A new top price in the West End for a play….

Yesterday I was welcoming price reductions for previews on Broadway, but today I have to bemoan the arrival of a new top price in the West End for a play: when Hay Fever arrives at the Haymarket in April, not only will there be no preview prices, but also it has bounded up from the previous £47.50 top that Death of a Salesman set to a staggering £60 – higher than most musicals, which currently typically top out at £50 or £55 (though not as high as the weekend rate set by Acorn Antiques at the same theatre a year ago of £65).

The producers of Acorn Antiques insisted at the time that the pricing was necessary because the theatre capacity was comparatively low, and the run necessarily short, since the stars couldn’t commit to longer; of course, the simple answer would have been to have had a bigger house, but none were apparently available for the window of opportunity that they had to do the show in around everyone’s availability. No doubt the same thing applies here, and since the play features the West End’s single most bankable and beloved star Judi Dench, people will probably pay anything to see her.

But the manipulation of ticket prices upwards in this way, even for a special occasion, is a deeply troubling trend, because it moves the benchmark upwards for everyone, and soon becomes the ‘norm’. The gap between the commercial theatre and the subsidised becomes ever more yawning – you can get the best seats to the Donmar for £29, the Almeida for £29.50, and the National for £25 during the Travelex season (or £36 outside it), where the ticket prices are less than half, the quality of the product is also more assured than in the West End, the comforts are typically better and (except for the Donmar) you can park more easily, too.

Sure, you might still be drawn to the West End for a “special occasion” like seeing Dench in Coward; but otherwise, audiences might balk at such pricing and go elsewhere. It’s true that commercial producers need to make their money somehow – subsidised theatre is exactly that, and can afford to charge less; that’s what the subsidy is for – and market forces prevail: you get what you the market will stand. But I worry that the market won’t stand it much longer.