Autumn 2024-25 Royal Ballet & Opera pricing

[Dawnstar]

The last few comments make me feel old. Back in 2007-8 I saw Wicked quite a lot of times. The only way to get cheap tickets back then was queuing in person for day seats. In order to guarantee success one had to usually get to the theatre at around 7am, which for me meant getting the first train down to London at 5.25am! So much easier nowadays with it all online.

[Paco]

Agree, I definitely do not regret those times when queuing in cold winter mornings was a pre-requisite to catch tickets...

[oncnp]

Seat maps ENCOUNTERS: FOUR CONTEMPORARY BALLETS

 

Select your own seat (roh.org.uk)

[LinMM]

I find it very odd that the price difference for this Programme is SO great. For example row D of the Balcony there is £100 price difference!! So for Alice etc it’s £154 and for this programme it’s £54!! 

Is the quality of Dance going to be SO different. It’s almost like these more contemporary works are not valued. 
Now I’m not complaining £54 is much more up my street but to me I find the £100 difference difficult to reconcile. 

 

[JaneHartley]

2 hours ago, LinMM said:

I find it very odd that the price difference for this Programme is SO great. For example row D of the Balcony there is £100 price difference!! So for Alice etc it’s £154 and for this programme it’s £54!! 

Is the quality of Dance going to be SO different. It’s almost like these more contemporary works are not valued. 
Now I’m not complaining £54 is much more up my street but to me I find the £100 difference difficult to reconcile. 

 

 

Perhaps they could scrap this and lower the price of the proper ballet 😛 by putting something else on its place for a higher fee. 🙂 RB is a classical company, there are plenty of contemporary dance troupes including for ballet!

That said, I have made the decision to not book early for Alice and wait for what I can only see as inevitable discounting closer to the time, if this doesn't happen I can go ahead and book for the second half of the run on 2025 later anyway. Not sure this is what ROH had in mind when they decided their approach to ramping up prices and their constant discounting late in the day, often not directed to those who have booked/or members. I have also decided not to renew my membership when my membership comes to an end either. Such a shame what they are doing imo.

[Richard LH]

7 hours ago, LinMM said:

Is the quality of Dance going to be SO different. It’s almost like these more contemporary works are not valued. 

I think you have answered your own question here  @LinMM! 😄

[Emeralds]

On 30/05/2024 at 09:33, LinMM said:

I find it very odd that the price difference for this Programme is SO great. For example row D of the Balcony there is £100 price difference!! So for Alice etc it’s £154 and for this programme it’s £54!! 

Is the quality of Dance going to be SO different. It’s almost like these more contemporary works are not valued. 
Now I’m not complaining £54 is much more up my street but to me I find the £100 difference difficult to reconcile. 

 

I think ballet 1 (The Weathering) and ballet 4 (The Statement) are worth paying for.  Pam Tanowitz's last creation working with composer Ted Hearne required ear plugs (if one values one's hearing in 10 years' time). Joseph Toonga's last creation looked like something put together by secondary school students (albeit talented ones, but not something they could/would charge £20 for, let alone £54). Am actually a bit dismayed that ballets 1 and 4 will be on the same programme as the other two. I should add that both Tanowitz's Dispatch Duet and Toonga's See Us! (exclamation mark his) were both impeccably danced so it wasn't any fault on the dancers' part. Just that the material wasn't worth the high prices of that anniversary programme. Will wait for reviews before booking. We all would like Alice prices to come down but no doubt management would prefer the prices of 4 Contemporary Ballets to go up! (Well, they can't or they might risk having an almost  empty auditorium). 

[JNC]

I’m a bit of an outlier here but I enjoyed Dispatch Duet! On the flip side I wasn’t really enamoured with the Weathering (found it a bit boring) and haven’t been impressed by what I’ve seen of Toonga. The statement seems intriguing and the piece that will probably appeal to the widest section of people. 

 

For the prices if I lived in London I’d go to see Dispatch Duet and the Statement, but not sure either of those works is enough for me to add travel as well. 
 

I’m certainly not one to complain about low prices but it’s odd this seems to be priced so low. Where I’d usually sit in the amphi is £23 and I don’t think I’ve ever spent so little, even 5 years ago? The fact I could sit in the front of the amphi for £45 is a very good deal, if you like this programme (and it seems most people will like bits of it but hate other bits and then does anyone love any of it?) 

[aliceinwoolfland]

A timely and interesting story....Pappano is a legend, but almost £1m in a year?! https://slippedisc.com/2024/06/pappano-leaves-covent-garden-with-a-final-30-pay-rise/

[oncnp]

12 minutes ago, aliceinwoolfland said:

A timely and interesting story....Pappano is a legend, but almost £1m in a year?! https://slippedisc.com/2024/06/pappano-leaves-covent-garden-with-a-final-30-pay-rise/

 

The annual report can be found here ROYAL OPERA HOUSE COVENT GARDEN FOUNDATION filing history - Find and update company information - GOV.UK (company-information.service.gov.uk)

 

Sorry - can't seem to link to actual report 

Edited June 7 by oncnp

[bangorballetboy]

26 minutes ago, aliceinwoolfland said:

A timely and interesting story....Pappano is a legend, but almost £1m in a year?! https://slippedisc.com/2024/06/pappano-leaves-covent-garden-with-a-final-30-pay-rise/

 

In typical Normal Lebrecht style, this is completely disingenuous.

 

Pappano's salary rose from £118,997 to £125,042 (a 5% rise and the lowest amongst the staff members referred to in Lebrecht's post).  AP's (contractual) fees for conducting rose from £446,250 to £690,197, purely on account of his conducting more performances in that reference year (the accounts confirm his base conducting fee did not rise).

 

 

ROHCGF annual report 22 23.pdf

[alison]

What actually shocked me was the number of staff now employed.  I remember steps being taken years ago to reduce the headcount - although admittedly that would have been well before the physical expansion of the ROH, the introduction of many of the catering points, and so on.  It also doesn't indicate how many of those staff are casual/contracted/part-time and so on.

[MildConcern]

11 hours ago, oncnp said:

More information on the multi-buy orchestra stalls offer Orchestra Stalls offer (roh.org.uk)

 

 

 

 

Ah, the fine print. I had thought it might give you 15% off your basket even for seats not in the Orchestra stalls. But no, the discount only applies to Orchestra stalls tickets. A shame!

[Sim]

From yesterday's Links:

 

https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/Despite-Global-Arts-Sector-Struggles-Royal-Ballet-and-Opera-Income-Climbs-Nearly-33-20240605

[alison]

That was compared with the Covid-affected 2021-22, though.

 

"The organization maintained efforts to diversify audiences by pricing 30% of main stage tickets under £50"

 

Hmm.  Interesting phrasing, there.  And 59% new bookers is actually not nearly as positive as it looks, although it will doubtless tick Arts Council boxes.

[LinMM]

Was just thinking that today I paid £67 for a Row D Balcony for the Ashton triple all pieces I love seeing and yet will have to pay £154 for same seat for Alice in the Autumn! 

[JohnS]

With seat maps published and Friends booking starting today, I’ve had a more detailed look at Autumn prices.

 

The Royal Ballet & Opera emphasise they are attempting to align prices with the relative value of each seat according to the experience each seat gives. If a seat offers a restricted view, poorer acoustic, or is less comfortable, that should be reflected in the ticket price. View, acoustic and comfort I would have thought are independent of the production (assuming the prospect of attending the production is itself attractive). That means there should be reasonable consistency in pricing accepting that big budget productions much in demand will be higher priced than less popular productions. There may also be different financial objectives for Ballet and Opera so seat maps may differ but significant variations in pricing patterns between Ballet and Opera should as a minimum at least raise questions.
 

The simplest way to look for pricing consistency is to compare seat prices relative to the top price for that production and that’s the approach taken when looking at experimental pricing introduced in Autumn 2023 and in the analysis below of Autumn 2024 prices. There may be more sophisticated approaches but the RB&O haven’t as yet put forward alternatives for measuring how prices reflect the relative value of the experience provided from the seat and simplicity has great merit.

 

The table below looks at this Autumn’s Opera and Ballet main house productions ordered by the top seat price. I’ve looked at specific seats which have attracted attention in the past (for example the Stalls Circle Row B bench seats and Amphitheatre Row E sides) and added the highest priced Amphitheatre seat as it would appear further experimentation is underway.

 

That leads to the first significant point and the greatest anomaly. Fidelio highest priced Amphitheatre seats are £152, 62% of the £245 top price. Figaro and Traviata also have a £245 top price but the highest priced Amphitheatre seats are £101, 41% of the top price. I and many others assumed the Fidelio price must be an error. But the price is confirmed and the explanation is that the RB&O are continuing to experiment with their prices.

 

Whilst pilot testing may have merit, it rather draws attention to the extent of the experimentation where there’s a proposed 50% increase in the highest priced Amphitheatre seats. For Fidelio will audiences be prepared to pay the 50% increase when there are direct comparisons to be made in the same booking period? Should the experiment prove successful, would other productions see such increases in later booking periods? 

 

For opera, highest priced Amphitheatre seats have been charged at some 40% of the top price for the production.
 

Ballet prices have tended to be higher relatively ie a ballet seat is a higher %age of the top price compared to opera. For example the current Swan Lake, highest priced Amphitheatre seats are £118, 67% of the £175 top price. I’ve added the current Swan Lake prices at the foot of the table as it’s worth comparing these prices with Alice/Cinderella prices (which I hope prove to be the most expensive Ballet prices in the 2024/25 Season).
 

This Autumn there has been a slight change which I think overall is welcome (but with some important caveats). The top price for Alice/Cinderella is £190 but highest Amphitheatre seats are £114, some 60% of the top price and a £4 reduction in cash. I’ll say more about the comparison between Alice/Cinderella and Swan Lake later. So it may be that the RB&O Fidelio experiment is very much focused on opera. But disappointingly no rationale is given as to the new round of experimental pricing and what the longer term aim is. All we see are the prices and seat maps and in the absence of any explanation from the RB&O, we can look at the data, ask questions, but struggle to draw conclusions.

 

Whilst Fidelio highest priced Amphitheatre seats is I think the most significant issue as we don’t know what might happen should the experiment be judged a success, there are a string of other pricing oddities.

 

Hoffman is the most expensive opera with £300 top price. But some Stalls Circle bench seats are cheaper than for the three £270 operas. Hoffman bench seats are £106; for the three £270 Operas, there are two prices for bench seats, £110 and £82. Hoffman is the only opera that has just the one price for these bench seats.

 

Hoffman Slips seats are lower priced than for the £270 and £245 operas which looks very odd. For Hoffman the best Slips seats are £39 (13% of the £300 top price). For the six operas best Slips are more than £50 (some 20% of the top price). For Hoffman Standing tickets and Upper Slips are £22 (7%). For the six operas the prices are £2 or £3 higher (some 10% of the top price). 

 

Turning to ballet, the first point to make is that Stalls Circle bench seats remain extremely high priced. For Alice/Cinderella the price is £114, the highest price for these seats across all productions. £114 is 60% of the top price. For the other ballets these bench seats are some 43% or 45% of their top price. For opera bench seats are 35% to 41% of their top price. And for all operas bar Hoffman, bench seats have two prices with the cheaper seats nearest the stage at some 30% to 33% of their top price. It seems to me that the bench seats are significantly poorer than Balcony restricted seats (eg A33) and best Amphitheatre seats but for Alice/Cinderella (and this summer’s Swan Lake), all these seats share the same £114 price (£118 for Swan Lake). I can’t see how Stalls Circle B16 bench seat, Balcony B33 and best Amphitheatre seats can possibly provide the same value or similar experience. And the RB&O recognise the differences in their pricing for these seats for all other productions.
 

This season’s Manon bench seat prices were much fairer and more in line with Opera pricing:

 

Balcony Central Block Restricted (eg A33)	Stalls Circle Sides Bench Seats (eg B27 & B16)
£99	£79 £63
71%	56% 45%

 

But that welcome news was not extended to Swan Lake nor to Alice/Cinderella. We’ll have to see the Onegin and Romeo & Juliet prices which may perhaps be more in line with Manon than Swan Lake.

 

There is though some welcome news when comparing Alice/Cinderella and Swan Lake. There are some marginal reductions in the cash price of some of the less expensive seats (eg £118 seats are reduced to £114 and there are similar modest reductions in other areas). Given the increase in the top price (from £175 to £190), the less expensive seats are now a lower percentage of the top price (eg from 67% to 60%) which is more in line with opera percentages.
 

Turning to Maddaddam, there are some similarities with Dante. Top price is now £145 compared to £130. Lower priced tickets for Dante were pretty modest (Stalls Circle bench seats £80, Amphitheatre Row E £21 to £66, Slips top price £21). For Maddaddam the prices are generally a little lower than for Dante: £63; £25 to £63; and £22. And with the increase in the top price, then the lower priced seats are a smaller percentage of the top price. I don’t know what financial objective is set for MacGregor ballets but I can’t see other ballets being so modestly priced.

 

Encounters is something of a one-off but the table if anything underlines just how modestly priced some Maddaddam seats are (eg bench seats 43% of the top price for Maddaddam rising to 60% for Encounters).

 

I was hoping that experimental pricing might have run its course and seat maps would stabilise but that’s clearly not the case. It may well be that experimental pricing has not yet achieved its objectives given recent discounting of tickets which we hear about but don’t know the extent. I see one or two helpful movements such as the Manon bench seat pricing and some of the Alice/Cinderella pricing looks more reasonable compared with Swan Lake. But I’m afraid I don’t yet see the RB&O moving towards more settled seat maps let alone a standard seat map which would at least provide a basis for matching price to the value of the experience.

 

ROH pricing Autumn 2024.pdf

[MAB]

Now one of the most expensive houses in Europe. 

 

Last month I paid just under £36 per top tier seat for the ring cycle in Zurich with a stellar cast, and in January I paid 60 euros for a front row stalls seat with a very slightly oblique view to hear Bartoli in Monte Carlo.

 

I predict swathes of empty seats next season.

[JaneHartley]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

Now one of the most expensive houses in Europe. 

 

RoH also has awful sight lines. There are very few seats were you can sit, see all the ballet (inc not missing the sides) and be close enough to truly appreciate the nuances of the dancers (without glasses). Personally the amount people have to pay for restricted/bad view seats in the ROH is shocking. 

[Lizbie1]

10 hours ago, JaneHartley said:

 

RoH also has awful sight lines. There are very few seats were you can sit, see all the ballet (inc not missing the sides) and be close enough to truly appreciate the nuances of the dancers (without glasses). Personally the amount people have to pay for restricted/bad view seats in the ROH is shocking. 

 

I don't exactly disagree but would say that for its age and size the sightlines are about or even above par. Short of knocking it down I'm not sure what improvements can be made.

 

Obviously there is a different discussion to be had about value for money relative to sightline, but eventually the prices will presumably settle at what the market will bear and it will be difficult to argue with that.

[Candleque]

This headline may already be in the Links but seems pertinent to this thread topic:
Income at Royal Ballet and Opera rises by nearly a third to over £170m - 05 June article

>> For year ending 27 August 2023

> Box office receipts, which accounted for 31% of its total income, also increased by almost a third, from £39.6m to £52.6m. 

> 2022-23 marked its second full season since Covid-19 and the first season to avoid pandemic-related cancellations since March 2020

[MildConcern]

10 hours ago, JaneHartley said:

 

RoH also has awful sight lines. There are very few seats were you can sit, see all the ballet (inc not missing the sides) and be close enough to truly appreciate the nuances of the dancers (without glasses). Personally the amount people have to pay for restricted/bad view seats in the ROH is shocking. 

I was at the London Coliseum recently and shocked by the sightlines there. I was central in one of the balconies and yet couldn't see most of the front of the stage. It actually made me grateful for the ROH sight lines, which I have also found to be better than the Opera Garnier and some other older houses!

[bangorballetboy]

1 hour ago, Candleque said:

This headline may already be in the Links but seems pertinent to this thread topic:
Income at Royal Ballet and Opera rises by nearly a third to over £170m - 05 June article

>> For year ending 27 August 2023

> Box office receipts, which accounted for 31% of its total income, also increased by almost a third, from £39.6m to £52.6m. 

> 2022-23 marked its second full season since Covid-19 and the first season to avoid pandemic-related cancellations since March 2020

 

Which is all great news, as the RBO needs to repay the £21.7million loan it received from HMG!

[art_enthusiast]

2 hours ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

Which is all great news, as the RBO needs to repay the £21.7million loan it received from HMG!

 

just wondering, who is HMG?

[bangorballetboy]

22 minutes ago, art_enthusiast said:

 

just wondering, who is HMG?

 

His Majesty's Government

[JNC]

On 12/06/2024 at 13:02, MildConcern said:

I was at the London Coliseum recently and shocked by the sightlines there. I was central in one of the balconies and yet couldn't see most of the front of the stage. It actually made me grateful for the ROH sight lines, which I have also found to be better than the Opera Garnier and some other older houses!

I definitely agree with this. I haven’t sat anywhere but the amphi at ROH where distance can be a problem but I’m never at risk of someone’s head in the way no matter how tall they are due to the rake. (Unless you have someone leaning forward). 
 

I was surprised that at the most expensive seats in the Garnier (their version of orchestra stalls) I had a head blocking my view due to lack of rake of seats and no staggering so you sit sort of between shoulders of the people in front. 
 

I also find the Coliseum a bit risky with their bars in their balcony section (equivalent to ROH amphi). I agree seeing the front of the stage can be a challenge! 

[JaneHartley]

On 12/06/2024 at 12:51, Lizbie1 said:

I don't exactly disagree but would say that for its age and size the sightlines are about or even above par. Short of knocking it down I'm not sure what improvements can be made.

 

TBH my comment was more price and view. The ROH views are awful and charge a lot. A stalls seat at £190 comes with a high risk of getting someone in front of you that blocks so of your view - particularly if you yourself are below say 5'7. 

 

Coliseum might have poorer views higher up, but the stalls are generally far more affordable. In fact for a stalls price I pay with a very clear (and close view) you might get something on the side with a restricted view in the balcony or middle of the gods at the ROH. 

 

I definitely wouldn't knock the old place down but there is only so much you can expect someone to pay to not see half the ballet!

[MAB]

I'm puzzled by some posts.  I've always considered the sight lines at the Coli to be excellent and there isn't much of a rake at Covent Garden stalls compared to Paris either.  Personally I've always fared well at the Garnier, excepting their amphi where the seats are so designed I always seem to end up with someone's feet in the small of my back.

 

Both London and Paris are currently featuring Swan Lake.  Paris is cheaper.

[alison]

Paris probably gets more government subsidy?

[bridiem]

1 hour ago, MAB said:

I'm puzzled by some posts.  I've always considered the sight lines at the Coli to be excellent

 

In the Balcony at the Coli, it's all too frequent to have either the rail or a head (or both) ruining one's view. Even if you book far enough back to avoid the rail, a (potential) head can't be planned for. (And I'm tall so it must be even more of a problem for shorter people.)

[JNC]

@bridiem is correct, if you can afford to not sit in the balcony the value for money  is much better at the Coli than ROH I’d wager (not having sat anywhere other than the amphi this is a guess though). 
 

In a weird way I’m glad the amphi at ROH is so good with such a steep rake and therefore pretty much guaranteed unobstructed views, given that’s all I can afford! 

[oncnp]

On the website just now for opera tickets and it appears the flat £3 suggested donation is back (v. earlier %). 

[Scheherezade]

I trust the enclosed link to an article from Thursday’s Guardian by Patrick Gracey, Board Member of SOLT, doesn’t breach any rules. If so, please remove. 
 

What is interesting, in the context of the continual assertions by the board of the ROH that the steep rise in pricing is in line with current West End prices, is the information provided by Mr Gracey showing a 9.26% drop in West End prices since 2019, with the majority of tickets priced at less than £50, nearly a quarter under £30 and less than 5% over £150, coupled with record attendances of over 17.1 million “due to stellar performances and smart pricing”. 
 

No doubt the ROH board will use the eye-watering number of tickets given away or virtually given away by way of papering by way of evidence that its prices match these figures. 
 

https://amp.theguardian.com/stage/article/2024/jun/20/ignore-the-west-end-critics-there-are-plenty-of-cheap-theatre-seats

 

 

Edited Saturday at 22:51 by Scheherezade