Top ticket prices are up 50% in a year to an all time high. Whatever the cause – rising costs, celebrity casts, offsetting risk – could excluding audiences that theatre’s future depends on prove terminal? We talk to insiders…
‘Theatres are taking the piss,” says 26-year-old aspiring actor and dedicated theatre fan Laurine. “I book tickets anyway, but hate myself for doing it.” Laurine relocated from France to London partly because of the promise of the West End, aiming to see all the shows she could. But she’s feeling increasingly defeated by the battle to find affordable tickets. Recently, she spent weeks entering ticket lotteries to see one of this summer’s biggest shows, Romeo & Juliet starring Tom Holland, after the first batch of tickets sold out in just two hours. “It was so stressful, it was like a part-time job,” she says.
Laurine eventually landed a spot after three weeks of trying, but she hasn’t always been so lucky. She was desperate to see Jonathan Bailey in the 2022 revival of Cock by Mike Bartlett, but when tickets rose to a “ridiculous” £400, she was priced out. And although she did manage to see Matt Smith in An Enemy of the People earlier this year, she was struck by the irony of the situation. “He delivers this monologue where he’s talking about capitalism and elitism and how culture is too expensive, but I could barely see him from the worst seat I’ve ever sat in, which I paid £35 for. I just felt angry.”
