Angela Gheorghiu's Korea crisis

Angela Gheorghiu's visit to South Korea isn't going too well. 

First off, two of her planned four shows of La bohème with Vittorio Grigolo had to be cancelled after tickets sold poorly amidst overpricing complaints. The most expensive were 570,000 won, or over £300.

Then one of the remaining two performances was postponed due to Typhoon Bolaven - no, not another one of Angela's mystery illnesses, but the strongest storm to hit Korea in a decade. 

Now the remaining tickets are being flogged off at discounts of up to 87% - and even so, there are plenty remaining.

If things carry on like this, Angela might find herself reduced to actually turning up for her bookings to earn a crust.

Comments

[Chris]

Angela and Vittorio are scheduled for two performances and up to now only one has been postponed.
The other two performances should've had another Mimi and Rodolfo( Cedolines and Giordani)and those were canceled.

[Francis]

Ticket prices are simply too high in this tough economic environment, especially for something like opera, with its relatively small audience. Even the biggest stars have a hard time filling venues when they are performing far from their home turf and tickets are too expensive: there were a lot of unsold tickets left for Kaufmann's concert at Perelada in Spain on August 22.

[Pushed Up Mezzo]

There's always the cruise ships - audience and diva can't escape!

[EC]

Ticket pricing seems like a tricky thing to get right.. Here in London, the most expensive opera tickets go for £200+ and still, Les Troyens (recent production at Covent Garden) was completely sold out.. not to mention Domingo's Operalia night. What I find strange is single houses charging a huge range of prices for 'comparable' concerts in a single season. For example, piano recitals at the Barbican this season: £25 for Stephen Hough, £45 for Murray Perahia, £85 for Evgeny Kissin. Similarly £85 for Bartoli and £55 for Didonato. Wonder what everyone's thoughts are for how/whether policy should look for ticket pricing?

[Oroveso]

Ticket prices worldwide are constantly augmenting; I suspect managements will soon reach a friction/breaking point and have to come to some sort of accommodation with the public’s diminishing pocketbook and patience. Pricing is also beginning to resemble or emulate airplanes. In many theatres now each seat in a given section is probably being sold at a different rate; your neighbor may have paid more or less than you. As for the pricing for Gheorghiu it strikes me as ridiculous and I think the Korean public were justified in complaining. I realize she’s a major name today, but she’s just not THAT good. Nor is Grigolo. Even allowing for inflation and pro-rating it all out, I paid comparatively much less for genuine titans like Callas, Nilsson, Tebaldi, Sutherland, etal.

[Maria DF]

Interesting you should say that about airplanes and yield management. I had contacted ROH a while back complaining that (especially for re-runs which are less sought after), Friends - who book before anyone else) are stuck with full price tickets whilst later purchases usually benefit from discounts and promotions. The response was (as expected) that they wouldn't do anything about it, except reduce the top category pricing (from £210 to £175 this season, except for "star casts")
They could probably also resell or upgrade tickets on the night (all those empty seats make me feel sorry for the artists) etc etc, things that the travel industry has mastered for years. What about loyalty points??
So much could be done with today's technology it's a shame some of us pay too much for our tickets and worse, so many other tickets go unsold.
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Intermezzo replies - There are all sorts of things they could do - buy 10 tickets get one free, book for a less popular opera and get a discount on a big-seller, etc.

But as the ROH have only just worked out how to sell tickets online without crashing the website I doubt if we'll see any changes soon.