'Evidence-based' marketing at the ROH - that would explain a lot!

[taxi4ballet]

By putting their prices up, they have reduced my already infrequent attendance to nil. I'll watch in the cinema from now on.

[Sim]

They will definitely attract a new young audience with those prices...

[alison]

I'm sorry, but the more I look at this - and whatever the reasons quoted - the more it looks to me like an "I'm sure we can get more for those seats than we are getting if we can discourage the regulars from buying them, because non-regulars probably won't know any better" rather than anything else.  As far as I can see, it appears to be happening to "side" seats throughout the theatre: amphi, balcony *and* stalls circle.  I think I'm going to get a very nasty shock if I compare prices for that stalls circle Friday Rush ticket I bought the other day compared with what I paid the last time I sat there ...

[alison]

2 hours ago, Bluebird said:

 

After reading this, I checked the price of these seats, both for opera and for ballet.  To my amazement, I found that your favoured seats (B82-85) were cheaper for both Faust and Tosca than for Romeo and Juliet!  For Faust, the price is £76.  For Tosca, the price is £79. For Romeo and Juliet, the price is £85!  Historically, as far as I'm aware, opera has always been much more expensive than ballet as the costs are much higher.  How can they possibly explain this radical change in the pricing structure? It's not as if it's a new production which needs to recoup its costs.

 

Edited to add that I've just noticed that this £85 price for Romeo and Juliet extends around the stalls circle to the bench seats close to the stage (eg as far as B97 on the right  and B16 on the left.  £85 for seats from which the view for ballet is most definitely restricted.

 

I realise this post is off topic for the Nutcracker thread.  Maybe a moderator could  move it to a more appropriate thread?

 

Copied over.  Absolutely appalling, and just confirms that the prices are being set by people who have no concern for the customer experience.  (As does bumping the end-of-row, 60% restricted view seats in amphi row H into a higher band than the amphi side seats for the same ballet)

[Dawnstar]

Copying over my reply to Bluebird's post from the Nutcracker discussion.

 

1 hour ago, Dawnstar said:

That does seem pretty ridiculous. By the time you've paid £85 for restricted view stalls circle you almost might as well be paying £106 for the cheapest stalls seats with much less restriction. Actually, maybe that's their cunning plan to try to get people to buy more expensive seats!!

[Bruce Wall]

Talking of effective marketing ... (and stepping aside from the RB/ROH for just a second) ... here's a witty trailer for NYCB's Sleeping Beauty that might - just might - bring a smile to your face ... and be cheap at the price in doing so ... Enjoy ...

 

 

Maria K as Carabosse does a fine line in disdain don't you think ... 

 

Edited January 10, 2019 by Bruce Wall

[Fonty]

Love it!  

 

Edited to add, do you think that doughnut was real?  And if so, how many times did she have to bite into it.  Given how thin dancers have to be, I reckon it was something made out of low fat cottage cheese with vegetable sprinkles.  With....Marmite to mimic the chocolate?

 

 

Edited January 14, 2019 by Fonty

[taxi4ballet]

On 14/01/2019 at 09:41, Fonty said:

do you think that doughnut was real?  

Yes 😋

[Don Q Fan]

On 10/01/2019 at 16:37, Bruce Wall said:

Maria K as Carabosse does a fine line in disdain don't you think ... 

 

Indeed she does - Love Maria Korowski!

[snowweisz]

On 10/01/2019 at 10:37, Bruce Wall said:

Talking of effective marketing ... (and stepping aside from the RB/ROH for just a second) ... here's a witty trailer for NYCB's Sleeping Beauty that might - just might - bring a smile to your face ... and be cheap at the price in doing so ... Enjoy ...

 

 

Maria K as Carabosse does a fine line in disdain don't you think ... 

 

 

 

Regardless of one might think about NYCB's current management team (or about how long it's taken the board to name a new director), this is what can happen when there's fresh leadership and young people are brought to the table. 

[Geoff]

On 05/10/2018 at 19:18, Yaffa said:

Haven't yet had time to read this detailed piece on ROH's data mining and plans from last year: http://www.opera-europa.org/library/documents/14475_lucy-sinclair.pdf

 

Just wanted to refer back to this document...only to discover that it has since been "locked" behind a password etc.

 

If anyone was sensible enough to download it at the time and keep a copy, might they contact me by PM?

[Geoff]

1 hour ago, Geoff said:

 

Just wanted to refer back to this document...only to discover that it has since been "locked" behind a password etc.

 

If anyone was sensible enough to download it at the time and keep a copy, might they contact me by PM?

 

...and just an hour later, a kind (and punctilious) member of the Forum has dropped a copy of the document into my inbox. So all the information is safe, even if slightly harder to access. Maybe someone will post it on one of those file sharing sites like Scribd?

[JohnS]

Given the pivotal role the Baker Richards ‘advertorial’ report had in stimulating this thread, would it be in order to post that report here?  Or is there a copyright issue?  I don’t have the report but perhaps moderators might give some thought as to whether it would be in order?

[Geoff]

3 hours ago, JohnS said:

Given the pivotal role the Baker Richards ‘advertorial’ report had in stimulating this thread, would it be in order to post that report here?  Or is there a copyright issue?  I don’t have the report but perhaps moderators might give some thought as to whether it would be in order?

 

John, it is still online here:

 

www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-pinhead-pricing

 

What I was asking about was the Lucy Sinclair powerpoint, which Yaffa found and which was online for a while until the link was locked. So perhaps I might shift your question to the moderators to being about the powerpoint document. Now that it has been passed to me I would be happy to post it here if allowed (and someone explains how to do this technically).

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by Geoff

[JohnS]

Many thanks Geoff - I clearly got the wrong end of the stick.  I’m afraid I couldn’t actually access the link you posted as it asked for a Microsoft login and l’m using Apple rather than Microsoft but the link on Darlex’s very first post opening the thread works for me.  I’ve pasted it below and will see if it’s ok.

 

https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-pinhead-pricing

 

 

Edited April 25, 2019 by JohnS
Link works

[Geoff]

58 minutes ago, JohnS said:

Many thanks Geoff - I clearly got the wrong end of the stick.  I’m afraid I couldn’t actually access the link you posted as it asked for a Microsoft login and l’m using Apple rather than Microsoft but the link on Darlex’s very first post opening the thread works for me.  I’ve pasted it below and will see if it’s ok.

 

https://www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-pinhead-pricing

 

 

 

Apologies John, too many tabs open on my PC. Maybe this one works (alternatively just paste into Google and see what comes up):-

 

www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-pinhead-pricing

[Sim]

5 hours ago, Geoff said:

 

John, it is still online here:

 

www.artsprofessional.co.uk/magazine/article/dancing-pinhead-pricing

 

What I was asking about was the Lucy Sinclair powerpoint, which Yaffa found and which was online for a while until the link was locked. So perhaps I might shift your question to the moderators to being about the powerpoint document. Now that it has been passed to me I would be happy to post it here if allowed (and someone explains how to do this technically).

 

Geoff, in response to your question above to the Mods, as the Sinclair presentation has been removed from the public domain and is password protected, we would prefer that it isn’t uploaded here on a public forum. Thanks. 

[Bruce]

13 hours ago, Sim said:

Geoff, in response to your question above to the Mods, as the Sinclair presentation has been removed from the public domain and is password protected, we would prefer that it isn’t uploaded here on a public forum. Thanks. 

 

Difficult and for people to do what the mods set.

 

But I took a different view a while back wrt to Twitter and DanceTabs. I think the public record is the public record and if something has been made public (for a reasonable period of time) then it's best it remains public and if the poster subsequently believes they got it wrong then best they say why in public - but the original public comment remains. Thus the complete record is clear to all. That's very easy to say, I know(!), and sometimes things arise that would have us all act another way, but as a starting position I think it is good and sound.

 

My specific intervention on Twitter came when David Dawson's "The Human Seasons" was put on by RB that was not so well received. Dawson unhappily and sarcastically tweeted about looking to withdraw the work - so incensed was he by the reception. The tweet was up for a good while and then was deleted. And on Twitter, I republished a picture copy of the tweet. It happened, and people could see what was going on.

 

For those interested the Telegraph has more on the furore and quotes the tweet as well:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/03/23/royal-ballet-choreographer-appears-ridicule-stars/

 

Going back to my running of this forum, back in the early days (very early - the late 90s or early 00's) we had a few occasions when posters edited posts that had generated angry response from others. Thus it was hard to see what was going on and why umbrage had been taken. And based on that I originally introduced an editing window of 1 hour. But that still allowed problems and it came down to 15 minutes - at least for a while. And that forced posters who later felt the need to revise thoughts to post again and what was going on was clear to all. And there is still an editing window on this version of the forum - because the mods are keen not to see the public record massaged, on a whim or otherwise.

 

Wrt to this specific case, I'm not too fussed about the PowerPoint, but I certainly have a copy of the artspro article with its 'interesting' Lucy Sinclair quotes - just in case it ever might disappear. I'm actually surprised that ROH has not commented under the piece looking to repair some damage... that they haven't I think is a mistake.

 

None of this is easy, and the mods have my knowing sympathy!

 

Edited April 26, 2019 by Bruce