Young vic 2021

This is what I think every theatre should do really if they can. It just makes sense to me - I don't think it will have an impact on in-person ticket sales because having watched various livestreams over the last year they don't compare to the real thing, so why not get a little extra money from people who would like to see the show but can't be there in person whether it be because they live too far away or they don't have time to spare travelling and seeing a 2+ hour show? It presumably must be cheaper than obtaining the rights for filming a pro-shot and having a complicated set up for that etc. so it just seems like a no-brainer to me and I'm surprised we haven't seen more theatres say they plan to do the same.

Agree that restricting it to only 500 people is an odd idea. Why ? Doing that for two performances per run as is suggested neither significantly increases access (via his mythical family in Cincinnati who supposedly will benefit) nor income (Young Vic seating capacity is 550 so it's equivalent to income from two extra performances).

Very much looking forward to the James Graham and interested to hear more about 'Changing Destiny'. Can't wait to get back to the YV.

I think that might also have to do with rights issues? I think for Hymn at the Almeida they said couldn't sell more tickets than there were seats in the theatre and so had to add more dates when it sold out. I don't know how things work with getting rights to livestream/film shows but I imagine it's largely a negotiation with the rights holder, creatives and actors (getting people to agree to one or two livestreams is going to be cheaper than getting them to agree to a permanently available film of the performance - to my understanding that's why NTLive was never available beyond the initial or encore screenings until now because it wouldn't be worth the costs) so maybe 500 tickets is the upper limit of what the Young Vic think they'll get away with asking for? Or maybe it's not that at all and it's all just artificial scarcity to panic people into buying for fear of missing out.

Whatever it is it's obviously more complicated than one might think or else it would have been more common before now, but I can't see how livestreams of shows with even middling popularity wouldn't make their money back when you open up the market essentially to the world, especially when bootlegs seem to have risen in popularity and availability in recent years.