Is the Old Vic's choice of ticketing for Lungs reinforcing what is bad about theatre?
10/06/2020
Anyone else wondering why the Old Vic has decided to sell tickets for the live-streamed performances of Lungs in the way it has?
And by that, I mean pricing tickets and limiting the numbers as if people are actually coming to watch it in the theatre.
You don't get a better seat for £65 but you might have to pay that when the cheaper seats sell out.
Actors Matt Smith and Claire Foy who star are a big draw and the queues to get on the website have been in the thousands (I joined at 8,000+ and 7 hours later haven't made it onto the site).
Surely, given the demand, they could have sold unlimited tickets at a fixed price - say £20 - and made more money on an extremely limited number of performances.
It would open up theatre to a broader audience, not just those for whom the ticket prices are mostly prohibitive but also those who live too far away.
By adopting this conventional form of ticketing at such an unconventional time it feels like it is just reinforcing theatre's image of being an exclusive pass time for the affluent.
Or am I missing something?