Sinister: Albert Hall

[Mark]

Just thought I'd clear a few thing up as it was me who first planted the
seeds of thought about a gig at the Albert Hall.

It holds about 3000 on an Ordinary Let. It's actual capacity is 3771 but
you can't sell all the seats because the hall sold 999 year leases on some
of them to raise money when it was built. These seats tend to get used
because the owners sell their tickets on if they don't fancy seeing the
show themselves.
There are also choir seats and some really bad sightline seats which you
can't really sell.

As it's in London and (some would argue) fairly prestigious, you can
guarantee that Belle and Sebastian would sell more tickets there than they
did for Manchester. If you allow for people going to more than one show,
there must've been just under 2000 people at the Manchester gigs.
Add to that the inevitable guest list that you get with London shows and
you've got a sell-out on your hands.

With regard to the floor, it would need to be seated as this helps the
sound (oh no - not this again!). If you do standing on the floor, the 'top
end' is soaked up by the first few rows leaving a muddy mess for everyone
else to listen to. Spiritualized were gutted when they found out that the
floor was standing at their show, because they're all really into the sound
and didn't want to have to compromise.

You can't do unreserved seating. If you sell every single seat and it's
unreserved with no standing, you'd end up with pockets of empty seats that
no-one really wants to sit in but are forced to because there's nowhere
else.

And it's not poncey, it's just like any other hall except is called the
'ROYAL' Albert Hall. And the person who said backstage was grotty was
absolutely right.

But it IS architecturally interesting so maybe they should try it.

Mark


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