Guest oncnp Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 (edited) 7 minutes ago, alison said: I was looking at "Chocolate" earlier and thought the seating plan looked odd. There were some end seats missing from the view, which could mislead people into thinking they are buying an end seat when they aren't. Which performances? The camera seats at the ends of the row are always blocked though now you mention it there are some mysteriously missing seats for the non-filming 17 June performance Edited May 19, 2022 by oncnp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 Just noticed this banner on the website: We are carrying out essential maintenance work. Purchases will be unavailable on Friday 20 May between 8am and 10am (BST). We apologize for any inconvenience. Sounds like they might be rolling out a few fixes. (We can hope!) 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Diandri Posted May 19, 2022 Share Posted May 19, 2022 8 hours ago, Henry said: Bug in the new seat picker: Several times in the last few days I have tried to book seats using the new seat picker. I found that clicking on the seat, the window (showing the seat details, view from seat and the button for selecting), did not appear. I just supposed that the seat wasn't available. By accident I found that if I used the browser Microsoft Edge instead of my usual Chrome, it worked and the seat details did appear allowing selection. I was trying to book seats for the Linbury Theatre. I've emailed ROH to let them look at the issue. Has anyone else had the same problem? Yes, I have this issue when using Chrome. Initially I thought the problem was either my end with an older laptop or high demand in the seat areas/ performances I was interested in & only realised the following day when I happened to use a different device which actually permitted seat choice selection. Like you I have to use Edge. What also irritated me about it is that this is the second time I can recall ROH have launched a new website where one browser or another is incompatible for some customers, it's just not good enough! 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 On my MacBook Air, I am unable to click on tickets to choose my seat to purchase. I go on the seat map and there are many seats available, but when I try to click on the seat I want, nothing happens. I've tried on various seats and different performances and nothing works. I did not have this issue with the old system. Anybody have any idea what could be wrong? Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest oncnp Posted May 21, 2022 Share Posted May 21, 2022 50 minutes ago, Linnzi5 said: On my MacBook Air, I am unable to click on tickets to choose my seat to purchase. I go on the seat map and there are many seats available, but when I try to click on the seat I want, nothing happens. I've tried on various seats and different performances and nothing works. I did not have this issue with the old system. Anybody have any idea what could be wrong? Thanks. Have you tried a different browser? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Linnzi5 Posted May 22, 2022 Share Posted May 22, 2022 21 hours ago, oncnp said: Have you tried a different browser? Thanks. I have just tried and it does work on anything but my MacBook! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 I hadn't heard from ROH about the browser issue, so got in touch again and mentioned that there also was a problem with the seat picker and Macbooks. This was the rather nice reply. Many thanks for getting in touch and apologies that you received no acknowledgement of your email. I can assure you though it has been actioned and I received the following response from our Web Development team - “Actually its a recognised bug caused by switching from the old to the new checkout and the browser caching a session key that then disables SeatCurve. The team have found the fix for this, and we will be deploying as soon as we can.” From your message below, it sounds like it has been successfully deployed. They may or may not be aware that it is still an issue with Macbooks, but I will pass on this very helpful feedback. Apologies again and with best wishes, 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Henry Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 A few hours later ROH followed up again about Macbooks. " Many thanks for getting back to me. I have been advised that the fix should be hitting Macbooks soon also. With best wishes, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted May 26, 2022 Share Posted May 26, 2022 Thank you for posting that! I've just checked on my (Android) phone and the seat map seems to be functioning normally. Should the same problem recur, it sounds like clearing the cache might be worth trying as a first step. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 The website finally has details of the ‘new’ Aud Jebsen dancers!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
art_enthusiast Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 25 minutes ago, Rob S said: The website finally has details of the ‘new’ Aud Jebsen dancers!! Whereabouts exactly? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangorballetboy Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 7 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said: Whereabouts exactly? Dancers list 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangorballetboy Posted May 30, 2022 Share Posted May 30, 2022 Having just renewed my friends membership, I noticed a useful new feature on the “membership” page when logged in. There is now a series of links to each of the productions included in the next booking period. 1 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emeralds Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 (edited) On 18/05/2022 at 06:59, Sebastian said: A friend just passed me a note he sent ROH, giving me permission to post it here in case it adds to the discussion. It explains in more detail some of what is now going wrong. I am extremely angry at the ineffectiveness of your new booking system. As do many hundreds of your customers, I have, ever since it became possible to book seats online, selected my seats from your seat plan. I have a number of personal criteria which no assistive system can possibly know. I have been coming to the Royal Opera House for many years and am familiar with the characteristics of most of the seats in the house and have some favourites which your fancy algorithms cannot know about. The booking date for the autumn season is fast approaching and I have just checked the website to see how bookings for the current season have progressed and discover whether anything takes my fancy. I have been unable to select seats from your seat map. Clicking on an available seat has no effect, so I cannot buy anything. I have randomly been offered a picture of the seat and the view from that seat. They have been of no use in making purchase possible. In any event the picture is of little use when the route for accessing that seat is not shown. Neither is its proximity to an aisle. As to the view from the seat, I know full well that the view from the centre of Row G of the amphitheatre encompasses the whole of the orchestra pit and the stage. The view from seat picture suggests that I cannot even see the stage. That is asinine and to put such nonsense as an obstacle to the purchase of seats is shameful. I have tried to find a seat for Wednesday's performance of Don Pasquale. The website suggests that you have over 100 seats available and this is borne out by the seating plan. As I have said, I am unable to use that. According to help me find a seat, there are no single seats at any price. This message needs to go to the highest level so that action can be taken to restore order at the earliest moment. Should you feel it relevant, I have achieved the identical result using two different browsers on my Samsung tablet. I find the new booking software just incredibly time consuming and inaccurate compared to the previous version they had. It isn’t an issue if you are booking early for a show with many seats in all sections still unsold, which was reasonably effective if a bit annoying at trying to make you buy extra bits repeatedly. But if you do make a last minute decision to catch an extra show that still has unsold seats, but which has only 20 seats or fewer left, it can end up being a frustrating and slow process as the screen freezes for long periods while buyers ahead of you pick and choose, and using seat map versus best available gives completely different results (seat map=no seats, best available=“we’ve put these two seats in your basket”)! With the old system, you could click on it and it would tell you within 2 seconds that, for example, there were 2 seats in orchestra stalls, one in grand tier, 3 in the Amphitheatre and 4 in upper slips, whereas the new system will just take ages to load the seat map, or not load it at all. Why did they have to discard a good system that worked brilliantly? Edited May 31, 2022 by Emeralds Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluebird Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 10 minutes ago, Emeralds said: With the old system, you could click on it and it would tell you within 2 seconds that, for example, there were 2 seats in orchestra stalls, one in grand tier, 3 in the Amphitheatre and 4 in upper slips, whereas the new system will just take ages to load the seat map, or not load it at all. Why did they have to discard a good system that worked brilliantly? Unfortunately, it appears that they had no choice. The following is a quote from the email Alex Beard sent to Friends of Covent Garden last February: "Our old booking system is reaching a stage where the technology underpinning it will soon become obsolete, unsupported by any global platform and therefore, essentially, unusable" 1 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emeralds Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 1 minute ago, Bluebird said: Unfortunately, it appears that they had no choice. The following is a quote from the email Alex Beard sent to Friends of Covent Garden last February: "Our old booking system is reaching a stage where the technology underpinning it will soon become obsolete, unsupported by any global platform and therefore, essentially, unusable" Ah, thanks, Bluebird. Sad news though, as it was probably the fastest, most useful (seat views in an instant!) and most efficient booking system in the entire country! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 (edited) 6 minutes ago, Bluebird said: "Our old booking system is reaching a stage where the technology underpinning it will soon become obsolete, unsupported by any global platform and therefore, essentially, unusable" Funny how often this seems to be the case. Something that works perfectly well has to be replaced because it's no longer supported. Strange that... Edited May 31, 2022 by bridiem 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 1 minute ago, bridiem said: Funny how often this seems to be the case. Something that works perfectly well has to be replaced because it's no longer supported. Strange that... A lot of it is to do with security. After a while it becomes uneconomical for the company that supports the software to continue to do so (and they generally give plenty of warning of when they're going to pull the plug). After this point, there is a much greater risk of security breaches, which as well as being very bad news for ROH's customers would get the ROH into hot water with the Information Commissioner. Really, they had no choice. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jan McNulty Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 6 minutes ago, bridiem said: Funny how often this seems to be the case. Something that works perfectly well has to be replaced because it's no longer supported. Strange that... You took the words right out of my mouth Bridie. However, from my personal experience, companies usually get plenty of notice of when support is going to be withdrawn and surely ROH has had time to develop and properly test the system or perhaps they were just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best... 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 Just now, Jan McNulty said: You took the words right out of my mouth Bridie. However, from my personal experience, companies usually get plenty of notice of when support is going to be withdrawn and surely ROH has had time to develop and properly test the system or perhaps they were just crossing their fingers and hoping for the best... This is the thing which I think we can blame ROH for! The website redevelopment has been going on for an age and I don't think it was well managed in its earlier stages. I'm not sure the decision to (apparently) do the work in-house was the wisest, and it appears that it's all taken much longer than expected, hence the rushed implementation. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted May 31, 2022 Share Posted May 31, 2022 15 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said: A lot of it is to do with security. After a while it becomes uneconomical for the company that supports the software to continue to do so (and they generally give plenty of warning of when they're going to pull the plug). After this point, there is a much greater risk of security breaches, which as well as being very bad news for ROH's customers would get the ROH into hot water with the Information Commissioner. Really, they had no choice. I do accept that they had no choice. That's what annoys me! I've regularly had to upgrade (often expensively) because I had no choice, even though I was perfectly happy with what I had. I'm sure that changes are sometimes driven by progress and necessity, but I'm equally sure that they're more often driven by the profit motive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted June 1, 2022 Share Posted June 1, 2022 That reminds me: I meant to report on my experiences from last Friday. It was shortly before Friday Rush started, and - using the new system - I logged in (bearing in mind the problems I'd had last time when not logged in) and tried it out by dumping a spare ticket in my shopping basket. All seemed to work well. FR started and, being already "inside" the queue area, I went straight to the ticket I wanted and put it in my basket. Get the basket with the two tickets inside. Then I back-arrowed to check casting or something. Went back into my basket, only to find a message saying that my basket was empty. Tried every way I knew to get into my basket, where I knew the two tickets were waiting, but to no avail. Seemingly totally impossible. Desperate email to the box office informing them of the situation: they told me to wait until my 30 minutes were up and the ticket dropped out of my basket and they'd grab it for me, so I should ring them to pay for it. So yes, the ticket was in my basket, but there was apparently no way for me to get at it. I am only glad there were some humans there who could help me, because they're sorely needed Incidentally, when I did ring the box office I got a rather unfriendly recorded voice telling me the phone line was only for Friends and Access list members. If I'd been a newbie, I think I'd have felt very unwelcome, and maybe decided not to book another time 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
art_enthusiast Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Is anyone else seeing a totally new website design right now? 2 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MaddieRose Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 8 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said: Is anyone else seeing a totally new website design right now? Yep. Just gone to look at Mayerling and was very confused by the change in font. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Yes. I wonder if it's still a work in progress? e.g. if you go to What's On and then add a filter for just ballet performances, the Diamond Celebration in November does come up, but if you filter for autumn 22/23 ballet performances it doesn't (unless I'm doing something wrong - entirely possible). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJW Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Having had a quick flick, I think the new layout is an improvement on the previous version. Certainly splitting what's on stage from other events seems sensible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bridiem Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 3 minutes ago, MJW said: Having had a quick flick, I think the new layout is an improvement on the previous version. Certainly splitting what's on stage from other events seems sensible. At a glance I prefer the layout; but (e.g.) if I go into Cinema to look for upcoming screenings near me, the info supplied is nonsensical. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Can anyone find a working cast sheets page? I've been getting the 500 technical error each time I've checked in the last few days, apart from once when it did appear. With the website redesign, I'm wondering if the page address could have changed, but I can't find anything in the menu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest oncnp Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 Just now, Dawnstar said: Can anyone find a working cast sheets page? I've been getting the 500 technical error each time I've checked in the last few days, apart from once when it did appear. With the website redesign, I'm wondering if the page address could have changed, but I can't find anything in the menu. Cast sheets (roh.org.uk) works for me Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 That's the one I have bookmarked but each time I try it I'm getting redirected to this error page https://www.roh.org.uk/error/500 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest oncnp Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 3 minutes ago, Dawnstar said: That's the one I have bookmarked but each time I try it I'm getting redirected to this error page https://www.roh.org.uk/error/500 You bookmark may be corrupted. Search "cast" from the main ROH page. If that works delete your current bookmark and make a new one. Also try clearing your browsing history and your cache. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 (edited) 18 minutes ago, oncnp said: You bookmark may be corrupted. Search "cast" from the main ROH page. If that works delete your current bookmark and make a new one. Also try clearing your browsing history and your cache. I've tried searching "cast" but when I click on the link I get sent to the error page again. I don't know how to clear my browsing history or cache but I'll try to work out how to do so, though I'm worried doing so might sign me out of loads of websites..... ETA That seems to have worked. The cast sheet page is now working & I don't seem to have wiped out my logins for other websites. Phew! Thank you. Edited June 8, 2022 by Dawnstar Added 2nd paragraph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluebird Posted June 8, 2022 Share Posted June 8, 2022 (edited) 13 minutes ago, Dawnstar said: I've tried searching "cast" but when I click on the link I get sent to the error page again. I don't know how to clear my browsing history or cache but I'll try to work out how to do so, though I'm worried doing so might sign me out of loads of websites..... In case it helps you, here is the url of a page that worked for me. I appear to have saved the bookmark in December 2020! https://www.roh.org.uk/about/cast-sheets?utm_source=wordfly&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_Dec_Nutcracker_Reminder_11Dec&utm_content=version_A&emailsource=52326 Edited to remove unnecessary and superfluous information. Edited June 8, 2022 by Bluebird 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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