The headline is a quote from the wisest of all British theatre sages, Peter Brook, and was repeated in a Guardian feature by Michael Billington in 2003 just as Nick Hytner was about to take over the National Theatre and had announced the first of the Travelex-sponsored £10 seasons. Billington said then that the scheme was “going to be the real test of Hytner’s regime”, and said, “It is simply the most radical idea anyone has come up with in years to broaden the theatregoing audience.”
Six Travelex seasons later, it has been triumphantly vindicated. As Billington noted in his end-of-the-decade report in the Guardian last week, “For as long as I could remember, theatre-people had agonised over how to make the medium more accessible. Peter Brook, in a Donmar lecture long ago, supplied the answer: cheap tickets. Hytner proved that was true. In the scheme’s first year, a staggering 33% said they were paying their first visit to the National.”
But more than that, it has given a radical spike to the overall attendance figures at the National in the years since it was launched, too. Hytner had told Billington in 2003 that part of his impetus for introducing the scheme in the first place was to fix the theatre’s perennial summer problem: he said at the time, “I looked at the Olivier figures over the past 15 years and realised that in the summer months - unless it was a musical - very few shows had achieved the 65% capacity on which the National budgets. I worked out that if you could play to 100% on reduced prices, you could make the same amount as you would from 65% on traditional prices. It seemed too good a gamble not to take.”
And earlier this year, in the publication of the 2008-9 annual report by the theatre, it turns out that the gamble has paid off, in every sense: the theatre achieved its highest total attendance figure yet in all the years he has been running it, with 817,000 people attending a total of 1,106 performances to represent 93% of capacity. (In 2004-5, there was an even higher percentage capacity, 94%, but on fewer performances of 1,094).
Cheap(er) tickets, of course, are only part to the story, though; you’ve still got to put on shows that people actually want to see, at any price. But part of the reason for subsidy is to fund not just the creation of art but provide access to it to the people whose taxes have do so, so the National is a blazing example of ticking both boxes.
This year the Donmar did the same thing, bringing their star-driven ethos of high quality productions at low(er) prices to the West End, too, with their four-play residency at Wyndham’s achieving 98% capacity overall. And with tickets ranging from just £10 (with some 42,900 sold at that price across the year), and with a top price of just £32.50), newcomers featured strongly amongst those audiences: according to Donmar figures, Ivanov played to 20% first-timers; Twelfth Night and Madame de Sade to 12% first-timers; and Hamlet to 10% first-timers.
But the National and Donmar, of course, are both in receipt of public money. Does the commercial West End have a similar duty to build and grow its audience? Yes, if it has a long-term view of its own future; and as Michael Billington has recently noted, “The gulf between a £10 National ticket and a £50 stall (plus booking fee) in the West End has grown offensively large.”
The West End, however, doesn’t have the cushion of subsidy. It has to make its money entirely at the box office. But some commercial theatre producers are at least recognising the need to attempt to make their work more accessible, at least for those hardier souls who are prepared to put some effort into it: when Ian McKellen collected his Evening Standard special award last month, he pointed out that the reason people had lined up outside the theatre as early as 3am to see him in Waiting for Godot was because the theatre had offered £10 day seats.
They’ve obviously been subject to inflation since: when the show returns to the Haymarket next month from January 21, those day seats will now be £11. But at least they’re still there, and offer a close-up view of the stars, from the very front row.
The Misanthrope, opening at the Comedy Theatre this week, is following suit, and offering day seats at £10, as is the transfer of Jez Butterworth’s Jerusalem to the West End’s Apollo next month. But what if you want to guarantee your seat, and not have to queue? Then, the stakes go up considerably. The cheapest bookable tickets in the remote balcony for The Misanthrope are £20 - and those are confined to the rear of it. Further forward the price is £25. Ditto on Jerusalem — even the upper circle is £39.50 and £35, while the balcony is again £20-£25.
That strikes me as completely outrageous. Yes, I know I am completely spoilt nowadays, typically getting a pair of prime tickets for free; but time was I would regularly sit in the gallery. Yes, it was far away, but at least I could afford it, and I got to see many shows, particularly at the Theatre Royal, Haymarket, from the very top tier.
Nowadays, though, I just wouldn’t bother. Why do the theatre producers expect audiences to pay so much to see so little? These prices are just fleecing the public. As the West End Whingers noted on their blog, “There was no way this was going to end up on TKTS. So we did something completely uncharacteristic: in order to get an idea of what the show would look like from space we bought seats in row D of the balcony (that’s the fourth of the four tiers of seating) for £25. We’ve never been up there before and frankly it looks as though the theatre managers don’t get up there much either as the ledges at either side of the auditorium were very dusty indeed. We feel it only fair to mention this as it may account for our distinct lack of engagement. Why do people even bother buying seats that far away from the stage? It’s rubbish.”
Though a spirited dialogue has ensued on the blog itself, with some pointing out quite rightly that that is all they can afford, it seems pernicious that they are being charged that high a sum of money at all. Of course, the rules of supply and demand apply, and no one is forcing anyone to pay it; but managements need to take a long, hard view at this attempt to gain short-term revenue, and wonder if an audience who are similarly disengaged will ever return.
Ah, time for a flashback to going to see Arcadia recently on a LastMinute deal with a seat in the balcony, towards the side. Dear God. I know I was only paying £15/20, but all I could see was the top third of the stage. After 30 minutes of essentially listening to an audiobook, I fell asleep instead.
I have every reason to beleive that the producers and managers of West End shows have never been in the upper gallerys of the theatres that they rent. If they did go up there then they would not charge the prices that they do. However, since they don't they simply look at those seats and figure out how much they need to charge to make more money - they don't think about what is fair or what that common theatregoer must endure. 10 or 12 seats at 10 pounds on the day of performance is a lovely thing and I have taken advantage of it quite a few times but it is basically lip service to people complaining about the prices. Nick Hytner and Michael Grandage stand nearly alone in addressing the price issue in a big and substantive way , with the Royal Court and the Almeida following behind. But 45 pounds for A Daughter's a Daughter? They didn't spend that on the set why should I spend that for a seat in the wildly uncomfortable Trafalgar Studios? I know Mr Kenwright keeps theatres lit and is producing in a manner that no one else does anymore but seriously - when a show probably has a set pulled from storage, a script pulled from storage, costumes pulled from storage - couldn't he pass some of the savings on to those of us who might be interested in this curiosity? Cheap tickets is the answer for all theatre and producers at this point. Let's hope that greed doesn't win out and that the greater good is served.
If I had a £1 for every time someone hads told me, that they could sell such and such a product or service, if it only cost less; I would now be a millionaire!!!
John Lewis are certainly showing the way in the retail sector. It is not about being cheap. Have you seen their prices!
No, it is all about having in stock what people want to buy. it is all about service. It is all about marketing. Bright cheerful premises; with helpful, professional advice/service.
Getting bums on seats is not about price, it is about quality. Give the masses something worth seeing, something that will make them sit up and beg for more...
We are in a service industry - lets start giving 'service' - even more than we have. Giving things away, leads to bankruptcy!
Of course good housekeeping is crucial for any business. But, you must also create the need, the want and the desire for your product/service...
Clive , you're right - it's about value for money. John Lewis is a perfect example. You not only get a good product you have it sold to you in a civilized manner. However, that simply isn't the case with theatre tickets - if you're paying 25 quid for an upper gallery seat what do you get? Well the chances are pretty good you paid a booking fee, a restoration charge and when you get to the theatre you have a pretty miserable and long walk up the stairs, a small and dirty loo and an uncomfortable seat - oh wait , I forgot about paying 3 to 4 pounds for the programme and then you get whatever "product" it is that you have already paid dearly for. That's roughly 3o pounds you've paid and you don't know if you even are going to like it - and unlike John Lewis, if you don't like it then tough shit. The producers get to keep your money anyway. However, if the producer charged 10 pounds for that ticket you can bet more people would be willing to take a chance on the show and if its no good - so what? it was only 10 pounds. But if it was 30? Maybe they think twice about going to the theatre again...When one flies Ryannair one knows what one is getting, it's when one flies BA and gets Ryannair service at BA Prices thatone gets pissed off.
Yes - it's the TICKET TAX that could cripple it all. Booking fee, restoration charges, transaction fees (the theatres keep these by the way NOT the producers!) ... may all be well and good on a £60 ticket but are you aware how many theatres are charging these (compulsory) taxes on children's £10 tickets. Theatres - hang your heads in shame!
I am a 71 year old male, living on a pension, and I have seen hundreds of plays and musicals from the 2nd balcony of the Royal Alexandra Theatre in Toronto. It started as a starving student in the 1950s, and my first play was Streetcar Named Desire, followed by Tea and Sympathy and that got me hooked on theatre for life, and I still go 2-3 times a week.
Even when I visit New York or London, I literally live in the dark and see 10-13 shows during a weekly period and am very thankful for TKTS, in both cities.
I think Clive is right, too, but I think the heart of his position lies in the almost throwaway "It's about marketing" and the later "you must also create the need, the want and the desire for your product/service". The problem is that we're at odds with what that product/service *is*. As another colleague has reported, West End venues are increasingly candid that as far as they are concerned, the product they are selling is not theatre but an "event", and they are targeting not theatregoers but people who are able and prepared to pay for an "event" - part of which is the price itself. West End theatre has been repositioned and reconceived, such that as far as its vendors are concerned the theatregoing experience itself is merely an incidental to the process of conspicuous consumption.
Worst deal in the West End? Trafalgar Studio 2. £23 per ticket is about £8-10 too much. Ambassador Group, are you listening?