Mamma mia! Up go West End ticket prices again

A survey from The Stage magazine conducted this year found that the most expensive tickets to events had risen by five per cent from the previous year. One high (or low) point was Giant, on earlier this year and starring John Lithgow as Roald Dahl, which The Times found a ticket going for £436.Theatre is one of London’s most beloved cultural gemstones — 17.1 million people see a play here every year. And yet, it has rarely felt so inaccessible to the people that live there. What is going on? As is often the case, a peek beneath the sensationalist headlines reveals deeper problems at play — ones that stretch across the entirety of the capital’s theatre scene, from the big name West End theatres to the smaller ones dotted around the city’s boroughs.According to The Stage, the average top ticket price for plays rose 50 per cent between 2023 and 2024 — from £94.45 to £141.61. Two decades ago, even the highest-priced West End tickets were only going for between £50-60; that’s quite a leap.It’s not just the high-end tickets, either: perhaps more worryingly, the average cheapest ticket price rose too, from £24.58 to £30.55. According to The Stage’s snap survey, these bottom-line ticket prices are rising at around 25 per cent a year. When wages aren’t increasing at the same rate, that’s quite a hit to the average audience member’s pocket.