It isn’t often that ticket price-gouging hits the usually staid world of classical theater. That is, until Ian McKellen and the Royal Shakespeare Company decided to make a stop at UCLA’s Royce Hall to present “King Lear” and Chekhov’s “The Seagull.”
While both productions feature top-flight material, it’s the limited tickets for “King Lear” at the tiny 1,800-seat venue that has the ticket-buying world all worked up.
“UCLA Live has experienced high, frenzied demand on occasion, and some clamoring for tickets for high profile Royce Hall events, but there hasn’t been anything quite as dire as this, with celebrities begging for tickets and scalping at such astronomical prices,” said Shana Mathur, director of marketing and communications for UCLA Live.
Much of the buzz surrounding “King Lear” is attributable to McKellen, a renowned British actor who hasn’t appeared on stage often in recent years. The actor’s mainstream popularity has also soared since he took on the role of Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.
According to numerous published reports, some tickets for “King Lear” have fetched prices in the $1,500 range. Local ticket buyers haven’t been shy to shell out the big bucks necessary to gain entry to the popular production, but not everyone is willing to come up with the sky-high figures ticket brokers are asking for their inventory of the few tickets that remain available.
484,“I don’t want to pay over $500 a ticket. I‘ve gone to plenty of operas and Broadway shows for half that. It would unsettle my experience of the play that I had participated in this crazy frenzy,” said Christopher Griffin, of Los Angeles, who posted an ad on Craigslist seeking tickets. “I’m willing to pay a premium, but beyond that it just seems insane to me and I don’t think I’d enjoy myself at the show if I did.”
Ticket brokers are the unwitting beneficiaries of the mania surrounding these tickets. Some, such as the Web site Stubhub, have sold quite a few tickets for well over $1,000. There are currently few tickets still available for the show, but one local broker claims to have the market cornered.
Darren Greenly, from All Access Tickets in Beverly Hills, said that all of the publicity surrounding the tickets is hurting the market. He said it was easier to fetch the high prices before news hit the mainstream media because few people were willing to part with the tickets that originally sold out in July. Now that news of the inflated prices has made the rounds, ticketholders are coming out of nowhere looking to part with their passes.
597,“Royce Hall has been one of the most difficult venues to get tickets out of. It’s not a big theater and most of the seats went to [UCLA] subscribers. Everybody is coming out of the woodwork to sell their seats,” Greenly said this week.
He added that the prices may go down now that word is out and the supply is beginning to match the demand. He said that more people have contacted his agency trying to unload their tickets recently. All Access Tickets is boasting that they have the most tickets available for the show and are trying to move them as fast as possible to cash in on the craze.
While Greenly wasn’t too pleased now that prices have stabilized, he did say that the whole situation is “a dream come true” for ticket brokers.
Part of the reason ticket prices have gone through the roof is the fact that McKellen doesn’t appear on the stage very often. This is the first time he has appeared with the Royal Shakespeare Company in 17 years.
“When it comes to acting, he’s very picky,” said Greenly. “He’s pretty much the number one British actor out there and he rarely appears on stage.”
“King Lear” opens tonight at 7:30 p.m. on the campus of UCLA. It will run through Oct. 28. “The Seagull” opens Saturday at 7:30. UCLA representatives say that there may be a small number of no-shows and that there may be a limited supply of student rush tickets available at the box office prior to each show. daniela@smdp.com
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 19, 2007. Read the original PDF.