Why are West End theatre ticket prices soaring?

A survey of West End theatre prices has found that ticket prices have rocketed, with top-priced seats for musicals reaching £300 and a 50% rise in the average cost of premium play tickets.

When top prices are "well into three figures" and many theatregoers are deciding that "trips to the theatre are strictly for Christmas and birthdays", it's easy to conclude that "greed" is "killing the West End", said The Times.

'Courting redundancy'

Industry journal The Stage found that the average cost of premium West End tickets rose by 9.3% this year. Three plays – "Romeo & Juliet", "Stranger Things" and "Player Kings" – are now offering tickets costing more than £200, the first time this milestone has been passed since the journal's records began. For the well-reviewed  "The Picture of Dorian Gray" even some obscured-view tickets were priced at more than £100.

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There was a smaller year-on-year price increase for musicals, but "Cabaret", starring Cara Delevingne, was selling top-price tickets at a "staggering" £304, said The Independent. 

It's "not all bad news for theatre lovers", as there was a decrease in the average cheapest West End ticket prices, costing £28.58 – a 3.4% drop. Society of London Theatre president Eleanor Lloyd said that top-drawer ticket prices were not representative of the average theatregoer's experience. "Almost a quarter of the tickets sold in the West End last year were for under £30, and just 13% were bought for more than £100," she said.

However, rising prices are worrying some actors, including Dominic West, Derek Jacobi and David Tennant, who have complained for some time that theatre is "courting redundancy" by "putting itself beyond the reach of much of the population", said The Guardian in March.

'Lightbulbs and loo rolls'

The "argument for the status quo" of increasing ticket prices is that production costs are "going up and up", said The Times. Indeed, West End theatre is actually "getting cheaper in real terms" when you compare price rises to inflation.

The average price of a set has risen 50%, said Nica Burns, whose company Nimax owns six West End theatres, as "electricity, wage rises, basics have gone up hugely" and ticket prices "haven't gone up to match that".

An anonymous insider pointed out that with the budget having to include everything from "theatre rental, advertising and marketing, rehearsals" to "lightbulbs" and "loo rolls", the costs of putting on a play are "enormous".

The decision by the producers of "Slave Play", to make 30 tickets for each show available on a pay-what-you-can basis is a "limited but welcome corrective", said The Guardian. Theatre "relies on audiences" not only for income but "for the direction of the art form itself", so any initiative to "broaden and diversify" audiences, and to "prevent drama from becoming the pursuit of a moneyed elite", is a "service to all of us".

"Do your ticket shopping last minute" if you want a bargain, said the Radio Times, because "sometimes if a show hasn't sold enough and there are lots of seats remaining, prices will plummet for last-minute buyers".

Meanwhile, Londoners could take solace from the fact that prices have yet to reach the heights seen on Broadway, where average seat prices are more than 60% more expensive than the West End. Some tickets for the revival of Stephen Sondheim's "Merrily We Roll Along" went for an eye-watering $648 (£510).