Why does the Royal Ballet rarely sell out any more?

[MAB]

3 hours ago, annamk said:

A friend pointed out that the first two programmes at Paris Opera Nallet seemed to sell out. The top price tickets are the same as the RB so I wonder why this is: is it the ballets themselves, are there fewer seats to shift overall, are there more cheaper price tickets, do people in Paris have more money, are there fewer alternatives ? 

 

As a rule of thunb the Garnier always sells out because it is such a tourist attraction., I've occaasionally seen empty seats at the Bastille, but it depends very much on the programme.

[Lizbie1]

1 minute ago, MAB said:

 

As a rule of thunb the Garnier always sells out because it is such a tourist attraction., I've occaasionally seen empty seats at the Bastille, but it depends very much on the programme.

 

I've seen quite a lot of empty seats at the Bastille for some operas. I agree that the Garnier gets a lot of tourist traffic.

[MAB]

MdGegor's  L'Anatomie de la sensation played at the Bastille to scores of empty seats.  They learned their lesson, Dante Project was shown at the Garnier to full houses.    

[alison]

Another, very obvious, answer is that in a number of cases more performances of something are being scheduled than the market can take.

[Paco]

5 hours ago, Lizbie1 said:

 

I've seen quite a lot of empty seats at the Bastille for some operas. I agree that the Garnier gets a lot of tourist traffic.

Absolutely. There are very few venues in the World which benefit from touristic attraction just for the building and its history: La Scala, la Fenice, Sydney, and Garnier (before the Ukranian war the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky were also attractions).

Sadly enough for the ROH, the ROH has never been a touristic attraction. For a tourist looking for entertainment at the end of the day, London is the city of Musicals. I know plenty of friends who are ready to pay a fortune for whatever Musical in London, but just do not know that there is also an opera house in the same district! And this is the case even for melomane. The same friends have of course targeted la Scala as a "must see" during their stay in Milan. But not in London.

This explains to some extent that la Scala is always sold out for ballets (despite stratospheric prices, much worse than ROH), though the company is of lower quality than the Royal Ballet.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Paco

[Lindsay]

3 hours ago, Paco said:

Absolutely. There are very few venues in the World which benefit from touristic attraction just for the building and its history: La Scala, la Fenice, Sydney, and Garnier (before the Ukranian war the Bolshoi and the Mariinsky were also attractions).

Sadly enough for the ROH, the ROH has never been a touristic attraction. For a tourist looking for entertainment at the end of the day, London is the city of Musicals. I know plenty of friends who are ready to pay a fortune for whatever Musical in London, but just do not know that there is also an opera house in the same district! And this is the case even for melomane. The same friends have of course targeted la Scala as a "must see" during their stay in Milan. But not in London.

This explains to some extent that la Scala is always sold out for ballets (despite stratospheric prices, much worse than ROH), though the company is of lower quality than the Royal Ballet.

The U.K. simply does not have a lyric theatre tradition in the same way as Germany, Italy, Russia or France.  And consequently we don’t have the buildings with the storied history of those arts.

Edited October 14, 2023 by Lindsay
To add (having noticed that you referenced Sydney opera house) that is an architectural monument and not a theatrical one - the interior is vastly inferior to the famous silhouette!

[Dawnstar]

9 hours ago, MAB said:

As a rule of thunb the Garnier always sells out because it is such a tourist attraction.

 

A pity the ROH didn't have a 19th century author set a well-known novel (turned hit musical) there!

[Guest oncnp]

22 hours ago, capybara said:

 

Apologies for quoting myself but, coincidentally, three RB dancers have been put in the media spotlight this weekend: Matthew Ball, William Bracewell and Mayara Magri.

Please see the top items in todays' Links.

 

 

 

and tomorrow's Links for a Telegraph interview with Francesca Hayward and Lauren Cuthbertson in the Times

Edited October 15, 2023 by oncnp

[art_enthusiast]

19 hours ago, Dawnstar said:

 

A pity the ROH didn't have a 19th century author set a well-known novel (turned hit musical) there!

Phantom of the Opera? (I didn’t even know it was set there actually! Granted, I am not a big musical enthusiast)

[Dawnstar]

27 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

Phantom of the Opera? (I didn’t even know it was set there actually! Granted, I am not a big musical enthusiast)

 

Yes! Though I see I'm wrong in calling it a 19th century novel as it was actually published 1909-10. It's mostly set in the 19th century though.

Edited October 15, 2023 by Dawnstar
Typo

[taxi4ballet]

I'm not going for two reasons:

 

1 - the price of tickets. I absolutely cannot justify the expense of becoming a 'Friend' so once tickets finally become available to the general public, most of the reasonably-priced tickets are long gone.

 

2 - the ongoing rail strikes. I don't want to buy tickets months ahead, and then find I can't get there because there are no trains.

[LinMM]

The ROH are very good at “refunds” you can keep the amount you spent on tickets for up to two years on credit if you have to cancel to spend another time. 
I think if you give good enough notice you can also just have the money refunded into your bank account if you prefer as well and train strikes are usually two weeks notice. 

[Missfrankiecat]

I'm afraid I think 'high' culture - and people think of ballet and opera in those terms - is not valued in this country as much as it is in mainland Europe, certainly France and Germany in my experience.  Much like in America, ballet and opera (and classical music) are seen by vast swathes of people as snobby and irrelevant.  Our school system does little to nothing to inculcate the tools for appreciating more demanding cultural traditions (unlike France for eg) and the contempt in which the Arts generally is now held by governments of all political persuasions in terms of funding as part of the common good has resulted in exorbitant prices (even before Covid) which in turn feeds into the idea of privileged exclusivity.  People in the UK are quite happy to spend ROH levels on tickets for Disney musicals who wouldn't dream of trying ballet.

[alison]

So very true   Anything arts- and culture-based seems to have been jettisoned from the curriculum in most schools, as I understand it (and are things like literature and languages following suit?), in favour of "useful" subjects like STEM, which we also need, but children need a rounded education.  If they don't get it at school, and they probably don't see it at home (see my references to siloisation, and ghettoisation of arts programmes onto specialist TV channels), why would they develop an interest in it?

[art_enthusiast]

23 hours ago, LinMM said:

The ROH are very good at “refunds” you can keep the amount you spent on tickets for up to two years on credit if you have to cancel to spend another time. 
I think if you give good enough notice you can also just have the money refunded into your bank account if you prefer as well 

 

I thought they cancelled the option to get a bank account refund, doesn't it only have to be ticket credit now?

[LinMM]

Oh I thought that was only if you gave less than 24 hours notice that they wouldn’t do a straight refund of money  so perhaps it has changed?