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Royal Opera House hits low note
by josh.speroMonday, April 5, 2010
The Royal Opera House's website in stasis
As anyone on the Royal Opera House's mailing list will no doubt be aware, today is the first day you can book for the new season. In theory.

Why in theory? Because currently I am number 1087 in the queue to get onto the website. Not even to buy tickets - just to see what there is to buy tickets for.

If you want to see anything in this summer's season (Manon with the divine Anna Netrebko, say), you may need to start queuing for returns now - or at least be prepared to pay for the most expensive seats, which are usually all that are left after such a scrum.

Last I heard, Lady Gaga was not appearing at Covent Garden, but we are witnessing the sort of demand on roh.org.uk which caused the Gaga's tickets to sell out in 15 minutes. ROH has been very clever at creating this demand - both through marketing and the genuine love of its patrons for going there - but the only music I'm hearing now is anguished sharps from computer keyboards.

Comments

Funny things have often happened with the RO's website. I know when I was just trying to find out the casting a couple of months back, I'd constantly be greeted with a notice telling me that the page was unavailable due to high ticket demand - and I didn't even want to buy a ticket. Their photo resource system hasn't yet embraced the 21st century... In both respects they should be looing to ENO or Glyndebourne for inspiration.

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