New ROH website - 2019 and 2022 versions

[Geoff]

5 minutes ago, JohnS said:

(but I might be missing the point):

 

The link has changed since I posted, see my later comment. Sorry for any confusion. 

[JohnS]

And there I was thinking you were referring to the three works being performed ‘together’ ie at the same time.

[alison]

Aagh!  I think I may have come to a dead end.  I'm on the page for The Cellist, and can't un-set the filters to get myself back to other pages I might be interested in.  Can anyone replicate this?

[alison]

So, seemingly some sort of website malfunction today during Friday Rush?  Either that, or everybody in front of me was going for the same performance, which seems unlikely.  Everything showing up as Sold Out immediately on entry.  I refreshed and refreshed, and then realised that I could try selecting best available, which ultimately worked, even though the system claimed that nothing was available, but by then I'd missed the ticket I was really after  

[JNC]

11 hours ago, alison said:

So, seemingly some sort of website malfunction today during Friday Rush?  Either that, or everybody in front of me was going for the same performance, which seems unlikely.  Everything showing up as Sold Out immediately on entry.  I refreshed and refreshed, and then realised that I could try selecting best available, which ultimately worked, even though the system claimed that nothing was available, but by then I'd missed the ticket I was really after  

 

Out of interest what were you trying to buy Alison? I’ve never tried for a Friday Rush actually - I find regular booking stressful enough (!) and then often get everything I want then. On the odd occasion I maybe want to see something this forum has been very good for last minute returns, or the ROH website (generally 1-2 on the day though sometimes more than I can afford!).

 

If you’re desperate to go and don’t mind short notice I would definitely check the ROH website somewhat regularly as returns do often pop up. 

 

Also I note that whilst it has now been correctly updated to say it has sold out, yesterday still showed ticket availability for fidelio but when you clicked through to actually buy/select a seat nothing was available! (The tickets by then were out of my price range but I was just curious). Perhaps it’s a case of people holding tickets by adding them to their basket but not completing check out yet? But it seemed to go on for a while... 

 

really I think I would prefer it say ‘sold out’ if someone has a ticket in their basket as it’s pretty much sold. I think this is better and more accurate, if the basket time elapses it can just appear again which is a nice surprise rather than letting people down and frustrating them at the selecting seating stage! 

Edited October 26, 2019 by JNC

[Dawnstar]

On 19/08/2019 at 15:15, Bluebird said:

 

The old calendar pages are still there.  Here's the October one: https://www.roh.org.uk/events/calendar/2019/10

 

You can use it to navigate to other months and/or years.   Let's hope they don't remove these old, user friendly page!

 

Edited to add that you're not able to look at one day at at a time but, if you click on a particular event, the details you're looking for will appear.

 

 

Sadly I've just found that the calendar pages have now been re-done. Any month earlier than September 2019 is now not available & if you go to a past month, such as the October 2019 link given above, and try clicking on a date it only gives the general production page & no longer gives the cast for that date. So unless anyone knows of any other way to access past performance information on the ROH website, there now seems to be a gap between 2012 and 2019 where there's no way of finding official past performance information.

[Richard LH]

2 hours ago, Dawnstar said:

 

Sadly I've just found that the calendar pages have now been re-done. Any month earlier than September 2019 is now not available & if you go to a past month, such as the October 2019 link given above, and try clicking on a date it only gives the general production page & no longer gives the cast for that date. So unless anyone knows of any other way to access past performance information on the ROH website, there now seems to be a gap between 2012 and 2019 where there's no way of finding official past performance information.

I noticed this a while back. It is annoying and I can't see a way round it.

[zxDaveM]

have you tried a url in this format  -   https://www.roh.org.uk/calendar?date=2019-09

[alison]

Well, you can't get at casting for the opera that way, anyway  

[Richard LH]

10 hours ago, zxDaveM said:

have you tried a url in this format  -   https://www.roh.org.uk/calendar?date=2019-09

 

Using this url format  only gives casting  information on future performances, and  returns "no events found" for anything before September 2019, as far as I can make out.😞

[Lizbie1]

And now the invaluable season view page - roh.org.uk/seasons/2019-20 - has gone and the URL is redirecting to the main tickets and events page

[alison]

Oh hell  

[Bruce Wall]

2 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

And now the invaluable season view page - roh.org.uk/seasons/2019-20 - has gone and the URL is redirecting to the main tickets and events page

 

I would hit the 'like' heart in appreciation of this notification but find myself - given the sad reality of it - and only in this one instance - wishing there was a 'abhorrence' button!!!   What a way to start the New Year, ROH!  Surely now the new website's only way CAN be but up!  Every valuable feature from the past seems to have already been toppled in 2019.  

 

Edited January 2, 2020 by Bruce Wall

[FionaM]

On a positive note  .... I do like the new calendar view 

[bangorballetboy]

32 minutes ago, FionaE said:

On a positive note  .... I do like the new calendar view 

hooray! I was wondering when someone would actually say this!

[alison]

I'm not sure I do, but will give it a bit more time ...

[FionaM]

12 hours ago, bangorballetboy said:

hooray! I was wondering when someone would actually say this!

 

I shall be more brave ... I REALLY like the new calendar view 😉😂

https://www.roh.org.uk/calendar?date=2020-01

[bridiem]

2 minutes ago, FionaE said:

I shall be more brave ... I REALLY like the new calendar view 😉😂

https://www.roh.org.uk/calendar?date=2020-01

 

I hadn't seen it until now; I don't like it in fact, because a) it takes up too much space/too much scrolling (as with everything on this website), and b) the events each day are not necessarily listed chronologically. I wouldn't mind if the main stage was given automatic priority and then the rest chronologically; or all events chronologically, with the main stage highlighted (as it is); but neither happens, so you need to look through all the events and work out what's happening when. Surely a calendar should give priority to time?!

[bangorballetboy]

4 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

 the events each day are not necessarily listed chronologically. 

 

They are listed chronologically - the earliest in the day is at the bottom of that day's listing and it goes upwards from there.  

 

The calendar view is very well formatted for viewing on a smartphone, where each day is a drop down menu, so there's not so much scrolling there.

[FionaM]

2 minutes ago, bridiem said:

 

I hadn't seen it until now; I don't like it in fact, because a) it takes up too much space/too much scrolling (as with everything on this website), and b) the events each day are not necessarily listed chronologically. I wouldn't mind if the main stage was given automatic priority and then the rest chronologically; or all events chronologically, with the main stage highlighted (as it is); but neither happens, so you need to look through all the events and work out what's happening when. Surely a calendar should give priority to time?!

I can see your point - although I suspect there are differing views on what order daily events should be in.  I agree with the main evening performance being first.

 

And at last we can now see all the events happening on a particular day.  This was THE most important absence of the site.  They are not so many events in each day it’s perfectly easy to see and scroll and click on my smart devices.  It’ll be my ‘go to’ page on ROH website from now on 🙂

[JohnS]

Many thanks all for drawing attention to the calendar.  It’s good to have a working calendar and I guess I’ll simply have to get used to the 4 day horizontal display rather than the familiar weekly display.
 

When trying to look back at December I was rather pleased to be able to give the feedback that I was looking for casting information - perhaps that might come as the site develops?

 

I don’t wish to sound churlish but how long was the site without a functioning diary (and I’d argue that the new calendar doesn’t yet have the functionality of the old one).

[bridiem]

52 minutes ago, bangorballetboy said:

They are listed chronologically - the earliest in the day is at the bottom of that day's listing and it goes upwards from there.  

 

The calendar view is very well formatted for viewing on a smartphone, where each day is a drop down menu, so there's not so much scrolling there.

 

?? OK, I can see that now - but I'm afraid my visual chronology doesn't work from the bottom to the top. Why would it?!

 

I rarely look at the website on my phone, for obvious reasons - small screen, slower typing if want to book something, etc. Why have a hugely over-designed website and then (apparently) tailor it to people looking at it on a teeny tiny device??

[maryrosesatonapin]

I use a desktop computer and am THRILLED with the new calendar.  What a relief.

[Richard LH]

3 hours ago, JohnS said:

When trying to look back at December I was rather pleased to be able to give the feedback that I was looking for casting information - perhaps that might come as the site develops?

 

I have emailed ROH to point out the annoyance at the lack of any casting for past events,  the lack of anything before Sept 2019 ("No Events Found"), and the loss of  Seasons.  

[JohnS]

Thanks Richard.

I should have been a bit clearer.  When clicking on December,  the website prompted me to select what I was looking for, including ‘casting information’.  I thought that was good and hopefully there will be many similar responses.  
If I look at my ‘event history’ I still get casting details so I don’t see why such information can’t be available via calendar.  I guess a solution would be to get a ticket for every performance!

I do like much of the design work but I guess I’m pretty conservative when it comes to diaries/calendars - I like to see weeks (even though having retired in many respects everyday’s a Saturday) and always list my events starting with first appointments and later ones below.

[alison]

I think I might prefer it without the visuals: it looks slightly odd to me that some events have them and some don't.  And I'd certainly prefer events to be in chronological order - or at least main stage, Linbury, Clore and anywhere else, but each in chronological order.  Reverse chronological order makes no sense.

 

But it's an improvement, which is something.

[Bluebird]

On 02/01/2020 at 20:25, Lizbie1 said:

And now the invaluable season view page - roh.org.uk/seasons/2019-20 - has gone and the URL is redirecting to the main tickets and events page

 

I wanted to check the dates of the forthcoming run of La Bohème. Since that invaluable season view page is no longer available,  I went to roh.org.uk (the ‘new’ page with the fancy logo), clicked on search and typed in “La Bohème” (I'm aware that there would have been other ways of finding the La Bohème dates but I'd imagined that I'd find them more quickly by using this search function).

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/search?q=la bohème

 

The top result was entitled “La Bohème – Productions” 

https://www.roh.org.uk/productions/la-boheme-by-john-copley

 

When clicked on, it produces the following:

There are currently no scheduled performances of La bohème. It was last on stage 23 May—16 July 2015 as part of the Summer 2014/15 season.

 

A newcomer to the ROH might well take that as fact!  They might not know that the Bohème run coming up is of a different production.

 

I assume the changes to the website are aimed at  newcomers to the ROH.  I would have thought that they would be very likely to use the 'search' function. Although I, eventually, found a link to the forthcoming run of productions, it was only the third result on the page.  Not very helpful to the aforementioned newcomers who might assume that the correct link was the top one!

 

 

Edited January 5, 2020 by Bluebird

[Geoff]

47 minutes ago, Bluebird said:

 

I wanted to check the dates of the forthcoming run of La Bohème. Since that invaluable season view page is no longer available,  I went to roh.org.uk (the ‘new’ page with the fancy logo), clicked on search and typed in “La Bohème” (I'm aware that there would have been other ways of finding the La Bohème dates but I'd imagined that I'd find them more quickly by using this search function).

 

http://www.roh.org.uk/search?q=la bohème

 

The top result was entitled “La Bohème – Productions” 

https://www.roh.org.uk/productions/la-boheme-by-john-copley

 

When clicked on, it produces the following:

There are currently no scheduled performances of La bohème. It was last on stage 23 May—16 July 2015 as part of the Summer 2014/15 season.

 

A newcomer to the ROH might well take that as fact!  They might not know that the Bohème run coming up is of a different production.

 

I assume the changes to the website are aimed at  newcomers to the ROH.  I would have thought that they would be very likely to use the 'search' function. Although I, eventually, found a link to the forthcoming run of productions, it was only the third result on the page.  Not very helpful to the aforementioned newcomers who might assume that the correct link was the top one!

 

This is the sort of stupid design fault that needs correcting asap. Might you perhaps send a note to ROH Customer Services to explain? I know there was a period in the last year when it became clear ROH staff were monitoring this site but no idea if they are still doing so. 

[capybara]

21 hours ago, alison said:

 Reverse chronological order makes no sense.

But it's an improvement, which is something.

 

It is, indeed, a helpful improvement. I suspect that the website 'sorts' each day's events into the reverse order automatically and that what we would find logical would need to be corrected manually.

[Lizbie1]

8 minutes ago, capybara said:

 

It is, indeed, a helpful improvement. I suspect that the website 'sorts' each day's events into the reverse order automatically and that what we would find logical would need to be corrected manually.

 

I can't see that it should be any more trouble to configure or code it to sort in the opposite direction, but like others I suspect that it was a deliberate choice to make the evening production show most prominently.

 

I like the new calendar page but have had problems with it loading very slowly, to the extent that I thought that it wasn't working at first.

[Bluebird]

The gremlins are back at work on the new ROH website:

https://www.roh.org.uk/news/royal-opera-house-cast-changes-winter-201920

"On 18 January (1.30pm), 22 February (7pm) and 29 February (7.30pm) Lauren Cuthbertson is replacing Itziar Mendizabal as Tatiana."

 

[jmhopton]

This is a copy of the second letter I sent yesterday to Graham Boland the Customer Services Manager re the disappearing easy access calendar:-

 

Many thanks for getting back to me so promptly. I'm still really hugely disappointed the old season calendar has gone. it was just so easy to use and I still vastly prefer it to the new one. Is there not room for both? I've reluctantly saved the new calendar as that's all that is available until the old version is (hopefully) restored but I can't say I really like it. It seems to rely on you wanting to know what is available on a specific day which is OK in it's way but I much prefer looking at a list of all annual productions and seeing how they all fit together and clicking on a specific production to see the list of who is dancing or what ticket availability there is. I tend to want to look at a production as a whole and not specific dates. I know I can do this via the ordinary booking site but if the production is a while off you have to do a lot of scrolling to find it and the old layout was invaluable for this and just general ease of access. if I as a ballet regular find the new layouts tedious and time consuming how can a ballet or opera newbie easily find information?   I suppose if you've never known anything else you might just accept it but when you've had a great system and it's taken away for no good reason it is very frustrating.  I've already had the very depressing news that Vadim Muntagirov is no longer dancing Onegin when I've been waiting for him to dance the role for five years and my husband and myself have booked all his performances and hotels as well as we live 200 miles away so it's been a very depressing ROH day which the calendar news has just made worse. Please re-instate it.

 

I got a very prompt, polite reply from him today (I only wrote my letter last night) to say he will pass my concerns on to the web team so we'll have to see but I'm not optimistic. it seems the ROH  wants to remove all the useful easy to use parts of their website and replace it with things that look good but aren't nearly as easy to use (from my point of view, anyway).

 

 

[Dawnstar]

41 minutes ago, jmhopton said:

It seems to rely on you wanting to know what is available on a specific day which is OK in it's way but I much prefer looking at a list of all annual productions and seeing how they all fit together and clicking on a specific production to see the list of who is dancing or what ticket availability there is.

 

I think this is a very good point, especially for those who see both ballet and opera and need to work out how best to fit seeing them around each other.