Lastminute.com Theatre Tickets "best seats" question?

bingobango_3

Has anyone booked tickets via Last minute for the theatre before?

They state that they contact the theatre to book the "best available" seats at the time of booking.

If I do a search on another well known ticket agency I can clearly see excellent tickets available (ie a few back from the stage).. If these are available and I book via lastminute.com, is it likely I will get similar seats.


(I am booking for a show approx month in advance),


thanks!

Mogra123

I have booked theatre tickets through lastminute.com a number of times and generally they have been reasonable seats for the price but I would say it is very misleading for them to claim they are the best available. I think a more accurate description would be that they are the best available seats in a batch of seats that the theatre are willing to make available at a reduced price.

The worst experience I had with lastminute.com was with "best available" tickets I bought for Les Miserables at the Queens theatre. The theatre was so quiet that night that only the first dozen or so rows of the stalls were filled. The theatre even closed the circle and put people with circle tickets in the next best rows in the stalls. However, the group of us with tickets purchased from lastminute.com were marooned at the back of the stalls beside the technicians' desks with a view quite heavily obscured by the overhanging circle. After the interval we moved to some empty seats much nearer the front but I was very disappointed with the whole experience and felt mislead by the descriptions used by lastminute.com.

I did contact lastminute.com about this and did not get a satisfactory response but despite this experience I have still booked further tickets with them but with my expectations of ticket quality suitably lowered.

Hope this doesn't put you off too much :-)

bingobango_3

Thanks for the reply, I actually ending up booking some yesterday, and took a print out of what available seats/tickets there are if I purchased direct, should we be given 'not the best availble' seats.

pcg2001

Last year 4 of us booked a 20£ deal with dinner and show (it said tickets of £20) for the Producers. It was Friday night, the house was full, we were stuck in the worst 4 places in the house: last row of the upper circle in the far right. I went down before the start of the show to complain, since those were the worst places in the house (and on top of that the ticket actually said £10) and there was another price band £10, but the person told me the the seats we were in were really £20 (I did not get a chance to see the seating plan, so cannot corroborate). From this experience (which was not so bad...) I conclude that the places are NOT allocated at the time of booking but at the very last minute and in our case those were really the last remaining places.

In other cases we have had more luck and when the house was really empy, like in Whistle down the wind we had really great stall seats for 15 (including dinner). In Lovesong we were also given really great stall seats (for 10) and the stalls were actually full, so the allocation must have occured earlier on.

In Underneath the Lintel, it said best available second price (15) and I was convinced we would get the second-to-last best places, but it was opening week and the guy at the ticket office said there were only 2 price bands (25 and 15) so we were stuck in the last row of the upper circle (in the middle section whihc was not so bad), but worst row in the house).

All in all, it has been a mixed experience, however I think some prices are always worth it. My advice is to print the webpage with the deal where they normaly include the price for which you are purchasing the deal. (Although it sometimes says "prices normally up to x"...)

Good luck!!:j

stormCat99

I think that when online ticket sites say 'Best available' it doesn't mean you will get the best seats in the entire venue, rather that you get the best seats that are currently left (i.e. available).

bingobango_3

Update - Seats were FANTASTIC - 2nd row in the stalls (2nd row from the stage)! Well pleased :j

dmg24

Great news bingobango,

What show was it for? x

bingobango_3

Chicago .

red_fraggle_2

I work in a theatre and asked one of our Ticket Office chaps about this, as we often use lastminute.com as agents. He told me that we receive an email from lastminute.com on the day of the booking and they then get allocated into the best available seats on that day.

So (assuming other theatres work the same way as we do), you will get the best seats that are available on the day that you book (note the best available though, not the best in the house. If it's a late-ish booking it's quite possible that all the good seats will already been gone)

Hope that helps