Sunday Performances Yay or Nay?

I do recall the NT saying that Sunday performances sold slowest; I could never risk booking them as for a Travelex seat, that would have been before rail engineering work was announced. Plus NT matinees are always so awkwardly early that it's often impossible to see a film first, and I can't justify the time & money spent travelling just for one thing. But pub theatres do noticeably well on Sundays & some have 2 shows.

Figuring out how to quote multiple bits is doing my head in, so I'm being lazy and do it this way:

German railway network being quick and reliable? Don't make me laugh. I avoid German trains whenever I can. But Germany is a car-obsessed nation anyway. The cliche Sunday excursion here has always been Mom and Dad packing the kids into the car trundle off to some more or less interesting place nearby for a few hours.

I wouldn't mind seeing single holidays like Good Friday or Christmas Day being proper holidays with everything closed.

But everything being closed on Sundays is a huge annoyance. I work from Monday to Friday, so can only do quick grocery grabs during these days. If I have something planned for Saturday that prevents me from a bigger shop, I'm already flailing about. I'm not talking about clothes and such, though it's also a problem. My hometown Cologne is full of weekend tourists, including foreigners, who I'm sure would love to pop into shops here and there and thus boost the economy. And since everything is closed, local people don't even bother to go into the inner city, so it feels oddly deserted and boring.

A few years ago, a small town in the nearby Eifel decided to transform its "inner city" into one big outlet center to stop the city from bleeding dry and attract daytrippers. But they didn't get permission to open on Sundays. So what's the point in trying to be a commercial tourist attraction if you can't use the day when most people COULD come? Meanwhile, the outlet center across the Dutch border in Roermond is bursting with Germans every Sunday, as does the local supermarket across the Belgian border from Aachen.

I guess, my point is - not everything needs to be open on Sundays, but there shouldn't be a law that simply prohibits Sunday opening all around. If you want the tourist trade (like the place in the Eifel) let them open on Sundays. In a big city like Cologne I'm sure you find enough young people to staff the big shops in the central shopping streets to enable Sunday shopping. And beyond that - why not let the local grocery stores and newsagents decide for themselves if they want to be open on Sundays to serve the neighbourhood?

I thought it was a good idea when NT started Sunday performances and I went to a couple but it didn't feel quite right somehow so I wasn't bothered when they stopped them. I've been to Finborough a few times on a Sunday and oddly that feels OK.

Lousy bus & train service on Sunday.

Maybe!!!

Firstly I am not religious, don't believe in all that - if you don't get that last prayer in before death, you will have one of those wretched Mormon Hell Dreams, but conversely families are still important and that wholly includes artists and theatre professionals as well, they aren't slaves. So if theatre employees do 2 shows Saturday, 1 show Sunday and Tuesday to Friday evening, this only allows employees to see their families on a Monday evening, which for me sounds very mean and Dickensian.

So a fair compromise is to do 2 shows on a Sunday, if you come in to do 1 show you might as well do 2 shows and then go dark on a Monday and Tuesday night off, returning for a Wednesday matinee or evening performance. Harry Potter does this now and for me this is fair and keeps a happier workforce, which can often be reflected in performances.

In London it is possible to see more shows in a week than New York, due to a Tuesday and Thursday matinee. I do understand the people who come to visit London and want to maximise their day.

Also you need a feet up day to watch the soccer!!!

Thanks, that's good to know. I was wanting to quote different bits from Monkey's single post though and thought I could find a way to have the quotes in separate blue boxes with my replies in white in-between.

For everyone to have a decent break is important; the issue is how to balance the fact that for many people, the main opportunity to do so is still at the weekend. I always loved shift-work precisely because I wasn't forced to be off when so many others were & obliged to face crowds and higher prices, and by actually preferring to work weekends and bank holidays, I was enabling colleagues to have time off. But that doesn't work for theatre professionals, does it?! I still dread to recall deadly dull childhood Sundays when everything was shut & I longed for normal life to resume, even if that meant school. I wouldn't like to return to Sundays like those.

Agree, who would want to go back to those horrid and draconian days, when everything shut so everyone can go to church (well suppose it is a type of acting). On the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebridies they still lock up the swings on a Sunday (go figure).

Gosh, yes: the village where I grew up had "early closing" on Wednesdays, and this was only half an hour from London. OK, it was last century but seems like the Dark Ages now.

Hi @supertrooper thanks for your input!

I'm also in favour of more matinees/mixing up the matinees- feels like it doesn't impact performers/techies/theatre staff as much but allows for more performances (personally love a 'late' Friday matinee too- the 5.30 ones that some shows have done)

Yes a Friday 3 is also great, as it allows for maybe a cheeky Friday afternoon off work (if local) and still an evening, because personally I'm old and grumpy and like a Friday evening on my sofa...!

Good post and more relevant as it is straight from the 'Horses Mouth' as to say. So on my last post I did suggest if you did do 2 shows on a Sunday, would it be a good trade off, if the theatre is dark on a Monday/Tuesday, so therefore having 2 whole days off, like Harry Potter does, would that suit your family life better?

I am a supporter of more matinees and theatre staff working 5 days a week, we are in the 21st Century. If we looked at a spreadsheet of theatre ticket sales for each show, obviously Thursday - Sunday is the most busiest, however performances outside these times, you can be flexible.

Friday matinees are a good idea - didn't In the Heights do this, at Kings Cross? We seeing a trend now where shows are doing 3 matinees a week now.