The ROH booking website - what can we do?

[Ian Macmillan]

I take it that this is the Beta version under discussion.  If so, it works fine for me.

[bridiem]

Yes; and in fact I've just tried it again and it does work for me now - takes me through to the times/fares etc as usual. I tried it about a week ago and it didn't work so maybe there were teething problems (since I haven't changed any settings at my end).

[Guest oncnp]

Apologies if everyone else in the world has already seen this but a new (and easy) way to cancel tickets (as well as buy programs, ice cream, champagne) on the "Upcoming Events" page

 

 

 

[Lynette H]

9 hours ago, oncnp said:

Apologies if everyone else in the world has already seen this but a new (and easy) way to cancel tickets (as well as buy programs, ice cream, champagne) on the "Upcoming Events" page

 

 

 

Spotted this yesterday and used it to cancel a ticket. The credit turned up immediately and I was able to use this right away to buy a ticket for a different date. Very handy.

[jmhopton]

Yes, it looks a great initiative. Far easier and quicker than emailing the Box Office, and quick with your credit as well, according to Lynette H, which is great. Useful for me as well as I logged into my account to check it out and found I had no upcoming event which wasn't true as I'd booked several Don Qs. So I emailed the Friends and they sorted it and I was able to see the new facility for myself. Just for curiosity I clicked on the Champagne and ice cream option. Ice cream is now £4 and the make seems to have changed again, though according to the picture they still do stem ginger which I like. Champagne is £16 a glass!! Lucky I don't like it. So an extra £20 for champagne and ice cream and another £8.50 for a programme. All these extras add up though I won't be buying a programme until the Ashton mixed bills and Sarasota programme.

[alison]

Ice cream's been £4 for some time now - perhaps as much as 2 years?  And no, unfortunately they don't do stem ginger.  It's a ginger caramel, which totally ruins the ginger.  I ate one once, and decided not to bother again.  I think I'm currently down to one flavour which I will bother buying - or possibly two, if they've added something for the summer.  Hopefully not the strawberry sherbet, which I found incredibly bland.

 

A "great initiative", perhaps, but at the same time is it depriving a human being of a job, or reducing the variety in their job?

[Linnzi5]

39 minutes ago, jmhopton said:

Yes, it looks a great initiative. Far easier and quicker than emailing the Box Office, and quick with your credit as well, according to Lynette H, which is great. Useful for me as well as I logged into my account to check it out and found I had no upcoming event which wasn't true as I'd booked several Don Qs. So I emailed the Friends and they sorted it and I was able to see the new facility for myself. Just for curiosity I clicked on the Champagne and ice cream option. Ice cream is now £4 and the make seems to have changed again, though according to the picture they still do stem ginger which I like. Champagne is £16 a glass!! Lucky I don't like it. So an extra £20 for champagne and ice cream and another £8.50 for a programme. All these extras add up though I won't be buying a programme until the Ashton mixed bills and Sarasota programme.

The champagne has been that price for quite a while (it is pricey compared to some London theatres where they charge less per glass) as well as the ice cream at £4. I agree with Alison - the ginger caramel combination is just totally wrong! The caramel really does ruin the lovely flavour of the ginger. I think the programmes are not that expensive but I have been irritated that some contain just reprinted matter from older programmes and old photos. The Cinderella one was full of silly flower pictures and I didn't find it very appealing. Just my opinion. 

[zxDaveM]

1 hour ago, Linnzi5 said:

The Cinderella one was full of silly flower pictures and I didn't find it very appealing. Just my opinion. 

 

and blurred silly flower pics at that. Add in the unartful blurred rehearsal photos, and that made a purchase a no-no for me. Lets hope the programme revamped next time it comes back

[emmarose]

4 hours ago, jmhopton said:

Yes, it looks a great initiative. Far easier and quicker than emailing the Box Office, and quick with your credit as well, according to Lynette H, which is great. Useful for me as well as I logged into my account to check it out and found I had no upcoming event which wasn't true as I'd booked several Don Qs. So I emailed the Friends and they sorted it and I was able to see the new facility for myself. Just for curiosity I clicked on the Champagne and ice cream option. Ice cream is now £4 and the make seems to have changed again, though according to the picture they still do stem ginger which I like. Champagne is £16 a glass!! Lucky I don't like it. So an extra £20 for champagne and ice cream and another £8.50 for a programme. All these extras add up though I won't be buying a programme until the Ashton mixed bills and Sarasota programme.

 

Ice cream can be more at other London theatres, I think last week when I went to see Crazy for You it was over £10 for two.

Programmes are about the same elsewhere too, although recent ones at the ROH have been uninspired or just reused photos so I haven't been impressed by them.

Champagne, I don't really drink, but was looking at getting some for an upcoming Jewels visit, I was shocked at the price, two glasses would be £32? The thing is they can charge what they want there because they know people will buy it as part of the experience of being at the ROH. I'm glad I don't like to drink!

Edited July 26, 2023 by emmarose

[jmhopton]

Shows how long ago it is since I bought ice cream at the ROH! Judging by the comments it will be a while before I bother. Ginger caramel just isn't the same. I've never bought champagne in my life but even if I liked it it would have to be an exceptionally special occasion to pay £16 for a glass. It's more than my standing ticket for Don Q!

[JNC]

I think the ice cream supplier has changed since a few years ago (?) and I preferred the old one. I certainly don’t get it every time but a few months ago I thought I’d treat myself to salted caramel. I’m not sure if the server made a mistake or if there’s two versions of it, but it turned out to be a vegan ice cream. Some vegan ice cream can be nice (a sort of coconut milk flavour) but this was so horrid I binned it after one scoop. 
 

The programmes I agree are a missed opportunity. I would happily buy one each time even if I’ve seen the production before for new photos and articles, but recently they haven’t updated any articles and the photos are lacking or exact repeats of previous programmes. They appear to be getting thinner as well!

 

Paris Opera charge 12 euros a programme but you get much more content and photos, with clear sections for synopsis, history of the ballet, articles, previous production photos and current rehearsal photos. ROH programmes are much better than ENB which are sorely lacking in content and photos, but could be much improved through easy wins like updating photos, always including rehearsal photos of new/debuting casts, and updating articles each time. 

[art_enthusiast]

15 hours ago, Lynette H said:

Spotted this yesterday and used it to cancel a ticket. The credit turned up immediately and I was able to use this right away to buy a ticket for a different date. Very handy.

 

Interesting - I was wondering how long it would take them to introduce this. A whole lot better than the email situation, when you always think it could get lost in their inbox. And the phone line where they never answer (not available to non Friends anyway)!

[alison]

21 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

 

Interesting - I was wondering how long it would take them to introduce this. A whole lot better than the email situation, when you always think it could get lost in their inbox. And the phone line where they never answer (not available to non Friends anyway)!

 

Recent discussion indicates that it now is.

[Geoff]

7 hours ago, JNC said:

The programmes I agree are a missed opportunity. I would happily buy one each time even if I’ve seen the production before for new photos and articles, but recently they haven’t updated any articles and the photos are lacking or exact repeats of previous programmes. They appear to be getting thinner as well!

There is plenty to say but I better tread carefully.
 

First, the ROH took a decision a while ago to go no-more-printed-red-programmes (so expensive, so old-fashioned, so bad for the planet, etc etc).

 

But then there was pressure (from, so I heard, some very influential people) and, in a not untypical flip-flop, ROH reversed its position.

 

So it was ordained that red programmes were to be reintroduced. However by then the department responsible had been, um, restructured (ie people who knew what they were doing were let go) and cheaper staff and contract workers had to be brought in to fill the gaps. Hence the obvious drop in quality.
 

Side thought: if one looks at programmes from the era before the inept “modernisation” they are rammed with high-quality advertisements, which brought in a substantial amount of money. Not so now.

 

Whatever has been going on, it’s a sad story of unnecessary “improvements” and a lack of care and attention towards specialist knowledge of the art forms celebrated at the ROH. 
 

[JNC]

I’m shocked they genuinely considered getting rid of programmes entirely! The environmental argument is silly - it’s a paid for product like a physical book or magazine, and something that is an easy profit spinner for ROH and an expectation from any theatre/show. If they didn’t have programmes they’d certainly be marking them out from the norm - in a bad way!

[li tai po]

On the subject of programmes, a friend of mine recently attending a lunchtime recital by the young tenor, Egor Zhuravskii, a Jette Young Artist 2020-22.  The recital included rare repertoire, Russian songs, one of which was by Cesar Cui - hardly mainstream.

 

When my friend asked to buy a programme, he received a lofty riposte from the usher "We are now paper-free, part of our commitment to the environment; you can find the programme on your phone", to which he replied, "Funny that, because I purchased a very glossy programme yesterday for Cinderella, including adverts for expensive watches".

 

He was able to download the "programme" on his phone, merely consisting of a list of the items in the recital.  No texts were provided digitally or in surtitles, so he had very little idea what Zhuravskii was singing about in the Russian songs.  During a pause, the elderly lady next to him asked him if the singer was singing in Polish.  Sad, that after paying for admission to a recital, such little respect is shown either to the performer or the audience.

 

My friend opined, "It is not my responsibility to inform that audience what they are hearing; it is the responsibility of the ROH".

[JNC]

The “programmes” for Linbury theatre are poor. I think for the Tanowitz bill they wanted about £4 for what was essentially a piece of A3 paper folded up. I politely declined, I would have paid 50p or £1 perhaps but I really didn’t understand the logic of why on earth they were charging that much for something that should be free. 
 

For BRB2 there wasn’t even a programme, again it was a piece of folded paper for the whole of the new generations festival (at an equally silly price). I found this odd as something I’d read on the other threads here implied that for performances in other venues they had a proper programme. I wonder if that was the case, whether ROH a prohibited them selling their “own” programme - only to be replaced by a lacklustre piece of paper…

 

Pre-Covid when I saw the Cunningham tribute at the Linbury, they provided a very nice small programme with information on each work and some photos. It was £6, so not great “value for money” if you consider the size/content to the main stage programmes, but still a nice and useful memory of an evening I enjoyed and so worthwhile I thought. It’s sad that since then they don’t seem to have bothered. 

 

Either create a proper programme that is more informative than a cast sheet and can be a proper keepsake/reference, or give people what is essentially the cast sheet free of charge, noting a smaller production run of paper due to the size of the Linbury. But don’t take the worst of both worlds and print out slips of paper charging extortionate prices! 
 

The staff themselves have appeared to be slightly embarrassed when I’ve enquired about programmes and told how much they are in the Linbury, I’m curious how many they actually sell! 

[JNC]

10 hours ago, art_enthusiast said:

 

Interesting - I was wondering how long it would take them to introduce this. A whole lot better than the email situation, when you always think it could get lost in their inbox. And the phone line where they never answer (not available to non Friends anyway)!

this is a very welcome improvement, the previous system had an element of human error - if you booked multiple tickets under one booking reference, or had multiple tickets for one evening, there was a risk that the person processing it gets muddled up.
 

This happened to me when they put back on sale an SCS ticket I had wanted to keep instead of the same performance at the matinee time despite me clearly stating the exact date, time, seat and amount for the ticket I wanted to return. ROH were apologetic when I pointed out the error and refunded me in full without the process fee rather than the exchanged credit.
 

Luckily when I saw the email processing confirmation had returned the incorrect amount I was luckily able to immediately buy back my ticket that was incorrectly returned, but ever since then I have had a minor stress that this could happen again as it was sheer luck I reclaimed my ticket as ROH all but admitted if I hadn’t bought it back they wouldn’t have been able to give me my ticket back. 

 

So yes, this is where AI is a win over the humans! I definitely think humans need to be present and contactable but in this instance I think this is a step in the right direction.

 

(we could always let ChatGPT write new articles for the programmes!!…Totally joking this would be horrendous!) 

[alison]

I thought we'd had a previous discussion on ROH programmes (surely there must have been multiple comments at least on the coverage of dancers in them), but the only one I can find is this ancient one  :

Wondering if we need a separate thread?

[alison]

4 hours ago, Geoff said:

Side thought: if one looks at programmes from the era before the inept “modernisation” they are rammed with high-quality advertisements, which brought in a substantial amount of money. Not so now.

 

The same, of course, also goes for the high-end adverts they used to have on the back of the cast sheets, which no longer exist.

[Fonty]

I really dislike this "you can get a programme on your phone" attitude.  I buy programmes for posterity; I like to go back to them again.  Often, I think, "Goodness, what a cast that was"  or "What a fabulous triple bill, I'd forgotten I'd seen these together.  " In the past there would be interesting articles, and wonderful pictures, memories to treasure.    It simply isn't the same scrawling through files on line.

 

In the same way, I prefer reading "proper" books, rather than ones on a Kindle.  Although I have one, it is not the same as holding a book in your hands. 

 

 

 

 

[zxDaveM]

14 minutes ago, Fonty said:

I really dislike this "you can get a programme on your phone" attitude.  I buy programmes for posterity; I like to go back to them again.  Often, I think, "Goodness, what a cast that was"  or "What a fabulous triple bill, I'd forgotten I'd seen these together.  " In the past there would be interesting articles, and wonderful pictures, memories to treasure.    It simply isn't the same scrawling through files on line.

 

In the same way, I prefer reading "proper" books, rather than ones on a Kindle.  Although I have one, it is not the same as holding a book in your hands. 

 

 

 

 

 

indeed so - often the font size so small on your device, it's hard to read without fiddling about zooming in etc.

 

and a proper book never has the issue of the device it's on becoming obsolete

 

Technology can be wonderful, but sometimes technology for technology's sake is just tiresome. Either that or I really am getting old!!! lol

[alison]

Not only that, but having "purchased" some of the ROH's digital programmes in the past, I can confirm that they can disappear into thin air at any moment.

[Emeralds]

On 27/07/2023 at 10:58, alison said:

I thought we'd had a previous discussion on ROH programmes (surely there must have been multiple comments at least on the coverage of dancers in them), but the only one I can find is this ancient one  :

Wondering if we need a separate thread?

Yes, I think it would be worth a separate thread, @alison, if you have time to move the posts and create a new discussion. Actually, I found the ice cream and champagne discussion interesting as well - from the consumption, financial (affordable/unaffordable vs raising money for RB/RO) and other points of view....might be worth a separate “Ice creams and other refreshments at the ballet” thread? 

 

I too was very shocked that having bought digital content/programmes from ROH for attending cinema screening, that they have now been simply erased without prior warning. I know they were cheaper than ROH printed programmes, but surely that was because they weren’t printed on glossy paper, transported and sold by staff members....not because it gives them the right to claim ownership and erase/withhold it from buyers whenever they want? If I buy a printed cast list or programme, it is always mine and can’t be destroyed unless I choose to throw it in the bin or someone steals it (must be a culture-loving burglar!)

 

The programmes are now more expensive (£8.50 compared to £6, then £7 some seasons ago) but with less content, ie cast lists. Also the digital cast lists can sometimes be poor as a few have had errors eg the shocking alteration of Nadia Mullova-Barley’s name, omission of some performers, some (eg Romeo and Juliet, Tosca, Coppelia) have been erased shortly after the season ended, and some have undergone a weird transformation with gobbledygook added weeks after the performance  (eg a few La Boheme casts lists from this season). 

Edited July 30, 2023 by Emeralds

[Blossom]

Another example of how unpredictable the current site is, even for newly registered users.

 

About 4 weeks ago I created an account for my daughter who has just turned 16 so that she can take advantage of Young ROH.

First of all, Young ROH didn't activate and she had to contact the box office to sort it out.

Last week she learned that our neighbour had received a young ROH ticket offer for Jewels which she didn't get, despite being registered for all emails - again, the box office had to manually enable these.

 

The success of Young ROH is surely in getting young people to take up the subsidised tickets and to then continue attending once they 'come of age', but if they aren't receiving the comms, surely it will be completely redundant.

[alison]

Can I just say that it is very poor form for any website which effectively requires you to doomscroll (I know there's a technical term, but I can't remember what it is) to have its contact details at the bottom of the page?  Drives me mad every time it happens - and it does, quite frequently, on all sorts of sites.

[li tai po]

Talking of poor digital cast sheets, throughout the run of Anastasia Act III the cast sheets only listed Anastasia, Rasputin, Her Husband and Matron.  The cast sheets failed to identify who were dancing the three princesses, the Tsar, the Tsarina, the Tsarevich Alexei, Anna Vyrubova or Anastasia's husband's brother.

[li tai po]

I understand that the website has crashed again this morning with the opening of public booking.  A friend of mine rang me in total meltdown, having put tickets into the basket, only to see them disappear.  The phone queue for the box office is apparently never-ending.  Some members of the public will simply give up and visit other West End venues instead.

[alison]

27 minutes ago, li tai po said:

Talking of poor digital cast sheets, throughout the run of Anastasia Act III the cast sheets only listed Anastasia, Rasputin, Her Husband and Matron.  The cast sheets failed to identify who were dancing the three princesses, the Tsar, the Tsarina, the Tsarevich Alexei, Anna Vyrubova or Anastasia's husband's brother.

 

Frankly, I don't see any point in crediting the brother these days, since his role has been reduced to a virtual nothing, but I was surprised to see the Matron credited when Olga (have I got the right one?  Gina Storm-Jensen in the performances I saw) has a rather bigger role.

[zxDaveM]

I'm reminded of John Belushi to Carrie Fisher in 'The Blues Brothers' when it comes to ROH's booking excuses...

[Geoff]

I think I’m the lucky winner of yet another fun issue with the website. I am trying out a new laptop (so please ROH, no blame-the-customer lectures about cookies, history or whatever).

 

And I have opened the ROH website in two different browsers, the often maligned (by Customer Service types) Opera browser, and the super duper really up to the moment and as loved by IT support types, Microsoft Edge browser.

 

Looking at my “Upcoming Events” inside the Opera browser, the tickets loaded immediately, as they should. Whereas inside Edge, ROH said I had no upcoming events. No tickets. Nothing. A dead season. 

 

Eventually, after reloading for ten minutes or so, ROH+Edge caught up with reality and a bunch of tickets appeared on screen. But had I only had the “wrong” browser open, I would have been mighty worried. 
 

Is this a common fault? I have seen reports that there can be delays n booking days but this was just a quiet afternoon, me checking on my new laptop. 

[zxDaveM]

When I was in IT support, Edge drew an intake of breath through gritted teeth. Chrome (the most popular outside the default operating system browser - Edge or Safari) was becoming 'lumpy' and slow to load anything, so it was Firefox we went for as an alternative. That is now itself becoming a bit lumpy, so had been trying 'Brave', but I don't like it much

[Lizbie1]

7 minutes ago, zxDaveM said:

When I was in IT support, Edge drew an intake of breath through gritted teeth. Chrome (the most popular outside the default operating system browser - Edge or Safari) was becoming 'lumpy' and slow to load anything, so it was Firefox we went for as an alternative. That is now itself becoming a bit lumpy, so had been trying 'Brave', but I don't like it much

 

I went from Firefox to Chrome to Edge as the first two became respectively more difficult to work with and bloated. When Edge first switched to being Chromium based I found it far preferable to Chrome itself (which by then had become a huge memory hog), but recent "improvements" to Edge have left me wondering where to go next.