If the LSO can do it, why can’t the West End? I’m talking about the provision of free programmes, both in the concert hall on the night and even more impressively, available to download online from five days before each concert, too, at lso.co.uk. It’s not always possible to read a programme in the dark – and you may well want to concentrate on the music – so it’s particularly forward-thinking to allow audiences to read them before they get there.
I went to an LSO concert at the Barbican last night, and its not as if the free programmes are akin to mere free cast lists, or even the standard-issue fare of West End programmes, either: yes, there are the standard biographies, staff lists and so on, but also separate notes on each composer and piece being played. So you get context and content, all of which enhances the concert-going experience – and best of all, doesn’t leave you feeling ripped off.
West End theatregoers, of course, are fleeced from the moment they book their tickets – tickets may cost up to £60 a pop for a West End musical, but you only get that price if you walk up to the box office window. The rest of the time you pay booking fees on top of that and sometimes a fee towards the theatre’s refurbishment, costs that surely should be absorbed within the ticket price itself since that’s the key product that the theatre is trying to sell you and the theatre building itself is the place it does business: I’ve yet to hear of a hotel that charges an additional fee towards its own upkeep.
But theatres typically keep those (mostly unavoidable) costs out of the stated price, both to disguise what the real cost in fact turns out to be, but also to keep that portion of revenue to themselves and not have to share it with their lessees, the producers, or in turn, to require the producers to share their portion with their royalty pool.
Theatre programmes are another revenue stream for the theatre owners rather than the producers – although it’s the producers who mostly provide the show material that goes into them. And although the various publishers of West End programmes have been upping their game with regard to providing some editorial content beyond that, such as background notes on the show or more general features on theatreland and beyond, audiences are, once again, basically paying an extra fee for something that should be part of the fabric of the evening, as both guide and souvenir to the occasion.
You famously get them for free on Broadway — though the outer section of the Playbill, as the company who provides most of them is called, is a generic monthly theatre magazine providing the same features, at least it gives you something substantial to read before the lights go down and also usefully cross-promotes the theatre to a literally captive audience.
Playbill actually pays the theatres for the privilege of being able to have their programmes distributed through them, so the theatre still captures some revenue from them; and Playbill makes its money via the advertising opportunities that the affluent, targeted audiences who go to theatres promise.
I’d love to see the West End following where LSO are leading. The American model of finding a publisher willing to pay the theatres for the chance to distribute their wares may not work; but Whatsonstage has already proved that theatre-wide distribution of a free theatre magazine provides them with a viable business (and audiences with a good read). Adding editorial to the middle on the show itself would turn it, at a stroke, into a playbill.
I'm not that keen on programmes to be honest, however a little digging on the NT website offers some treats with free downloadable workpacks/background packs. Often with cast interviews and rehearsal pictures, I preferred the "Present Laughter" workpack to the programme.