The ROH booking website - what can we do?

[alison]

Weirdly, I'd left the Sleeping Beauty ticket page open on my work computer.  When I reconnected to the internet, I'm sure it was claiming that the first couple of May performances were sold out.  I thought it seemed odd!  It's now back to showing over 100 tickets available for each.

 

NB: Although the page will continuously refresh ticket availability (which the seating plan doesn't seem to), it won't reflect cast changes unless you refresh the actual page.

[Guest oncnp]

Item in today's Friends newsletter

 

Rehearsal tickets are non-exchangeable and cannot be resold so if you’d like to return a rehearsal ticket, this will be accepted as a donation back to the House.

 

Don't know if this is change in policy or tip of the iceberg. 

[bangorballetboy]

2 hours ago, oncnp said:

Item in today's Friends newsletter

 

Rehearsal tickets are non-exchangeable and cannot be resold so if you’d like to return a rehearsal ticket, this will be accepted as a donation back to the House.

 

Don't know if this is change in policy or tip of the iceberg. 

 

It’s been the policy for rehearsal tickets for as long as I can remember

[Guest oncnp]

On 10/02/2023 at 11:31, Dawnstar said:

PS It looks like the dancer biography pages are finally reappearing, albeit slowly. A few days ago only Ball's was up. Now all the Principals' are up except Muntagirov. There's a nice "action shot" for each dancer but no headshots. At this rate in a month or two they should have got to the Artists, who are the ones I usually want to check online as they don't get biographies in programmes.

 

They must have heard you. The page has been redesigned with headshots for the dancers and they've made it through the Principal Character Artist, after being stuck on Muntagirov for the longest time. At this rate should be done by the end of the year. 

 

The layout emphasizes how top heavy the RB is at the moment: 20 Principals, 11 First Soloists, 15 Soloists, 18 First Artists and 22 Artists. 

Edited March 13, 2023 by oncnp

[postie]

Seems I have reached my ticket allowance for Turandot and am not permitted to buy anymore. I haven't seen it at all yet.

 

Maybe the website has had a nightcap or several. Fingers crossed it will feel better after a good nights rest.

[JNC]

11 hours ago, oncnp said:

 

The layout emphasizes how top heavy the RB is at the moment: 20 Principals, 11 First Soloists, 15 Soloists, 18 First Artists and 22 Artists. 

yes and aside from Laura not any principals due for retirement soon I think (not that I want this, just flagging it).

i think the main issue has been the lack of first soloists for a while - the numbers are small anyway (compared to principals) but with Zuchetti injured (at least he was for a bit, not sure if he’s recovered now?), Calvert’s upcoming maternity leave, Hamilton being under cast (to my eyes), Mendizabal and Choe on maternity leave (now back though), and Hay’s injury (again not sure if he’s back now?) it seems we need quite a few more at this level. Currently 6 men and 5 women. 
 

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Gasparini, Storm-Jensen get promoted this year (I though Storm-Jensen already was one given the way she’s been cast the past few years), and maybe even Buvoli too. I admit on the male said there are no obvious soloists that stand out as “ready” to me. 

[Dawnstar]

1 hour ago, JNC said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Gasparini, Storm-Jensen get promoted this year (I though Storm-Jensen already was one given the way she’s been cast the past few years), and maybe even Buvoli too. I admit on the male said there are no obvious soloists that stand out as “ready” to me. 

 

I would have thought Dias & Sasaki would be first in line for promotion among the Soloists, given they were the two who made Sugar Plum Fairy debuts this year. But maybe that's not how it works? Among the men perhaps Ella? Although he seems to have been stuck at Soloist level for a while despite dancing some major roles.

[alison]

£$%$£^"£^ website malfunctioning again.  Put a Friday Rush ticket in my basket - got the "Success" popup - get sent to the "would you like to add anything to your basket?" page, only to find that "your basket is empty".  Did the whole thing once again, as the ticket was showing up on the seating plan again.  Same thing happened.  Ticket has now disappeared, along with any others I could have used

[alison]

And have now found the website was offering me the wrong date anyway   It says one thing on the screen, but the seating plan was offering only one, completely different, date.

[postie]

I've had the select > basket empty routine, and assume it's a split-second situation (Rush) that sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Fwiw, can't think of any websites that don't require the 'confirm' stage and just go from select to basket in one click.

[Blossom]

On 13/03/2023 at 23:54, postie said:

Seems I have reached my ticket allowance for Turandot and am not permitted to buy anymore. I haven't seen it at all yet.

 

Maybe the website has had a nightcap or several. Fingers crossed it will feel better after a good nights rest.

I keep on having this problem too (across at least 2 booking periods) and spoke to the people I had done a website focus group with. Their only recommendation is to use an incognito window…

[Sim]

3 hours ago, alison said:

£$%$£^"£^ website malfunctioning again.  Put a Friday Rush ticket in my basket - got the "Success" popup - get sent to the "would you like to add anything to your basket?" page, only to find that "your basket is empty".  Did the whole thing once again, as the ticket was showing up on the seating plan again.  Same thing happened.  Ticket has now disappeared, along with any others I could have used

What time did the FR tickets go online today?  I switched on just before 1, sat staring at the screen until about 5 past, then gave up!

[JohnS]

I think Friday Rush tickets are not released in one go but rather day by day. So if you’re looking for later in the week, it’s best to keep on refreshing the page. I can’t think why it’s so different compared to normal booking when all tickets are released in one go but my limited experience is that tickets for the Thursday and Friday can be released a few minutes after 1:00pm. My ticket for tonight’s Turandot came on line at gone 1:05 last Friday.

[Dawnstar]

2 hours ago, JohnS said:

I think Friday Rush tickets are not released in one go but rather day by day. So if you’re looking for later in the week, it’s best to keep on refreshing the page. I can’t think why it’s so different compared to normal booking when all tickets are released in one go but my limited experience is that tickets for the Thursday and Friday can be released a few minutes after 1:00pm. My ticket for tonight’s Turandot came on line at gone 1:05 last Friday.

 

 While not ideal, that would at least have some logic. But it doesn't explain why last Friday I had to spend 4 minutes frantically refreshing for the Woolf Works Saturday matinee before tickets finally popped up. Surely tickets for a Saturday matinee should be the first to be released.

[JohnS]

I’m afraid I can only say what I found. I knew I’d be wanting to use Friday Rush so I had a couple of practice runs. On both occasions I could see tickets being released by day rather than in one go and that also happened when I was actually wanting to purchase a ticket. I guess things may look a bit different each week depending what’s on offer. If there’s a very popular Saturday performance perhaps the numbers trying to book tickets result in queues and delays with some people having to wait. And no doubt ‘demand’ from those wanting to test the system rather than purchase a ticket hasn’t helped so apologies from me.

[alison]

7 hours ago, Sim said:

What time did the FR tickets go online today?  I switched on just before 1, sat staring at the screen until about 5 past, then gave up!

 

Several minutes after the scheduled time, certainly.  I actually refreshed the page a couple of times, because I wasn't sure the site wasn't misbehaving and hadn't refreshed automatically.  All the Woolf Works performances came up simultaneously, though.

[JohnS]

I thought whilst the performances all come up with ‘buy tickets’, that didn’t mean the tickets were necessarily accessible. If I went for the next Friday’s tickets (last performances of the Friday Rush), they weren’t available but the Saturday tickets (next day) were. And they seemed to become available day by day.

[bridiem]

If the tickets are not in fact all made available at the stated time for Friday Rush, it makes it a bit of a misnomer. I thought the whole point was that if you logged on at the right time, the tickets were released. If not, how are you supposed to know if they've been sold quickly or just haven't yet been released? For how long are you supposed to keep trying? etc

[Dawnstar]

The longest I've spent trying was over half an hour for Mayerling last autumn. Though whether that was the website not releasing the tickets until then or whether someone had several tickets in their basket then decided not to buy any of them I don't know. I was after both matinee & evening performances so didn't get onto the page for the second performance until a minute or two after 1pm.

[alison]

On 17/03/2023 at 13:08, alison said:

£$%$£^"£^ website malfunctioning again.  Put a Friday Rush ticket in my basket - got the "Success" popup - get sent to the "would you like to add anything to your basket?" page, only to find that "your basket is empty".  Did the whole thing once again, as the ticket was showing up on the seating plan again.  Same thing happened.  Ticket has now disappeared, along with any others I could have used

 

Still doing it.  It's obviously a conspiracy to prevent me from seeing the Osipova cast for Woolf Works   Tried different browsers, different computers, even my phone ...

[alison]

This is a new one on me: tried to print off my ticket, got a "Failed to fetch data" error.

[cackles]

Did anyone else have problems with Friday Rush today?

I tried with my laptop, tablet and phone. I was told that I had either gone over my ticket allocation or that I already had tickets in my basket when neither was applicable.

[Silke H]

33 minutes ago, cackles said:

Did anyone else have problems with Friday Rush today?

I tried with my laptop, tablet and phone. I was told that I had either gone over my ticket allocation or that I already had tickets in my basket when neither was applicable.

yes, I had the same issue earlier but eventually managed to get a ticket.  I hope you did too

[alison]

Sounds like the same problem I had a couple of weeks ago.

[capybara]

15 hours ago, cackles said:

Did anyone else have problems with Friday Rush today?

I tried with my laptop, tablet and phone. I was told that I had either gone over my ticket allocation or that I already had tickets in my basket when neither was applicable.

Yes - and no tickets showing on the seat plan when 50+ were said to be available .

 

I had to give up!

[art_enthusiast]

The website was truly dreadful for me today. Queue it was back! Thought they'd managed to progress from that, but clearly not. As someone who works in tech, I do find it quite appalling, such an incredibly low online performance from a public institution.

I think I may have said before on this forum that as a young person, I will endeavour to support ROH in future as an attendee, during my very long and extensive adulthood on this planet. I'd say it's looking less and less likely for various reasons, one of which being how poor the website is. Younger generations especially have no patience for a shoddy user experience that wastes the time and energy of consumers. I think I will be taking my time, money and ballet watching desires (which are much depleted) further afield, out of the UK altogether most likely. 

[bangorballetboy]

I trying to fathom why the use of a queuing system for an online booking platform when it is very busy is a "low online performance".  There are plenty of other institutions (private and public) that use similar systems (and some of them are worse, by using random entry rather than progressing through the queue) and, golly gosh, I'm aware that young people use those too!

 

Strangely enough, I was on at 0900 on the dot this morning (having already logged in) and wasn't placed in a queue and booked the tickets I wanted with no hassle whatsoever.

[Lizbie1]

I've had plenty of experience of booking systems both in the UK and abroad, and (though of course there are things I'd change) I can honestly say the ROH one is among the clearest and most intuitive. And as BBB says, queueing is pretty standard when booking opens anywhere.

 

I think what makes us so critical of the ROH system here is that we are aware of the competition for certain tickets and any delay makes us anxious. Most venues offering ballet and opera don't, alas, have the same pressure, so it doesn't bother us as much.

 

I'd also much rather have the ROH system than the somewhat old-fashioned set-up at Munich and Stuttgart - there are probably others - whereby you get your request in by a certain date, specifying a band, and you are then allocated (if you are lucky) a ticket without having any say about the seats. Only after that process is online booking opened.

[bangorballetboy]

5 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

I'd also much rather have the ROH system than the somewhat old-fashioned set-up at Munich and Stuttgart - there are probably others - whereby you get your request in by a certain date, specifying a band, and you are then allocated (if you are lucky) a ticket without having any say about the seats. Only after that process is online booking opened.

 

Strongly agree (and I remember the days of the ballot for friends booking at the ROH too - thankfully that's well in the past).

[Dawnstar]

2 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

I think what makes us so critical of the ROH system here is that we are aware of the competition for certain tickets and any delay makes us anxious. Most venues offering ballet and opera don't, alas, have the same pressure, so it doesn't bother us as much.

 

I'd also much rather have the ROH system than the somewhat old-fashioned set-up at Munich and Stuttgart - there are probably others - whereby you get your request in by a certain date, specifying a band, and you are then allocated (if you are lucky) a ticket without having any say about the seats. Only after that process is online booking opened.

 

I find my heart rate goes up whenever I'm booking tickets, even if it's somewhere which I know isn't going to sell quickly. I think it's a Pavlovian reaction after wards of booking for places like the ROH where it is stressful. I was very relieved that this morning's Opera Holland Park booking went very smoothly for me, as their Inspire tickets always sell out very quickly.

 

I'm sure that would drive me mad if I was booking at any of those venues on a regular basis but the one time I went to the opera in Munich it worked beautifully for me. When the tickets arrived we weren't actually certain where we would be sitting, as I'd never been to a German theatre & my mother hadn't been to one for about 40 years. So it was an extremely pleasant surprise to get there & find we were in the second row of the stalls, and for about half the price it would have been at the ROH at the time.

[Richard LH]

I find the ROH booking system excellent compared to others....in particular:

queuing ( in my experience at least) is minimal;

you can choose you seats with views shown of, and from, each;

you usually have good advance information about the casting;

payment arrangements are smooth;

e-tickets generally arrive within minutes;

you can cancel any booking in return for a credit note.

 

Edited April 12, 2023 by Richard LH

[Dawnstar]

I know there have been various comments previously about the overall tickets page for a production saying a few tickets are available but then none showing as available when you go into the seating plan screen. Today I've noticed the opposite. The overall tickets page says there are 15 tickets available for Monday's Sleeping Beauty performance but the seating plan screen shows, at a rough tot-up, somewhere in the region of 180 tickets available. So goodness knows what the website is up to now! I suppose it's good for potential purchasers to find better availability than the thought but not so good for the ROH if people think there's little availability so don't bother to take a look. (And I wonder if the swathes of unsold side block stalls seats mean they'll be flogged off cut-price to the student scheme at the last minue.)

 

 

[capybara]

3 minutes ago, Dawnstar said:

I know there have been various comments previously about the overall tickets page for a production saying a few tickets are available but then none showing as available when you go into the seating plan screen. Today I've noticed the opposite. The overall tickets page says there are 15 tickets available for Monday's Sleeping Beauty performance but the seating plan screen shows, at a rough tot-up, somewhere in the region of 180 tickets available. So goodness knows what the website is up to now! I suppose it's good for potential purchasers to find better availability than the thought but not so good for the ROH if people think there's little availability so don't bother to take a look. (And I wonder if the swathes of unsold side block stalls seats mean they'll be flogged off cut-price to the student scheme at the last minue.)

 

 

 

I have encountered this discrepancy before when looking for a last minute ticket.

And, yes, at the performance (early in the Cinderella run) swathes of seats like that had seemingly been offered to Young ROH members.