Theatre ticket sales in the spotlight

November 18, 2008 by admin · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Industry, Theatre 

There is so much that’s good about British theatre that it’s a shame that those that run it are so behind the times. The West End continues to produce some top class musicals that are exported worldwide and its plays often feature the very best actors around. Josh Hartnett is the latest star to leave the comfort and megabucks of the Hollywood Hills to tread the boards in London. But despite the UK’s excellent track record of attracting the cream of the world’s acting talent, one recent development suggests that its theatre intelligentsia have some way to go before reaching the Age of Enlightenment.

Huge online sales for David Tennant’s West End debut in Hamlet have prompted the Royal Shakespeare Company to announce that it would render void any ticket found to have been re-sold. The RSC is tracing re-sellers through the seat number included in their online advertisements for tickets. What would the RSC prefer – a return to the old days of touts lurking outside venues? A complete lack of consumer protection? If their intention is to pursue touts, then they are going about it the wrong way – the statistics show most UK sellers (85 per cent) on Seatwave sold fewer than six tickets last year.

The law in this area is vague and untested. The snappily-titled Unfair Contract Terms Guidance, updated last month, seeks to establish a fair balance between the rights of consumers and suppliers. Seatwave has always asserted that the terms and conditions with which event organisers seek to bind consumers are unfair. The lack of refunds, exchanges, returns and a ‘no right to re-sell’ policy could all potentially be challenged under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations. Given that, at one time or another, we’ve all faced the prospect of not being able to make an event – for whatever reason – for which we’ve already bought a ticket, practices such as those exhibited by the RSC simply don’t face up to reality.

The secondary market is a classic case of supply and demand. It provides an invaluable function and operates to find the optimum price that fans are prepared to pay for a ticket. And re-selling theatre tickets is not against the law. The sooner the RSC realises that pursuing its own fans will simply serve to alienate them, the better for theatre lovers everywhere.

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