to see my favourite RB dancers NO TICKETS bought by me today as I am busy decorating at mums and I expected to be wasting my time. Thanks ROH you lost a keen follower

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I do see that now all castings for winter season are shown in the normal "What's On" part of the website .....as I think you said Anna C

 

But it does seem that if you are not a Friend and just a public member you are now not "officially" allowed to see the casts for performances until public booking opens.....is that right?

I think that is a bit unfair because knowing the casts etc beforehand makes you efficient on the day of booking as by then ( well thanks to this Forum for me) you know which days you want.

It took me ages to make decisions on castings and days available etc etc so if I had had to do that this morning I probably wouldnt have sorted it all until tomorrow!! 

 

Actually can now see that the prices have gone up for non triples!! For Don Q for example! Front of Amphi central is £73 for that! Just deciding what to do as would like to see Corrales but can't decide whether with Kaneko or Osipova!! 

But saturdays are out for me in Feb because of the awful travelling on the Brighton Line in that month.

 

 

 

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The ROH' new policy, as well as their awful and totally messy website, is creating a lot of animosity amongst its regulars. Why can't the non-paying Friends see the casting, as we could before? I shall have to reduce my attendance if this is not ameliorated and wil look elsewhere to get my ballet fix. Very very sad state of affairs.

I know just about everything is increasing in price but not to such an extend that many regulars are increasingly priced out. The ROH for me was one of the, if not the, last theatre(s) I enjoyed supporting and visiting. 

 

Their whole policy is putting me off and I will get to see my beloved RB less and less...

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36 minutes ago, Xandra Newman said:

Why can't the non-paying Friends see the casting, as we could before? 

 

And how is that 'opening up'?? (Though of course it could be simply messing up, like so many other aspects of this project.)

 

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53 minutes ago, Bruce Wall said:

 

My word that Marketing woman must be ticking her box even now .... 

But is this anything to do with that recent episode, Bruce ?  If jules_skichick is correct that Stalls Circle standing tickets (I think there are only 54 of these) for a particular event have been snapped up by priority bookers ( Friends or Students), isn't that an arrangement, and a risk,  that has been in place for some time?

As far as the Les Patineurs triple bill is concerned, it does seem pretty odd that some of the dates have nothing, or relatively little, available outside the amphi.  This lack of available tickets does not not seem to apply to  other productions, including this for example this Don Q  https://www.roh.org.uk/events/37169/tickets which I would have expected to be far more popular.   Some particular glitch with releasing tickets for the Les Patineurs triple bill, I suspect.

 

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2 hours ago, jules_skichick said:

I'd be very surprised if any stalls circle standing turn up on public booking day - they have already been snapped up by friends etc then students who should be limited how many they can have as some then sell most of them on to others - first time in more than 18 years of enjoyable Royal Ballet watching that I have not bothered to waste my time trying to book a few tickets to see my favourite RB dancers NO TICKETS bought by me today as I am busy decorating at mums and I expected to be wasting my time. Thanks ROH you lost a keen follower

 

You are not the only one Jules who is hugely discouraged. The ROH has won and we lost: they have achieved their goal alienating their regulars! 

I didn't bother getting any tickets. The ROH seemingly can't be bothered to get their messed up website in order. Will see in future what is available on the day...

Edited by Xandra Newman
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14 minutes ago, Richard LH said:

 

As far as the Les Patineurs triple bill is concerned, it does seem pretty odd that some of the dates have nothing, or relatively little, available outside the amphi.  This lack of available tickets does not not seem to apply to  other productions, including this for example this Don Q  https://www.roh.org.uk/events/37169/tickets which I would have expected to be far more popular.   Some particular glitch with releasing tickets for the Les Patineurs triple bill, I suspect.

 

 

 

This production of Don Q is not widely admired (I like it but hey!).  Les Patineurs is not performed often enough so I am not surprised tickets have been snapped up early.

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17 minutes ago, alison said:

I meant Stalls Circle tickets full stop, not the standing places - it's not unusual not to find those.

 

Absolutely. I almost always go for Stalls Circle seats and although I refreshed to be on the Patineurs page bang on 9am, there were only 5 stalls seats and 5 stalls circle seats left.  Donald Gordon GT was sold out which I have never seen before at 9.02 on general booking day.  

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3 hours ago, LinMM said:

But it does seem that if you are not a Friend and just a public member you are now not "officially" allowed to see the casts for performances until public booking opens.....is that right?

 I don't think that is right LinMM... please see below.

2 hours ago, Xandra Newman said:

Why can't the non-paying Friends see the casting, as we could before?

As far as I can see, they can, Xandra....there was a recent disparity, but now accessing  as an ordinary MoP/non-Friend,  I can find  the same available casting  information as a logged-in Friend  for the Spring season casting, which was only recently announced and is not yet open for booking......http://www.roh.org.uk/seasons/2018-19/spring

Edited by Richard LH
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Conversely I have had a bit of luck. I am a friend and actually upgraded to friend+ Last Nov to try to secure insights tickets. It never seems to work and end up waiting for returns/late releases days before the events, but managed to secure seats today!

 

Unfortunately will be downgrading my membership again as CAF (charity account) no longer allows membership to be included as a donation, even though membership really only allows an earlier booking date. But I can still gift aid my ‘donation’ of membership straight from my bank account... 

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3 hours ago, LinMM said:

 

Actually can now see that the prices have gone up for non triples!! For Don Q for example! Front of Amphi central is £73 for that! 

 

 

Have you seen the prices for Romeo and Juliet in the Spring Booking?  Those same seats in the front of the Ampthitheatre will be £85!

Edited by Bluebird
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Well that's £43 to £85 then absolutely ridiculous I'm sure I'm going to love the Patineurs triple as much as R and J but I suppose it's supply and demand and all that .....they know they can more or less fill the theatre for R and J I suppose.

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Yes Don Q prices are huge, made worse by the lack of matinee reductions. I was lucky enough to get 1 side stall circle seat for £45 to see Marianella and Vadim. All other side stalls circle Don Q performances I wanted started at £60; way out of my price range. The £45 ticket was the most expensive I bought. All other Don Qs I bought were in amphi. but did get some side stalls circle for the Winter Dreams triple and both 2 Pigeons double bills. Average price paid £34 which isn't too bad I suppose. Ticket prices for Arsenal Football club £16 to £97 so fairly similar for top class entertainment though of course a football match doesn't last as long as a 3 act ballet.

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Just checked the Don Q prices again and the side stalls circle I paid £45 for (C93) is actually selling for £24 in the Asphodel mixed bill. Even allowing for full length ballets being more expensive than triples this seems to be quite a mark up.

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