Royal Ballet Spring 2024

[JohnS]

Back home from a fabulous Don Q weekend to find the ROH’s Spring magazine. It seems very apt to have Yasmine Naghdi on the cover given her Saturday night’s Kitri and then a lovely article heralding Swan Lake, focusing on Yasmine: ‘A swan is born.’

 

But I wanted to highlight the news in bold in the covering letter: ‘We haven’t including pricing in this magazine’ followed by ‘It will be sent out before booking opens.’ I think it’s reassuring that we’ll at least see prices before booking opens (29 November for Premium 2 Friends and so a little in advance of that for Patrons). It would certainly be novel but worrying if we were invited to book without knowing the prices. I hope the delay in publishing prices is very much because the ROH is taking a critical look at its pricing decisions so far this season and reviewing what has happened as regards ticket sales and discounting. I’ll look with great interest at what emerges although I’m not confident that the news will be good.

[capybara]

58 minutes ago, JohnS said:

 It seems very apt to have Yasmine Naghdi on the cover given her Saturday night’s Kitri and then a lovely article heralding Swan Lake, focusing on Yasmine: ‘A swan is born.’

That’s nice to know. It’s certainly time that the RB showed how much it values Yasmine.

Of course, her swan was originally born in 2018 when the current production first appeared but better late than never to put Yasmine in the limelight.

[alison]

Well, I'm just hoping that they're not going to try and make up for losses this autumn by increasing prices again

[San Perregrino]

I’m hoping, perhaps naively, that the experiment with Autumn/Winter pricing and the number of unsold seats for both ballet and opera before any discounting begins has shown that the market can’t support ticket prices going any higher. That, in fact, prices need to be reduced, at least in certain sections and that season package discounts are reintroduced in order to boost advance sales, particularly among ‘the faithful’ again. Together with effective marketing and publicity campaigns which have seemingly been lacking since the Pandemic, this might start to reverse the disastrous trend that is emerging of having to heavily discount large swathes of seats, not just for the odd curiosity, but, as this past weekend has shown, also for for what would previously been popular sell-out performances. 
 

Edited October 16, 2023 by PeterS

[capybara]

15 hours ago, capybara said:

That’s nice to know. It’s certainly time that the RB showed how much it values Yasmine.

Of course, her swan was originally born in 2018 when the current production first appeared but better late than never to put Yasmine in the limelight.

BUT 😨 the feature on Yasmine Naghdi contains two errors:  1) she became a Principal in 2017, not 2018 (although the reference was related to her first season as a Principal); 2) she debuted in Swan Lake with Nehemiah Kish and, only later although she wasn’t originally cast for Madrid, did she end up dancing there with two partners.

What an absolute trouper she is (and Sarah Crompton, who has become the ROH’s ‘go to’ writer should know better).

[Sim]

50 minutes ago, capybara said:

BUT 😨 the feature on Yasmine Naghdi contains two errors:  1) she became a Principal in 2017, not 2018 (although the reference was related to her first season as a Principal); 2) she debuted in Swan Lake with Nehemiah Kish and, only later although she wasn’t originally cast for Madrid, did she end up dancing there with two partners.

What an absolute trouper she is (and Sarah Crompton, who has become the ROH’s ‘go to’ writer should know better).

Absolutely.  Yasmine finally gets a small percentage of the exposure she deserves and then there are errors.  Even if the writer got things wrong, don’t things get checked internally by an editor?  Very sloppy. 🤬

[alison]

3 hours ago, capybara said:

BUT 😨 the feature on Yasmine Naghdi contains two errors:  1) she became a Principal in 2017, not 2018

 

Did she?  I thought it was Campbell, Hayward and possibly Takada who were promoted then, and that Naghdi followed the next year.

[bridiem]

7 minutes ago, alison said:

 

Did she?  I thought it was Campbell, Hayward and possibly Takada who were promoted then, and that Naghdi followed the next year.

 

Her bio on the ROH website says she was promoted to principal in 2017.

[capybara]

34 minutes ago, alison said:

 

Did she?  I thought it was Campbell, Hayward and possibly Takada who were promoted then, and that Naghdi followed the next year.

Four dancers (as above plus Hirano) were promoted in 2016; Naghdi in 2017.

[alison]

Oh, sorry, I'm a year out, then.

[Peanut68]

About pricing…. Does it not seem likely that with recent offers of discounts many might prefer to leave booking later in the likelihood that if there are fewer well in advance sales then this will necessitate discounting as show dates get closer….afterall who wouldn’t want to manipulate the system to save money in current climate?!  I’d frankly have been gutted if I’d paid full price for a seat at DQ months back only to have then heard about seats selling at 25% discount… I can’t imagine for one minute that the (frankly rubbish) ROH booking system is sophisticated enough to only send out emails offering discounts to regulars which have not bought for a production so as not to make early bookers peeved…. And even if that was so one would surely hear if others got discounts? If things are priced correctly at the outset, then they will sell. Discounting should not be necessary. ROH - listen to your audience, ask them the right questions in these too often pointless surveys & - most importantly - judge by their absence. 
Selling more tickets at a slightly lower price has to be better than fewer at a high price. Even if the maths are close, a full house brings a feeling of success & I bet more advance purchases for future performances. Audiences are lemmings… we’ll follow where others go… word gets out about any sellout show & suddenly it’s the hot ticket everyone wants & future performances & shows sell better… all just MHO! 

Edited October 16, 2023 by Peanut68
Typo

[alison]

7 minutes ago, Peanut68 said:

I can’t imagine for one minute that the (frankly rubbish) ROH booking system is sophisticated enough to only send out emails offering discounts to regulars which have not bought for a production so as not to make early bookers peeved….

 

Oh, I don't know - it sent me an offer for the programme I hadn't booked for ...

[Peanut68]

Well be interesting to hear did anyone here who had bought a DQ ticket then also get the discount offer email? Either way it dies leave a nasty taste whenever one hears of someone paying less than you did for the same goods or services….

Edited October 16, 2023 by Peanut68

[FionaM]

I didn’t book for Cinderella and got the 25% discount offer email, which I used.

 

I haven’t booked for DQ, Dante, Cellist or Nutcracker.  I have booked the Dante rehearsal and a friend booked DQ on her account.  I did get the 25% discount email for the Cellist.  I’ve now booked for Mayara’s cast of the Cellist. 

[bangorballetboy]

14 hours ago, Peanut68 said:

Well be interesting to hear did anyone here who had bought a DQ ticket then also get the discount offer email? Either way it dies leave a nasty taste whenever one hears of someone paying less than you did for the same goods or services….

 

Doesn't leave a nasty taste in my mouth at all.  If I book for something on the booking day and get the seats I want, I am happy and have certainty.  Highly unlikely the seats I want would be available in any later discount offer.

[JohnS]

Rather than post this on the Don Q thread which focuses on the fabulous performances, I thought it might be if interest to post an exchange of emails I’ve had with Alex Beard about the discounting that took place at the weekend and which has attracted much comment. In reply Alex Beard sets out the ROH’s general approach to discounting. I think a number of people may also be in correspondence with Alex Beard.

 

My email to Alex Beard on Saturday:

I’m writing to you because I think there’s likely to be a pretty strong reaction to the discounts offered to help fill the house for Friday evening and the Saturday matinee. I’m not sure if similar measures will be taken for Saturday evening.

Having chatted to audience members, I understand that tickets were made available at £12 via ROH staff to their friends etc, less than the price of a standing ticket (£14). Stalls seats were £150. That’s an astonishing discount. I’m unaware of any attempt to offer more modest discounts (as you’re doing for The Cellist) to ROH Friends, other audience members, or the general public.

For my part I’m not concerned that some seats are discounted (although if you have to offer discounts it does bring into question the original full pricing decisions). I like to see full houses and enthusiastic, appreciative audiences: the artists deserve to be performing in such circumstances where there’s a real buzz. I’m more than happy to pay full price on the day of booking for the certainty of a favourite seat. But I do worry that the ROH may be foregoing significant box office income when discounting tickets to £12 without first having offered more modest discounts to other groups.

I hear suggestions that 100s of tickets were sold at £12. I have no idea if that is true: certainly 100s of tickets hadn’t been sold a day or two before the performances and I‘d like to think that many were sold at full price.

But I’m sure you’ll appreciate that such discounting will not be well received by many regular audience members who would love to go to more performances if ticket prices were more affordable.

I do hope you’ll look at what happened to ensure there were full houses this weekend and whether other steps could have been taken which would have secured full houses and generated more income.
 

Alex Beard’s reply received today:

We have a number of methods at our disposal to ensure that the house is as full as possible while sustaining our long-term financial viability. On occasion we extend particular offers through our NHS and learning networks, diversity partners and, on occasion, offers to our staff and artists.

This sits alongside the ongoing work we do to extend benefits including a growing Friends’ Events programme to our much-valued Friends and Patrons, without whom we simply would not survive. Our focus is to strike the right balance to ensure that we can continue bringing the ballet and opera to diverse audiences now and long into the future.

 

Comment:

I doubt if Alex Beard will be any more forthcoming about the detail and how many heavily discounted tickets were sold although others may be more successful. But I hope it’s helpful to keep asking about pricing policy and highlighting those decisions which look questionable.

[Mary]

Thanks  -and thanks very much for continuing to raise these questions in such a constructive, but persistent fashion, JohnS.

 

The reply is not especially convincing is it:  I don't even know what it means and it has the air of something just quickly rustled up by some department or other, sprinkled with the usual jargon.

 

 

[Guest oncnp]

27 minutes ago, JohnS said:

This sits alongside the ongoing work we do to extend benefits including a growing Friends’ Events programme to our much-valued Friends and Patrons, without whom we simply would not survive.

Extending benefits? Much-valued? Really?  I think cash cow is a better description of how the ROH views their "Friends."

[MJW]

4 minutes ago, Mary said:

Thanks  -and thanks very much for continuing to raise these questions in such a constructive, but persistent fashion, JohnS.

 

The reply is not especially convincing is it:  I don't even know what it means and it has the air of something just quickly rustled up by some department or other, sprinkled with the usual jargon.

 

 

 

Quite - not the most convincing of responses. To quote from Yes Minister "...that's a load of meaningless drivel. Isn't it?"

 

I see "diversity" is mentioned twice, so that's two ticks.

[OnePigeon]

Hmmm, waffle basically.  There wouldnt be the need for all these special initiatives if the initial price point wasn’t so high.  The main barrier to access across all potential and current, struggling audience members is the cost of tickets.  I mainly book Friday Rush as I’m pretty much priced out otherwise.  It’s great to take the art form to the widest audience possible and highlight that ballet is for everyone and not an elitist experience where people will feel out of place or uncomfortable, but how does it make any business sense to not just discount the tickets to a reasonable price and give people the opportunity to book?  If they offered these seats as part of the Friday Rush I’m sure they would sell out.  Surely £12 tickets should be offered as the very last resort to these ‘partners’ and friends/family.  Perhaps they just don’t want to set a precedent whereby their regular audience could hold out for last minute discounts.

[capybara]

1 hour ago, JohnS said:

Rather than post this on the Don Q thread which focuses on the fabulous performances, I thought it might be if interest to post an exchange of emails I’ve had with Alex Beard about the discounting that took place at the weekend and which has attracted much comment. In reply Alex Beard sets out the ROH’s general approach to discounting. I think a number of people may also be in correspondence with Alex Beard.

 

My email to Alex Beard on Saturday:

I’m writing to you because I think there’s likely to be a pretty strong reaction to the discounts offered to help fill the house for Friday evening and the Saturday matinee. I’m not sure if similar measures will be taken for Saturday evening.

Having chatted to audience members, I understand that tickets were made available at £12 via ROH staff to their friends etc, less than the price of a standing ticket (£14). Stalls seats were £150. That’s an astonishing discount. I’m unaware of any attempt to offer more modest discounts (as you’re doing for The Cellist) to ROH Friends, other audience members, or the general public.

For my part I’m not concerned that some seats are discounted (although if you have to offer discounts it does bring into question the original full pricing decisions). I like to see full houses and enthusiastic, appreciative audiences: the artists deserve to be performing in such circumstances where there’s a real buzz. I’m more than happy to pay full price on the day of booking for the certainty of a favourite seat. But I do worry that the ROH may be foregoing significant box office income when discounting tickets to £12 without first having offered more modest discounts to other groups.

I hear suggestions that 100s of tickets were sold at £12. I have no idea if that is true: certainly 100s of tickets hadn’t been sold a day or two before the performances and I‘d like to think that many were sold at full price.

But I’m sure you’ll appreciate that such discounting will not be well received by many regular audience members who would love to go to more performances if ticket prices were more affordable.

I do hope you’ll look at what happened to ensure there were full houses this weekend and whether other steps could have been taken which would have secured full houses and generated more income.
 

Alex Beard’s reply received today:

We have a number of methods at our disposal to ensure that the house is as full as possible while sustaining our long-term financial viability. On occasion we extend particular offers through our NHS and learning networks, diversity partners and, on occasion, offers to our staff and artists.

This sits alongside the ongoing work we do to extend benefits including a growing Friends’ Events programme to our much-valued Friends and Patrons, without whom we simply would not survive. Our focus is to strike the right balance to ensure that we can continue bringing the ballet and opera to diverse audiences now and long into the future.

 

Comment:

I doubt if Alex Beard will be any more forthcoming about the detail and how many heavily discounted tickets were sold although others may be more successful. But I hope it’s helpful to keep asking about pricing policy and highlighting those decisions which look questionable.

Alex Beard’s reply to me was identical to yours @JohnS

However, in response to an earlier question, Alex also explained that they were in an experimental phase with ticket prices and that, when firmer decisions had been made, he would share the thinking with Friends and Patrons.

Edited October 18, 2023 by capybara

[capybara]

32 minutes ago, OnePigeon said:

Surely £12 tickets should be offered as the very last resort to these ‘partners’ and friends/family.  Perhaps they just don’t want to set a precedent whereby their regular audience could hold out for last minute discounts.

Staff and their families already have access to rehearsal tickets as the norm and recognisable individuals (eg musicians) can often be seen in the Stalls.

[OnePigeon]

There are complimentary tickets for guests of artists, management etc  - I have been a recipient of free tickets to both the Coliseum and RB in the past due to connections I had at the time and I’m sure this is still the case.  

[MildConcern]

Yes - during a performance of Tannhäuser last season, I was sat next to such an enormously larger gentleman that it really was causing me (and him!) a lot of discomfort. I spoke to ushers at the first interval and spent the rest of the evening in a Grand Tier box that was also filled with ROH staff and their friends. From chatting, it seems they get free tickets fairly regularly and I have since made a habit of scoping the boxes to see if they are filled with staff or paying punters. Staff seem to occupy them a lot more than you’d think!

[bridiem]

I don't object to staff, or even family and friends of staff, being offered discounted tickets for at least some performances. I do object to them being offered vastly discounted tickets because said tickets have been hugely overpriced to start with, and/or because it's badly-judged programme for which few people are willing to buy full-price tickets. Both those scenarios imply big problems with both pricing and programming decisions.

[bangorballetboy]

Imagine a theatre has 100 seats.  They are all excellent seats.

 

Tickets go on sale at £150 each and a couple of days before the show, 80% have been sold.  Management would like a full house, so they discount the remaining tickets and allow specified groups to buy tickets at £12.  They all sell.  Overall the ticket revenue is £12,240.

 

If the tickets had gone on sale at £100 and all sold out, the ticket revenue would be £10,000.

[alison]

I'm not going to bother calculating what the revenue would have been if those tickets had been, say, £20 or £25 (okay, I did, actually)

[capybara]

1 hour ago, bangorballetboy said:

Imagine a theatre has 100 seats.  They are all excellent seats.

 

Tickets go on sale at £150 each and a couple of days before the show, 80% have been sold.  Management would like a full house, so they discount the remaining tickets and allow specified groups to buy tickets at £12.  They all sell.  Overall the ticket revenue is £12,240.

 

If the tickets had gone on sale at £100 and all sold out, the ticket revenue would be £10,000.

Or, in more specific relation to last Saturday’s matinee, let’s consider that there are 20 rows in the Orchestra Stalls, each containing 25 seats. Half of those are priced at £150; half at £125.

 

Scenario #1: they all sell; revenue £68,750

Scenario #2: only half sell: revenue £34,375

Scenario #3: half sell/half sold off @£12: revenue £37,375

 

But what if the prices had been lower to begin with - for example half at £105; half at £90 - and all sold? The income would have been £48,750 - i.e. over £10,000 more than the higher price/massive discount approach.

 

No doubt the ROH does a lot of modelling (indeed both Sadlers Wells and the Coliseum have tools to help promoters with some calculations). But it’s about more than just the price (or it should be) and I hope that the testing the ROH is engaged in currently has those other factors in mind as well.

[bridiem]

1 hour ago, bangorballetboy said:

Imagine a theatre has 100 seats.  They are all excellent seats.

 

Tickets go on sale at £150 each and a couple of days before the show, 80% have been sold.  Management would like a full house, so they discount the remaining tickets and allow specified groups to buy tickets at £12.  They all sell.  Overall the ticket revenue is £12,240.

 

If the tickets had gone on sale at £100 and all sold out, the ticket revenue would be £10,000.

 

If the remaining 20% had been discounted to £40, the revenue would be £12,800.

If only 70% had sold at £150 and the remaining 30% discounted to £12, the revenue would be £10,860.

If the tickets had gone on sale at £120 and all sold out, the revenue would be £12,000.

So without knowing how many were discounted, or what the sales would have been like at a lower full price, or whether all the discounted tickets would have sold at (say) £40, it's difficult to judge the outcome.

But I hope very much that the ROH is not going to adopt this kind of speculative ticketing strategy.

 

Posted at same time as capybara!

Edited October 19, 2023 by bridiem

[Fonty]

Quote

On occasion we extend particular offers through our NHS and learning networks, diversity partners and, on occasion, offers to our staff and artists.
 

 

. Who or what are these NHS and learning networks, diversity partners and so on?  I don't have a problem with any of these groups being given tickets "on occasion".  However, that occasion shouldn't be because vast swathes of the most expensive seats have not been purchased at full price.  I am livid that such a huge discount wasn't made available to some of the hard working general public.  I would have been prepared to pay for a best seat in the stalls if the discount had been 50%, as I haven't booked any seats this time round for Don Quixote.  

Edited to add does the ROH allow corporates to block book in advance?  By that I mean are large companies allowed to buy certain areas en masse for a particular production?  I used to work for a famous company associated with diamonds, and they used to pay annually for a certain number of seats that were then given to directors, important clients and so on.  I can't remember if the ROH was one of the places were they held seats.  I think they had it for the Coliseum, the Proms and Glyndebourne.  Not that I was ever lucky enough to get one.

 

 

 

 

Edited October 19, 2023 by Fonty

[capybara]

20 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

Who or what are these NHS and learning networks, diversity partners and so on?   

Edited to add does the ROH allow corporates to block book in advance?  

 

 

I don't have a problem with various groups being given the opportunity to attend performances which they might not otherwise access. That feels like a win/win. However, in the context of disposing of unsold expensive seats, it feels as if they've become a convenient 'dumping ground' (along with staff).

 

I have sometimes sat next to people who are guests of 'such and such corporate' (and, indeed alongside the self same seats when they are empty!). But I have no idea whether companies are allowed to 'block book'.

 

[zxDaveM]

20 hours ago, JohnS said:

...to our much-valued Friends and Patrons,

 

though not valued enough to offer a massive discount to, obviously

[zxDaveM]

6 hours ago, bangorballetboy said:

Imagine a theatre has 100 seats.  They are all excellent seats.

 

Tickets go on sale at £150 each and a couple of days before the show, 80% have been sold.  Management would like a full house, so they discount the remaining tickets and allow specified groups to buy tickets at £12.  They all sell.  Overall the ticket revenue is £12,240.

 

If the tickets had gone on sale at £100 and all sold out, the ticket revenue would be £10,000.

 

This maybe so, but it's still difficult to understand the logic of £150 stalls seats 'given away' for £12, when amphi seats have gone from £23ish to £52 (as the view is still restricted at the higher price)