The "new" Royal Opera House, Covent Garden

[Richard LH]

On 21/09/2018 at 07:20, Richard LH said:

Yes,  another huge glitch, it seems.  This was the reply to one dissatisfied customer about the Swan Lake digital programme, nearly 3 months ago....

 

Mel Spencer (Senior Editor (Social Media)) responded on 2 July 2018 at 3:00pm

Hi Alex,

Sorry for the frustrating experience. Unfortunately we are having ongoing issues with our digital programmes and the Swan Lake programme isn't available. We are working to fix the issue but it make be a slightly longer fix than we expected.

Apologies once again.

Mel

 

Checking today, the digital progammes (including Swan Lake) appear to be up and running again. 

[Quintus]

I went to the ROH for the first time since the remodelling last weekend.  I think the Floral Hall (as I shall continue to call it) has been utterly ruined.  The former central, elliptical bar used to be an iconic focus point, and was the star of many photos taken from the balcony above. The open space created by its removal has been filled with cheap tables and chairs, and what appears to be a fake wood floor. I was going to say it looks like a High St chain cafe, but actually it's worse as those places try to zone and create an intimate atmosphere.  It just looks cheap and industrial - Premier Inn rather than premier experience. 

[bangorballetboy]

1 minute ago, Quintus said:

I went to the ROH for the first time since the remodelling last weekend.  I think the Floral Hall (as I shall continue to call it) has been utterly ruined.  The former central, elliptical bar used to be an iconic focus point, and was the star of many photos taken from the balcony above. The open space created by its removal has been filled with cheap tables and chairs, and what appears to be a fake wood floor. I was going to say it looks like a High St chain cafe, but actually it's worse as those places try to zone and create an intimate atmosphere.  It just looks cheap and industrial - Premier Inn rather than premier experience. 

 

The central bar hasn't been removed.  It is constructed in a way so that it can be moved to make two bars at the ends of the hall, making an open space in the middle, which is used from time to time for events such as the tea dance.

[Thalia]

And sometimes they can make it disappear entirely! I think there must be a space for it behind the wall at the back. 

[Quintus]

1 hour ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

The central bar hasn't been removed.  It is constructed in a way so that it can be moved to make two bars at the ends of the hall, making an open space in the middle, which is used from time to time for events such as the tea dance.

 

Oh, well that's a relief - it was in that split configuration when I went and I had never seen it like that before.  

[bangorballetboy]

3 minutes ago, Quintus said:

 

Oh, well that's a relief - it was in that split configuration when I went and I had never seen it like that before.  

 

Back to normal tonight!

[ninamargaret]

3 hours ago, Thalia said:

And sometimes they can make it disappear entirely! I think there must be a space for it behind the wall at the back. 

And a couple of times I have seen just a long single bar at the back of the hall.

[Quintus]

13 hours ago, ninamargaret said:

And a couple of times I have seen just a long single bar at the back of the hall.

 

And once I thought I saw two bars in the middle - but that was on a night with three intervals   🥂

[John Mallinson]

ROH seems keen to disorientate attendees by changing the layout of the (once known as) Floral Hall each time one goes. And what has happened to the pervasive smell of fish that greeted one before a show? Haven't noticed it recently.

 

[alison]

Great!

[Guest]

20 hours ago, John Mallinson said:

ROH seems keen to disorientate attendees by changing the layout of the (once known as) Floral Hall each time one goes. And what has happened to the pervasive smell of fish that greeted one before a show? Haven't noticed it recently.

 

I could smell the fish quite strongly  last Thursday at Bayadere. 

 

[alison]

Alerted to this by penelopesimpson

https://www.standard.co.uk/go/london/arts/royal-opera-house-redevelopment-open-a3990771.html

 

I find this really worrying:

 

"And while he points out that 31 per cent of tickets at the ROH cost less than £30, and that even the most expensive seats cost less than a box at Stamford Bridge, he also thinks sometimes the tickets are too cheap. “We sold out our current run of The Ring Cycle in about 10 minutes,” he says. “Which tells me we mispriced it.”"

 

It of course tells you no such thing.  I hope that sort of thinking isn't going to be continued, otherwise we're going to be looking back at the days of £29 restricted-view side amphi seats for Swan Lake as the good old days  

[Guest]

'...the café, beefed-up shop and the newly refitted Restaurant Level 5 will be free...' Sounds good to me! (though I don't see how getting rid of dance magazines makes it 'beefed-up')

 

Seriously, if his 'desire to knock out all this elitism' is really true, then more tickets should be offered under £30.00, not fewer. Being able to walk into yet another cafe/restaurant in Covent Garden is rather different from being able to afford entrance into the auditorium, which , after all, is the main purpose of the place, isn't it?

[penelopesimpson]

I’m going to be rude and say that either this  guy doesn’t know his arse from His elbow or he is remarkably naive about media interviews.

 

He says that:

 

- he is determined to stamp  out elitism.  What does this mean exactly, and does it not apply, in spades, to those wealthy patrons without whose contribution, he ‘doesn’t know where ROH would be?

 

- he loves seeing the place full of people who have not got tickets but needs to increase the spend in bars and restaurants. ??????

 

-  he sells out of tickets and says it is because they are too cheap which is pretty much what his marketing department said recently

 

-  he needs people to pay more but has only contempt for those who do

 

Hmm

 

-   

 

Edited November 16, 2018 by penelopesimpson

[loveclassics]

Frankly if he hopes to improve the ROH's coffers by selling food & drink, he's going to have to up his game.  Covent Garden is overrun with coffee bars and restaurants far more attractive to spend time in and much better value for money.

 

Selling out the Ring cycle so quickly is more likely to be due to the rarity of the staging, the small number of performances and size of the auditorium.  He should follow the example of the RSC and some of the so-called fringe theatres that transfer hit shows to larger theatres for a season.  Or simply schedule more performances in the first place.  Once casual visitors to the ROH find out all the best seats and best shows are sold-out months in advance, there will be little incentive to return.

 

Linda

[JohnS]

The Ring was sold out in 10 minutes?  I wonder what that actually means as tickets were on sale to different groups (Patrons, Friends etc) on a string of dates.  Or is this really that when remaining seats were put on sale to the general public, they were sold out 'in 10 minutes'?  I have no idea how many tickets were available when general booking opened but I thought the vast majority of tickets had already been sold.  The impression given by the quote is that all tickets were released simultaneously and then sold out within 10 minutes.  Rather than simply questioning ticket pricing, questions could equally be asked about membership fees, the number of cycles (although I recognise the difficulties of mounting four cycles let alone a fifth), and the number of cinema relays - why just Walkure and not the whole Ring (although it's fabulous that the Ring is being broadcast on Radio 3)?

[bridiem]

8 hours ago, penelopesimpson said:

I’m going to be rude and say that either this  guy doesn’t know his arse from His elbow or he is remarkably naive about media interviews.

 

Or possibly both. Or, as someone else has suggested, there are hidden agendas here.

 

I also think that wealthy people sometimes really don't understand how ordinary people live. What is 'cheap' to them is a lot of money to most people. How someone like this is supposed to be able to make decisions about ticket prices with the aim of reducing 'elitism' I don't know.

 

And I wonder where they get their 100,000 figure from, since there are no checks or counts at the doors.

Edited November 16, 2018 by bridiem

[JohnS]

As the latest edition of Private Eye still doesn't include a letter I'd sent in response to the recent Lunchtime O'Boulez Baker Richards piece, I thought I'd at least share the draft.  I won't be cancelling my subscription!

 

A consultant normally steals your watch to tell you the time but Baker Richards fails to keep its side of the ‘bargain’ and then insults many regular Royal Opera House audience members who are clearly considered dispensable (Music & Musicians Eye 1481). 

 

In its ‘advertorial’ Baker Richards makes much of its ‘data-led, evidence-based approach’ (would anyone advocate the converse - ‘data free, non evidenced’?) but there is no quantification at all of pricing. Baker Richards simply states  ‘ROH confidently reduced some prices while increasing others.’ Analysis of prices charged for Nutcracker last year and Swan Lake this summer is revealing. Price reductions were for a handful of still relatively expensive seats (extreme sides of Orchestra Stalls in the front rows down 8% but still nearly £100) and for some seats at the very back of the Amphitheatre but the most significant percentage increases were for relatively cheap seats placed in higher price categories (for example Amphitheatre seats up from £16 to £29, an 81% increase; Upper Slips from £10 to £17, 70% increase; and other Amphitheatre seats from £38 to £63, 66% increase). 

 

Worse Baker Richards then proudly puts forward a rationale for increasing prices just enough to reduce the frequency of attendance of regular customers so that tickets might then be available for new audiences who wouldn't know that prices had increased. ‘ROH was relying on a small core of extremely frequent customers (though not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations) to sell the majority of tickets.’ It’s rare for consultants to be quite so explicitly contemptuous of a client’s customers. Again there’s no quantification of audiences by frequency of attendance, simply assertions. There’s no recognition of the value of loyal customers and the importance of encouraging new customers to become regulars. 

 

Baker Richards claims a £1 spent on digital marketing leads to £1,000 ticket sales. No analysis is provided. There’s no discussion of the causality of the spend - the claim is that without the spend the ticket sales would not have occurred. But Baker Richards has highlighted repeat customers where digital marketing spend is highly unlikely to result in decisions to purchase extra tickets. It’s extremely difficult to demonstrate digital marketing has directly generated a ticket sale and in the absence of proper analysis Baker Richards’ claims are simply specious. And don’t we also need to factor in Baker Richards’ own costs given its advocacy of digital marketing if we’re wanting a proper calculation of return on investment?

 

A massive own goal and particularly galling given the strengths of the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet in the theatre six or more times a week and available to wider audiences through the live relay programme in cinemas and its web-screening of rehearsal events, including the recent World Ballet Day. The ROH has an excellent outreach programme for schools and people who’ve never attended a performance - perhaps Baker Richards should reflect on the shoddiness of its analysis, the damage it has done, and donate its fee to support the ROH’s invaluable outreach work.

[penelopesimpson]

3 minutes ago, JohnS said:

As the latest edition of Private Eye still doesn't include a letter I'd sent in response to the recent Lunchtime O'Boulez Baker Richards piece, I thought I'd at least share the draft.  I won't be cancelling my subscription!

 

A consultant normally steals your watch to tell you the time but Baker Richards fails to keep its side of the ‘bargain’ and then insults many regular Royal Opera House audience members who are clearly considered dispensable (Music & Musicians Eye 1481). 

 

In its ‘advertorial’ Baker Richards makes much of its ‘data-led, evidence-based approach’ (would anyone advocate the converse - ‘data free, non evidenced’?) but there is no quantification at all of pricing. Baker Richards simply states  ‘ROH confidently reduced some prices while increasing others.’ Analysis of prices charged for Nutcracker last year and Swan Lake this summer is revealing. Price reductions were for a handful of still relatively expensive seats (extreme sides of Orchestra Stalls in the front rows down 8% but still nearly £100) and for some seats at the very back of the Amphitheatre but the most significant percentage increases were for relatively cheap seats placed in higher price categories (for example Amphitheatre seats up from £16 to £29, an 81% increase; Upper Slips from £10 to £17, 70% increase; and other Amphitheatre seats from £38 to £63, 66% increase). 

 

Worse Baker Richards then proudly puts forward a rationale for increasing prices just enough to reduce the frequency of attendance of regular customers so that tickets might then be available for new audiences who wouldn't know that prices had increased. ‘ROH was relying on a small core of extremely frequent customers (though not always very high value in terms of ticket yield or donations) to sell the majority of tickets.’ It’s rare for consultants to be quite so explicitly contemptuous of a client’s customers. Again there’s no quantification of audiences by frequency of attendance, simply assertions. There’s no recognition of the value of loyal customers and the importance of encouraging new customers to become regulars. 

 

Baker Richards claims a £1 spent on digital marketing leads to £1,000 ticket sales. No analysis is provided. There’s no discussion of the causality of the spend - the claim is that without the spend the ticket sales would not have occurred. But Baker Richards has highlighted repeat customers where digital marketing spend is highly unlikely to result in decisions to purchase extra tickets. It’s extremely difficult to demonstrate digital marketing has directly generated a ticket sale and in the absence of proper analysis Baker Richards’ claims are simply specious. And don’t we also need to factor in Baker Richards’ own costs given its advocacy of digital marketing if we’re wanting a proper calculation of return on investment?

 

A massive own goal and particularly galling given the strengths of the Royal Opera and Royal Ballet in the theatre six or more times a week and available to wider audiences through the live relay programme in cinemas and its web-screening of rehearsal events, including the recent World Ballet Day. The ROH has an excellent outreach programme for schools and people who’ve never attended a performance - perhaps Baker Richards should reflect on the shoddiness of its analysis, the damage it has done, and donate its fee to support the ROH’s invaluable outreach work.

Here, here.

 

Anyone know if there’s any tickets left for the Spice Girls?

 

 

[bridiem]

Excellent letter, JohnS! Shame it hasn't been published (yet).

[Bluebird]

1 hour ago, bridiem said:

And I wonder where they get their 100,000 figure from, since there are no checks or counts at the doors.

 

Before the recent redevelopment, the House was already open to the public during non-performance times.  Interestingly, an ROH employee told me that she'd heard that 'footfall' had decreased since 'Open Up'!  Of course, we don't have the figures to prove or disprove this but, as bridiem says,  it would be interesting to know the source of the 100,000 figure.

Edited November 16, 2018 by Bluebird

[David]

I think people are being very unkind about the ROH’s new leisure facility. It is really nice to have somewhere to go and eat one’s sandwiches and watch the better-off who are able to get tickets pass in and out of the auditorium. And so good to see the return of free public conveniences!

 

Sadly the men and women sleeping rough down the road along the Strand have not cottoned on as yet to this wonderful new facility on their doorstep. I asked one man why he had not visited. He said that he would not be welcome but happily I was able to reassure him. That would be elitist I told him and we all know that the ROH is never that.     

[Fonty]

I don't see how the Opera House can possibly be used in the same way as the South Bank.  The various venues are designed completely differently, with a huge amount of space for large numbers to walk about, sit, grab a drink or a snack, without having to attend anything.  The ROH wasn't.  

 

Mr Taylor says his charity funds school matinee programmes.  I may be reading this with a jaundiced eye, but it makes it sound as though he was the first person to set this up.   But the ROH has always had done this sort of thing, hasn't it?  I know when I was at school in Surrey, there was the opportunity to buy seats at reduced prices for regular performances.  I certainly took advantage of it.  I remember my neighbours at the time telling me that when they had been school children, they had been to see the ballet on the same deal.  They saw a couple called Fonteyn and Nureyev in some ballet called Marguerite and Armand.     

[alison]

I must say, I dislike this whole attempt to present all the aspects of "Open Up" as something totally new.  Perhaps it's more welcoming with the extra space etc. than when you had to get a (free) ticket to allow you inside the main building, but I keep reading these puff pieces and going: "you did that before" on virtually all aspects.  Lunchtime concerts?  Check.  Access to the inside?  Check.  Access to eateries?  Check. Exhibitions?  Check.  ...   As I've probably said before, anyone reading them would assume that you couldn't do any of this prior to Open Up, and that is so untrue.

[penelopesimpson]

Didn’t they used to do something similar at Versailles?  You could wander in to watch the King’s levee and later gawp at the Royal Family eating in public.  Perhaps Mr. Taylor has something similar in mind for R O H.  The Balcony Restaurant would be ideal with Darcey Bussell below giving a menu commentary as the toffs got their snouts in the trough.

[loveclassics]

This expensive PR outfit need to learn about the history of the ROH.  I'm not that familiar with the opera special events but I do remember the Paul Hamlyn matinees and the Big Top seasons that the RB held on Clapham Common (or was it Battersea Park?)  And weren't there Prom seasons in the past when all the seats in the lower auditorium were one flat (cheap) price?

 

I also remember watching the TV documentary series that followed Jeremy Isaacs when he was running the ROH.  In one particularly revealing episode, he and another board member sat in seats in the ampitheatre and discussed whether they were charging enough for the restricted view from those seats.  It didn't seem to occur to them to consult the usual purchasers of those seats - they just took it for granted that their idea of cheap was the same as for ordinary people who don't enjoy 6-figure salaries.

 

Now that's my idea of elitism, that organisations subsidised, even partially,  by the tax-payer should be run by people so out of touch with reality.

 

Linda

[alison]

The prom season is allegedly coming back.  Sometime, I can't remember when.

[Jillykins]

wheelchair access very confusing! Ticket says one door for wheelchair and a different door for companion,. Couldn’t find staff to advise until we went up in lift! On arrival at door for wheelchair staff couldn’t have been more helpful.

[bridiem]

15 minutes ago, loveclassics said:

This expensive PR outfit need to learn about the history of the ROH.  I'm not that familiar with the opera special events but I do remember the Paul Hamlyn matinees and the Big Top seasons that the RB held on Clapham Common (or was it Battersea Park?)  And weren't there Prom seasons in the past when all the seats in the lower auditorium were one flat (cheap) price?

 

It was Battersea Park. And yes about the proms. And I as a nearly penniless student could afford both. Not what I call elitism.

[JohnS]

1 hour ago, loveclassics said:

TV documentary series that followed Jeremy Isaacs

 

Wasn't this 'The Royal Opera House'?  There were some interesting programmes - I remember a Nutcracker episode when Clara was very much a girl not yet on pointe.  But one of the real 'highlights'(?) was hearing Nicholas Paine complaining about having to meet some donors/audience members (if I recall) and calling them 'effing rah-rahs'.  Perhaps directors/senior managers etc treating audience members with contempt may not be that recent?

I think the documentary was seen as very much an own goal (and not just the Nicholas Paine incident), far too much warts and all, and I don't think it was ever repeated on the BBC.  But I do see it is available on YouTube.

[Pas de Quatre]

For the proms in the 1980s they actually removed all the stalls seats and we sat on the carpet.  It felt like a mossy bank!

[graemew]

17 minutes ago, Pas de Quatre said:

For the proms in the 1980s they actually removed all the stalls seats and we sat on the carpet.  It felt like a mossy bank!

 

Aspirations of Glyndebourne perhaps........ and the prices!

[Geoff]

33 minutes ago, JohnS said:

 

Wasn't this 'The Royal Opera House'?  ...But one of the real 'highlights'(?) was hearing Nicholas Paine complaining about having to meet some donors/audience members ...I do see it is available on YouTube.

 

The series is affectionately remembered under the title ‘The House’ but your version is what appears on screen. One important correction: the person you are recalling was the then ROH boss, Sir Jeremy Isaacs.

 

Here’s a link:

 

https://youtu.be/2_-HRQ2YaQw

 

Edited November 16, 2018 by Geoff