Blossom

How strange. Hoping seats I want are still available for 3pm's friends booking!!

Can anyone whose booking for Don Q has already opened confirm whether the seat map for 7 Nov (Magri/Corrales) is really booked out for pretty much the whole left hand side or a mapping issue?

Indeed, looking at the old prices, I’m dreaming about where I could sit!!

There is a need to grow audiences for the future of the art form though- we will all need replacing at some point and chances are that interest is dwindling from generation to generation. But then we go back to the old chestnut of graduating Young ROH from £25 tickets into the current price challenge. Completely agree and think ROH would be much better investing in something like BRB2/creating national performance opportunities for final year students as more of a marketing tool for the art form.

I completely agree with you on this and have lobbied AB to prevent this from happening. This is what will kill the art form. With ACE funding, I think they have to invest a lot into their education programmes, cinema (because they don't tour UK) and D&I programming before they even get to consider using it to subsidise tickets. I get the impression that inflation is increasing their costs without any new sources of income which would go some way to fix their problems, but what's not clear is where they might have looked to create efficiencies (other than the lack of investment in the website to fix problems that have been going on for years) vs increasing ticket prices. Most businesses looking to grow would start looking for new sources of income to supplement, but if this is ROH stream, the challenge is that there isn't nearly enough content to support this.

But is the current approach to pricing not driven by a reduction in subsidies in favour of ACE supporting a wider range of institutions which may or may not be of the same calibre- depending on your opinion? Just playing Devil’s advocate here… Working close to Shakespeare’s Globe, they must get significant funding to keep top prices at a low £68 including cushion and I am sure subsidies are part of the reason why this is possible. However, I then got thinking about all of the costs they don’t have - much fewer cast members needed and they are jobbing actors not salaried, no scenery, no plush seats or carpets to keep in tip top condition, only a handful of musicians… Should ACE be stumping up more cash to reflect the institution or should ROH be less discerning about who they allow to make the most substantial donations? Is ROH spending its budgets wisely or does it (somewhat literally) need to cut its cloth to better fit?

In summer, Balcony centre prices were pretty much the same as stalls - so £170 through centre of first 3 tiers and around £100 for front of amphi. It priced me into areas I might not usually have selected, potentially pushing other people further up and then possibly out of the house. Bringing prices down from £170 so that the balcony and stalls circle aren't all blocked out in red is a definite improvement - everyone will have their limit. My challenge is that I get very frustrated paying good money to have someone else's head blocking my view, never mind a proper restricted view. That is the threshold i wouldn't cross - if i could only afford a restricted view seat because of the price increases, that's the point at which I'd be out.

One of the arguments I made to Alex Beard re last summer’s pricing was that by raising prices so that stalls, stalls circle centre, grand tier and balcony were all blocked out at something like £170, this pushed people with money further up the house and therefore as a side effect, people who would have bought the cheaper tickets would be pushed out rather than priced out. So from another point of view, at least the slight reduction in ticket cost in those areas and the greater differentiation in pricing in those areas would take the pressure off the better value seats. At least this time the first bit is true. I think they have learnt from summer how far they can push pricing at the top end, but at least this time the pricing test (on the lower end) is only being tested on a single production. So the real question is whether everyone will really opt out or not and whether it’s the less-expensive-but-significantly-more-expensive-than-before seats and whether these will remain unsold. Could it be more financially viable to then offer these at a discount than the higher value tickets lower down?

Although I think this is definitely something for AB to consider, I think the true test for him will be whether the spaces disappear just as quickly as always. The most significant changes have been made on this one production and from a pricing perspective probably an experiment to see what happens. I would predict he will reply claiming increased costs for ROH, x% tickets still under £50 etc etc…

Unfortunately theatres as a whole are really struggling to sell tickets and are heavily discounting regularly to fill seats. Inflating costs on the affordable seats is only going to result in greater struggles to fill ROH. On the other hand, my daughter will be eligible for young ROH on Sunday, so I’ll be buying some single tickets and she’ll be keeping an eye out for deals on the same dates, which is starting to look quite likely.

I think this is a pricing experiment gone wrong to see just how much people would be willing to pay, but these places are what makes ROH truly accessible and a great way to get over 25s with no pricing benefits through to door. It’s a really disappointing twist to the ongoing conversation about pricing people out. However, it will be interesting to see if these places are still as highly sought after (will any remain by public booking?).

https://www.roh.org.uk/seatmap?performanceId=54536

If you had the Don Q seating plans open these still seem to be live, if hidden from the site. It looks like there are quite a few seats (and standing places) which have been blocked out already so no doubt those reservations have been made. Incidentally the prices look exactly the same!

Not sure if I am relieved that all will be sorted ready for my Friends+ booking or whether it would have reduced the pressure to have been later! Interested to see if there are any pricing adjustments...

His recovery seems to have been quite a long one which must have been tough. Delighted to see him cast in Don Q and Nutcracker - he’s on a poster with an image for the latter - so I guess he has a lot to look forward to and if he is better, it makes sense not to risk his recovery. The company seem to be covering quite a range of repertoire in Japan and that must be quite gruelling.

Nor me.

A fair point, but the result is he is effectively starting from a disadvantage as the company hasn't been delivering at its full throttle for almost a year and there's a relatively uninspiring 2023/24 season ahead which really needed some more creative input.

I love ENB and am a keen supporter. I'm a little underwhelmed by the promotion plan, the visibility of the new AD and the 2022/23 and 2023/24 repertoire which is leading to me seeing less and less of them. I really want to see the company succeed but they need a bit more vigour (and a new Nutcracker - or bring back an old one already in the rep or even give Coppelia a try like RB a few years ago).

This is the reason why I wanted to check Don q pricing as thought there must have been a mistake in the magazine. I guess not! I also wondered if they might be testing pricing for this production elsewhere in the house so interested to see any other changes. i would have thought that perhaps nutcracker standing might be snapped up with a higher price as it sells so well- results for Don q could be interesting.

No- I assume it will have to be by 10am for those who are able to book this am.

Everything seems to be up this morning and working except for Don Q...

I've just reached out to the Friends team about this. It's frantic enough on booking day without adding the additional hurdle of not being able to plan which dates to compromise on seating vs which dates to get more expensive tickets. We've also had 2 booking periods (at least) where some of us have only been able to book when using an incognito browser window, so this feels like yet another barrier has been put in place. If interactive seating maps aren't available, they need to find a way to share a PDF version.

An incredibly enjoyable evening and a well thought out programme from RBS. A great opportunity to see some pieces I haven’t seen before and also very much appreciated by a friend who is new to ballet/dance in general who got to explore lots of different styles. As with BRB2 I would love to see more of this sort of programming to entice people to give ballet a try at an exceptionally affordable price while being relatively low cost to put on and providing great performance experience. The standard of dancing was excellent, but also of note was the acting ability of the students which was more impressive than some professional companies where acting seems to be undervalued, particularly in classical works. Interestingly Carlos Acosta was in the audience last night and I wonder if he has his eye on anyone to join BRB next year. Very interested to see the destination of leavers as a result! Jiri Kylian’s Sechs Tanze was a surprising delight of the evening. Quick question for those in the know- will the repertoire here be a part of the RBS summer performance on the main stage?

In theory it was a great idea to drive engagement with the ROH around the country. That bit I don’t have a problem with, but it just wasn’t a great award entry in terms of demonstrating tangible outcomes (which was one of the judging criteria). After seeing BRB2 and then RBS this evening as part of the New Gen festival, I think much better would be these cheap to stage, short, chocolate box evenings which might draw in a new audience who get all sorts of different flavours of ballet repertoire for a steal. BRB2 is already touring. Is it time to give RBS more opportunity to perform and potentially fly the flag for RB further afield? Live performance matters and engages on a different level…

It’s a completely irrelevant statistic. It means 13,784 people engaged for whatever their mystery dwell time was (which is relevant and strange they didn’t mention), but we don’t know what the outcome of those people engaging was. Did they attend a cinema screening or visit ROH? Was there an intrinsic change in perception of the ROH? What is the relevance of the increased heart rate as a measure and why did they feel this way? Which content did they share anyway? No clearer from the video…