Royal Albert Hall Reviews 105

I waited in the virtual waiting room for about 40 minutes before getting to the front of the queue for tickets. Not a problem. Selected my tickets and added them to my basket ready for payment. Then I was asked to register or login… I didn’t remember that I’d ever registered before but I must have done;I just couldn’t remember my password.
1) I asked to rest my password.
2) I received an email with a link to reset my password.
3) I clicked on the link which took me back to the waiting room with 150 people ahead of me.
Repeat steps 1-3 indefinitely.
Inevitably, I lost my chosen tickets and was ultimately unable to make a purchase. Not a happy guest.

I normally do not right a review but my experience has left me very frustrated
I booked a weekday ticket for an event. I added ticket protection from Booking Protect which Royal Albert Hall recommend.
I have a longtime mental health condition . I function very well ,work and enjoy life . However at times I dip fast and unable to enjoy anything. Hence I always take out ticket protection.
Unfortunately neither the Royal Albert Hall or Booking Protect where able to be supportive or understanding.
Royal albert hall returned an email saying 'our policy is no refunds'
I contacted Booking protection and they aknowledge the evidence I provided would lead to a refund however they need a DR Letter on headed paper and the DR to confirm that I am unable to attend the proformance
Dr appointments are like gold dust and there is a cost
Royal albert hall sold my ticket again so they received payment twice
At this time of financial preasure this experience has effected me in a negative way . It made me realise I will not be able to enjoy early bird discounts or Booking in advance . I will have to pay the higher price on the day to enjoy shows.

When we came to the concert by Anoushka Shankar yesterday we understood that the seats would have a restricted view. However, we did not anticipate that we would be completely unable to see her at any point of the concert. With a bit more thought given to the sage layout we felt it would’ve been possible to make the main artist visible from all seats. However this is not the main reason for our feeling mislead by the seat being sold and having a restricted view.

Our main concern related to the appalling sound quality at the concert. After we got over the initial surprise that we would not be able to see Anoushka Shankar at all we relaxed with the thought that we had come to listen to her music. Sadly when the concert started and Anoushka Shankar was introducing her work we realised that there was something very wrong with the acoustics, either due to the building or the speaker system or both.
The amount of sound reverberation and echo was so bad we could not understand any of the introductory talk.

We relaxed a little during her initial Sitar solo, when the sound seemed to improve, but once the main orchestra started to play the problem of reverberation and echo was very evident and continued for much of the performance. This completely marred the quality of Anoushka Shankars work.

At times it also sounded like there may have been a problem with sound mixing. The combined effect made the concert feel more like being part of a mass audience trying to listen to very badly recorded music blasted over an appalling loudspeaker system. At no point did it sound like a live concert of music played by professional musicians on classical instruments.

We felt like leaving several times during the concert but kept saying to ourselves we should ignore the appalling acoustics and stick with it out of respect for Anoushka Shankar and the other musicians work. In the end we just gave up and left 20 minutes early, extremely disappointed. Even though we are sure that in a carefully selected concert venue with acoustics that matched the nature of Anoushka Shankars work the concert would have been wonderful.

We realise the Royal Albert Hall has a history of acoustic problems which despite considerable effort have not been fully resolved. It’s a guess but the more recent installation of new sound systems may have improved acoustics for many of the seats but not all of them. Perhaps an audit of sound quality should be undertaken of seats like the ones we had. This would enable decisions to be made about whether or not selling those particular seats for specific concerts is appropriate. Perhaps they should be just left empty or at very least also sold with a warning that the sound quality is bad as well having a restricted view of the stage.

Our seats were on Rausing Circle Row 6 seats 8 and 9

The Royal Albert Hall is a wonderful building, but the Friends and Patrons ticket service, which you pay extra for, is a nonsense. Logging in / getting through the queue to make a purchase is harder than invading a country.

Went to see Yeah Yeah Yeahs 18.06 and due to not being able to stand for the whole concert I went to an usher called Catherine explained my predicament and a supervisor called Imogen came to speak to me asked if there was any feedback for the box office when the tickets were booked and immediately gave me alternative tickets suitable for my access requirements. I have had access issues for years now and have found it difficult to personally come to terms with and also to approach staff at events about my requirements and as my disability is not visible the above mentioned staff were exceptional and Imogen assisted with absolutely no hesitation. Thank you so very much your assistance and professionalism which is a credit to both you and the Royal Albert Hall

Fantastic venue.
Drink prices are absolutely ridiculous.
They even ask you at the bar if your ok with the price before the pour it.
I did say to the bar person ,if you have to ask you know it's to much .
£22 for a lge white wine !!!
£5 For a bottle of water?
Not good RAH you could do better ,shame !

Amazing venue, I have been to various venues worldwide and this tops it. Yes, it's old, the seats are upright and small gaps, the corridors are wonky, the toilets are 150 years old, but that is part of the charm. The food and drink was the price you would expect in a top London venue, it's not a sausage roll and coffee shop, it's the Albert Hall. Considering its history, who has performed there and its age, I don't think you can get batter. The acoustics are amazing.

Fantastic Massed bands concert great seats quite high up staff were excellent my partner was struggling to walk when we got there on of the staff got us a wheelchair and a nice
young lady called Stephanie took us up in the lift and took us to our seats I would to thank them very much and fantastic show

I would like to thank Billy in the ticket office.Billy your customer service is first class, you went above and beyond contacting me when a Sumo ticket became available from somebody's basket.This was an amazing act of kindness.My husband will be having this for his 65th birthday present
Thankyou again.
Kind Regards Karen.

Imogen the Supervisor relocated us after

Booked Cirque du Soleil at Royal Albert Hall 17 Jan 2025. Staff attendants very good, friendly and helpful. But, WHY does the venue allow late arrivals to come into the arena LATE during the performance upsetting those having to accommodate these people? They should wait until the intermission!

Having bought two tickets in October for an event in December, so I decided to go for the booking protection just in case if ever I or my friend were not able to attend, as the tickets are non refundable. So it transpires I do needed to ask for a refund of one of the tickets, I was then hit by their T&C. So, your asked to provide a doctors note, explain your illness, or how you've been injured. I'm amazed you must provide a death certificate for a family bereavement, the list goes on. It's like I'm at a back to work interview at work interview, and not asking for a £11.82 refund.

Maybe I should of looked at the T&C before I paid to booking protection, however, they need to make it much more clear before you choose that option.

We came on a coach trip for the Carol Service. The whole experience was stunning - beautiful singing and aesthetics and the whole crowd contributed to a good atmosphere. The presenter was particularly good at her job I thought. Thank you so much for the hours of dedication that musicians and singers put into being so good. And it all came together in a magical setting. Thank you

Table booked at the Elgar Room Brasserie for 17:45 for a concert which began at 19:45 - as I thought two hours would give us enough time to eat and get to our seats in plenty of time. However, I had not banked on the poor service and bad food. The £44 bottle of white wine was warm not cold. The starters were cold not warm. The main course was not quite as expected. The menu said “Roasted crown of Norfolk turkey, apricot and sage stuffing, root vegetables, Brussels sprouts, chestnuts, garlic and herb roasted potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, pigs in blankets, sherry jus” – the turkey roulade with the stuffing was fine, the roast potatoes were fine, however there were no “pigs in blankets”, there was just one “pig in a blanket” all the other vegetables looked as if they had all been put together in a food processor and blitzed – so there were no identifiable individual vegetables. My dessert (a delicious-sounding “Chocolate orange, chocolate mousse, burnt orange jam”) tasted of nothing. My husband’s dessert (supposedly “Mulled wine poached pear, vanilla ice cream, chocolate and pistachio crumb”) was so hard that he had to cut it with a steak knife! When asked if we wanted our (included) coffee with or after dessert, we both said “after”. The coffee then appeared “before” the dessert.
The waiter and maitre d’ were not communicating with each other, which meant that they were both asking us separately if we wanted water, order drinks, give our food orders etc. The service was very slow and confusing. The first bill included a £26 tip, which I declined to pay as the service was so bad. The bill was taken away, the service charge removed and the cost of the desserts was removed, but we were kept waiting for about 20 minutes until the revised bill was returned, by which time the concert was about to start. They insisted we were given a free glass of wine to make up for their lapses. Afterwards there was a horrendous queue to use the loos, so we just managed to get to our seats with about 30 seconds to spare before the concert started - having made everyone in the row stand up in order to get to our seats. Thus we finally arrived in our seats very cross and completely stressed, which completely spoiled the atmosphere for us.
I found the actual space a bit like a high-ceilinged barn – lacking in atmosphere and not the intimate, expensive restaurant I had expected. I would recommend anyone else planning to eat at the RAH, to eat at Verdi, where we had previously had an excellent meal with extremely fast service and give Elgar a miss.

The concert was great BTW!

Went to Bob Dylan’s concert last night and it was a complete disappointment. Could not hear ( I do not have a hearing issue ) what he was singing ( mumbling) and we left early.

Thank you very much to the kind staff at the Royal Albert Hall on 21 October 2024 at the Classic FM concert. After a ticket scam and double booking of our seats, they let us sit in a marvellous box instead of us having to leave. Very very grateful 🙏

This review is of an arrogant merchandise seller, i joined the lineup along with other punters at david gilmour show 12th October to purchase some merchandise when I got to the front after 15 minutes an aggressive arrogant seller informed me he was not going to serve me as I pushed in, I have a disability and was in pain after waiting in line, I told him I had not and my wife backed me up, he reluctantly served me, at that moment he was the face of the albert hall, and so my inertraction with royal albert hall was bloody awful. He deserves to be sacked.

We attended the Doctor Who Proms yesterday evening and had pretty reasonable seats facing the stage in the Rausing Circle. However, the venue is cashless which is divisive and discriminatory and of course, the contactless would not work in the shop thereby giving me the opportunity to promote the "CASH IS KING and works every time", message. The card reader finally worked on inserting my card and entering the pin number which seemed a ridiculous amount of faff for a £3.50 fridge magnet when a cash transaction would have been far quicker and easier. The Programme was not a patch on the ones produced for the 50th Anniversary DW Proms and at £6 was an expensive Ad Mag. The prices in the Cafe Bar were nothing more than legalised extortion. A "Special Offer" of a pint and a sausage roll was £13!!!! For three of us that came to £39!!! They called it a "sausage roll" when in fact it was the size of about 1/3 of a regular sized sausage roll. There was an awkward moment when our "food" was heated and ready to collect as the server kept calling out "George! George!" in true Costa Coffee style, when in fact my husband's name is James. The cost was nothing more than legalised extortion and really should be reported to a higher authority, possibly an Ombudsman of some kind. I don't know where this cash grab is going, but it is certainly not being spent on keeping the Ladies' Lavatories in good working order as the ones I went into had open cubicles that were Out of Order, and ugly tape strewn across them. Not a pleasant experience for somewhere as historic, iconic and beautiful as the RAH. The staff were friendly and helpful. The Doctor Who Proms themselves were very enjoyable and we did have a lovely time, however, the Proms were not up to the standard of the first Doctor Who Proms that we had attended 11 years previously (2013) when my daughter (then aged 15) managed to get a lovely photo taken with the conductor of the time, Ben Foster. That photo is a cherished memory of the 50th Anniversary DW Proms with lots of guests and monsters and lovely staff who moved us to seats with better legroom for my husband who had been diagnosed with cancer. They were very kind and helpful which was lovely under such awful circumstances . A lot of last night's performance seemed rather under-rehearsed. That said, we came away having thoroughly enjoyed it, the sticking point being the obscene cafe prices. A mixed bag of experiences this time around. Fingers crossed it improves in the future.

It is an exceptional venue hosting so many fantastic events. Get the chills every time I am there.

The downside is that tickets with a good viewing are very expensive and I can rarely afford them.

Otherwise, I love everything about the venue and plethora of events happening. Cannot wait for my next experience.

at the homage to Nick Drake last night. Could see quite adequately. Our cup of tea we ordered was ready with our diet cokes and bottle of cider. In the break our sandwiches were delivered. ok.60 tickets 45 food but it was a birthday. A Staff member checked all was ok in the interval. nice gesture. music mostly good but the brass, the timpani was tooooo loud and grated somewhat. All in all, very good.