Head of Estonian Theatre Union: Theatre Ticket Prices Should Be Lower

Tickets for the most popular January and February productions of the Estonian Drama Theatre in Tallinn went on sale on Monday, 3 November, and sold out within minutes. The first buyers began queuing outside the theatre at four in the morning. Gert Raudsep, chairman of the Estonian Theatre Union and an actor at the Drama Theatre, argues that scarce tickets are not the main problem facing theatres. In his view, high prices are far more serious.

Mixed feelings

Speaking on the TV programme Ringvaade, Raudsep said the rush leaves him with mixed feelings: it is gratifying that auditoriums are full, but spontaneity disappears. He recalled similar periods at the City Theatre and, in his youth, at the Ugala theatre, where tickets for many productions were very hard to get. According to him, this happens to theatres in waves.

Survey on prices

Raudsep pointed to a study commissioned by the Ministry of Culture on why people do not attend cultural events. In the survey, 44% of respondents said they would like to go to the theatre more often but cannot afford it because prices are too high. A further 58% named excessively high ticket prices as the reason they attend less often, while difficulty obtaining tickets ranked only fourth, at 31%.

He said ticket prices depend on how the state funds theatres. Raudsep compared theatre with national television and radio, which are publicly funded and must be accessible to everyone; in his view theatre should be too, since everyone is a taxpayer.

Four-ticket limit

On Monday the Drama Theatre applied a limit for the first time: one buyer could purchase no more than four tickets per performance. Raudsep said this helped ease the situation to some extent. Most people in the queue did reserve tickets, he said. There are no secret solutions for coping with such demand; everyone is working at the limit of their capacity, and productions are created for specific venues, so moving to stadiums would make no sense.