Old Vic £10 PWC previews

There were £10 tickets on offer for Girl From The North Country (I got a stalls seats about 10 rows back), but despite being informed they were on sale (and their website saying there are 'A Few Tickets Left') for A Christmas Carol, could not see any at all at a lower price.

They are/were usually for tickets in the first couple of weeks of previews, if you've signed up for them you should get an email from the Old Vic telling you when the book window opens (although you'll usually be in a queue for a couple of hours when they do go on sale, and it's the luck of the draw when it comes to getting a decent seat).

Anyone else receive an email from the Old Vic saying that they're no longer eligible for the PWC previews? I don't remember them being for a certain age range?

"We know that you have previously attended a performance at The Old Vic and we wanted to thank you for your support. The PwC £10 Previews scheme was created back in 2015 to inspire a new audience to visit our theatre and, since then, over 127,468 people have visited us for the first time.



We do hope you will come back, and, although you are no longer eligible for the scheme, we wanted to give you more information on how to visit."

Complete lack of any info in the email and zero eligibility criteria showing on the website. Replied and asked for more info...

I just spent fifteen minutes on the phone to Box Office. The PWC scheme now is only available to people who have never booked with the Old Vic before. Aside from telling them that the email is an absolute PR disaster in terms of the lack of information and the assumptions made, I have also pointed out to them that many people enjoy the fun of the PWC "lottery" - I mentioned that many of us on here give updates on queue progress, which number we are etc, all in the knowledge that it is basically a lottery process and sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. I told them that as a result of failing to secure seats through the PWC scheme, I have subsequently bought full price seats on the basis that I wanted to see a particular show anyway. I have made it clear that by excluding people from having the option to participate, they are denying themselves the conversion opportunity of securing a customer purchase from somebody who is already in the system and ready to spend.

What a stupid, ill-thought out, clunky way of telling patrons who have literally spent many thousands of pounds with the theatre over numerous years.

I will probably consciously spend less and opt to go to other theatres simply by virtue of not joining the mad PWC scramble. I probably "overspend" with the Old Vic anyway compared to other theatres, as it is convenient and one that (up until this point) i have been happy to support, in the understanding that some of the money I spend goes into community projects and good causes as well as perhaps more ambitious programming. The net result of this experiment will probably see loyal customers feel slightly less loyal and remind them that there are other theatres competing for business who might value their business more.

It's a corporate sponsorship which enabled a lottery that the Old Vic might otherwise not have been able to offer.   Yes, thanks to PwC for their sponsorship, and for the decent intention of trying to make theatre more accessible, but whilst it felt generous, it was simply a subsidy with a corporate badge on for a load of preview tickets.  Aside from a Christmas Carol, often the PwC allocation isn't exhausted so quite how they're going to find 500 fresh bums on seats for five previews of each show is going to be interested.  I guess it's an easy way to wind it all down.

Nothing changed on the OV website either - but then when an organisation can't even construct a decent customer email to inform them about the changes, why worry about updating the website(s)?  It is interesting to me how this is playing out.  If they had perhaps spent more than five minutes on the communication process, they could have spun this as: "Make room for some newbies!   For the next three productions, PwC tickets will be exclusively available to customers who have never bought tickets with the Old Vic before.  We are sorry for any disappointment caused but hope you will still take advantage of the range of prices we offer to book for one of our upcoming shows."

I wouldn't be surprised if the number of PwC seats are reduced or if the same number of seats are spread over more previews. 

I came on to see if anyone else understood the email as I bristled at its 'not wanted on voyage' tone. As said above, just a phrase along the lines of, 'you are no longer eligible as you have previously booked and the scheme is now for first-time Old Vic bookers only' would have been fine. Though I wonder how many of those they will find for some of the offerings. Still, it was good while it lasted and I certainly took a punt on productions I wouldn't have otherwise booked for,so there's that - for them and for me.

Very poor email communication, I read it and reread it and still couldn't make heads or tails of what was changing.

Presumably if you really wanted to get the £10 tickets still, there's nothing stopping someone booking with a different email address than the one that has previously booked the PWC tickets...

I don't think the Old Vic would amend a scheme and have it circumnavigating by people changing email addresses, I imagine it'll be a lot more stringent than that!

They don’t check ID on the door and they send tickets via email - so if you use a different email address and name/address, how would they know? Especially if you used a different payment method too.

Having said that I really don’t think it is worth the hassle to circumvent it!