question about ticket access/sold out performances

[cobweb]

I will be in London over Christmas and New Year's and was hoping to see the Royal Ballet… but I see that the performances of Don Quixote are sold out (and the opera I would be interested in, as well). Can anyone give me information on last-minute tickets? The website mentions that "day tickets" are released at 10am on the day of the performance. Is there typically a line for this? Does the Royal Opera House do standing room? Any suggestions from Londoners with experience at the Royal Opera House (ballet or opera, really) would be greatly appreciated!

[Mashinka]

Tickets are released at 10 am on the day and you can buy them in person or on line but standing is now sold in advance. If all else fails you can queue for returns on the night, as RB tickets are sold so far in advance a fair number can come up for resale.

[Bella12]

Tickets are released at 10 am on the day and you can buy them in person or on line

There are 67 day seats but they are not sold on line until all those in the day seat queue have been served. If a performance is particularly popular, there is an outside chance that all seats will be sold to personal callers.

[kbarber]

YOu can keep checking the website, as people often return tickets and my understanding from the last time I did this was that ROH puts them back in the online inventory as soon as they are returned. The box office guy said, "let me get this up on the website right away"

There is standing room at the ROH but it is sold just like the seats are sold, in advance.

[cobweb]

Thanks to all for your help! I will try waiting in line to get day seats. Will report back on Don Q if I manage to get in.

[sandik]

Thanks to all for your help! I will try waiting in line to get day seats. Will report back on Don Q if I manage to get in.

Good luck! If you would please, report back on the whole process, even if you don't get in -- otherwise, we'll live in suspense...

[Lynette H]

If you are in London in that period, you might want to think about seeing ENB's Nutcracker at the Coliseum. Alina Cojocaru and Tamara Rojo are both appearing in that period. Casting can be found at the ENB site at

http://www.ballet.org.uk/whats-on/nutcracker-2014/

Their Swan Lake doesn't begin until 7 Jan.

[art076]

I did the day seats at the Royal Opera House many years ago - they do go on sale at 10am but if it is a popular performance people often queue up much earlier. I remember getting there at 7:30am and being around the 20th person in line. So just keep an eye on it while you're there and prepare to show up early if need be!

And as kbarber says, keep checking the website - I've had luck with the online system for even very popular performances (scored a great, very cheap ticket to the Royal Opera's Il Trittico, which had been super sold out, while checking in hope about 3 weeks before the show).

[Amour]

Unlike U.S. venues (in which tickets sales sales are generally finall), the Royal Opera House allows you to return tickets, which they then try to resell. If they are successful (99% of the time) you get all your money back. It also means new tickets to "sold out" shows are constantly becoming available.

Last August we went to London to see the Mariinsky. On the one hand, a Stepanova SL that I had tickets to had the casting changed to Skorik. I returned my tickets, which the ROH resold and I got all my money back.

On the other side of things, there was a rep program that was sold out that I really wanted to see. Starting at 10am on the day of the performance I called the box office. I immediately got 1 ticket, that had been returned. Within an hour, we got a 2nd ticket for my husband.

I would like to add that the ROH ticket agents were extremely gracious, accommodating and helpful in this process. There are also no extra fees involved, despite all the handling. U.S. venues should really think about adopting this practice.

[Helene]

For the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver, VANOC created a website where all tickets purchased by Canadian residents through them were linked to a customer account. Anyone who bought a ticket could use the system to sell the tickets to anyone else in the system. The VANOC system charged 10% to each side, which included credit card processing and cost of fraud. I suspect they paid for a pretty big chunk of the system through those commissions, since the seller set a price, and those hockey tickets were going for thousands. Since Visa is such a visible sponsor for the Olympics, they may have gotten a deal on some of the processing costs and/or a transaction classification that didn't allow charge backs, or at least easily.

The buyers knew they were getting authentic tickets, and VANOC kept track of the sales trends. (I bet that data was worth a pretty penny.) There were still people hawking tickets at the venues -- the resale system closed a day or two before the event, and it wasn't open to non-residents -- but it meant that the organization only bore the daily administrative burden of printing out the tickets at the venue or the ticket-buying centers for the bulk of resales.

[volcanohunter]

There are also no extra fees involved, despite all the handling. U.S. venues should really think about adopting this practice.

There is a £2 fee if a ticket is re-sold, and you can lose a small amount of money when the refund is processed through your credit card, since card exchange rates are not the same as a bank's, but these are tiny inconveniences in comparison to being stuck with an expensive ticket you don't want or can't use. It's also a much better deal for the person buying the returned ticket, who would otherwise probably have to pay much more to buy through a re-sale site. So yes, I'm all for it, too.

http://www.roh.org.uk/visit/tickets#re-sale

[Ashton Fan]

Anyone trying to get tickets for sold out performances at the Royal Opera House is best advised to follow the official route to getting tickets and not to try a try a resale site.People who know that they will not be able to get to a performance either give their tickets to friends or return them to the Opera House for resale because they know that there is a very good chance that they will be resold.There are a number of authorised ticket agents whose details can be found on the website. Everything else is at your own risk and could prove very expensive particularly if you are refused admission. or find that you have bought a £5 standing place when you thought that you were buying an expensive seat.

The box office now has notices on the counter next to the terminals used by the ticket sellers which repeat the small print on the back of the ticket. It is the standard stuff that should surprise no one who attends the theatre with any regularity; that if you buy a ticket from an unauthorised seller you may be refused entry and that the management reserves the right to refuse admission.The fact that it has been thought necessary to display the notices in a "bold and compelling manner" suggests that quite a few people must have been ripped off recently by unauthorised sellers unless of course it is intended to discourage people trying to sell tickets to the returns queue. There have been plenty of stories about people being ripped off by "entrepreneurs" selling non existent tickets or cheap tickets at inflated prices in connection with pop concerts and sports events from resale sites but not that many stories about people paying over the odds for performances at Covent Garden..

The ROH has not, as yet, found it necessary to put up notices stating that the management reserves the right to make alterations to the published programme and that refunds are only given if a performance is cancelled but that is, perhaps, only.a matter of time. There were stories of ticket holders from abroad having rows with box office staff when Osipova was replaced as a result of injury sustained during a McGregor ballet .As Osipova seems more susceptible to injury than some, it may be that all the standard terms and conditions about cast changes and cancellation will soon be prominently displayed in the box office.

[Mashinka]

In reality there is no objection from the box office staff about selling tickets to the queue on the night and I have done so on a number of occasions, but you have to step outside to do the actual selling,

[volcanohunter]

There were stories of ticket holders from abroad having rows with box office staff when Osipova was replaced as a result of injury sustained during a McGregor ballet .

Was it really so bad?

[Ashton Fan]

Although we were not told at the time there had been a clash of heads and Osipova had slight concussion.As McGregor seems to favour atmospheric lighting with dancers appearing and disappearing into darkness I sometimes think that he is very lucky that there are not more accidents. At the performance following the accident the audience was told that the new ballet would not be performed. If I recall correctly I think that the second cast were not at that point fully rehearsed and so the dancer in the second cast dancing the Osipova role was not available to cover for her. The audience was given the option of leaving and getting a complete refund or staying for the rest of the programme and getting a partial refund. At subsequent performances there was no problem as cover was available. It is very easy to get the wrong end of the stick if you are not present when such an unusual thing happens. I suspect that some people attending later performances got the impression that the refunds were being offered because Osipova was not dancing when it was the fact that management could not field a replacement dancer that led to the Opera House handing money back .

The Opera House dislikes refunds and is rarely reduced to handing ticket money back. The only other time that I recall it happening was with a performance of William Tell, long before the internet and e-mail, when someone key went sick on the day of the performance. Even now Tell is not the sort of repertory piece where you can fly someone in from Europe at short notice.The audience turned up at the allotted time and found that Tell had been cancelled. Our options were a full refund or stay for a glass of wine and an unscheduled Boheme. Fortunately for everyone the Tell cast included a lot of local singers who had appeared in the Copley production in different combinations. As I recall it was rather a good performance.