THEATRE METHODS

Evening Star, Issue 20317, 28 October 1929, Page 11

THEATRE METHODS

TO THE EDITOR. Sir, —Could you tell me as to the legal right of theatre managements in regard to seats at performances. Hie Majesty’e Theatre is divided into three separate portions—dress circle, orchestral stalls, and pit. Seats can be booked for either circle or stalls, and early-door tickets f or the pit can be obtained during the day. A good management should know how many reserves and early-door tickets are obtained before the lime for opening the doors, and those people who go early to get a ticket at the door should not have to wait, and there be shown into a few backseats, while dozens of good seats nearer the stage go begging. It seems to me this is a point which needs defining by law, and the .sooner it ia settled the better for both management and genera! public. As a case in point, I attended ‘ The Desert Song' on Saturday evening; arrived at 5.45, and waited in the queue until earlydoor tiokethoklors had obt"’ned admittance. When my friend and I got inside we found only a few seats left in the very back row of the pit. Barring four seats at the back, this place had been roped off as early-ctc.il seats. At 8 o’clock, when most people were seated, judge of my amazement to see four or five rows in the centre of the pit unoccupied, and the same in the orchestral stalls—dozens of seats there that would have accommodated all the early-slell ticketholdere. Apart from being most annoying to early attcuders, this method is certvnly very bad management, and shows a lack of consideration for the people whose money the company managers wish to get, and the sooner the general public are aware of the legality of such proceedings, and the right definition of scats in a theatre, the better pleased we shall all be.—l am, etc., Non-reserved. October 28.