Letters: Festival Hall

Publications by New Journal Enterprises

Home

Archive

Competition

West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published:10 April 2009

Crying shame the Festival Hall free music has gone

• THERE have been frequent proclamations since the Royal Festival Hall reopened after refurbishment that the free music that was available for one and half hours from 12.30pm to 2pm on Wednesdays through to Sundays would be reintroduced.
We were always very cynical about these assurances and were not impressed by the poor response in answering our letters in a very lengthy and costly spell of correspondence with the Royal Festival Hall.
We decided to terminate our dealings with them after we attended a meeting.
This was arranged because they realised we were becoming very angry people.
It was attended by myself and two other colleagues.
It ended in complete farce!
No agenda or minutes were issued, therefore there is absolutely no record of the meeting ever taking place.
So what was the point in the meeting?
It has since been admitted that the music will not be reintroduced.
This is a crying shame since the music was of excellent quality which was much appreciated by a following of several hundred people.
Ken Livingstone thankfully had recognised that the Royal Festival Hall should provide free music for people who could not afford the normal shows.
These people include the retired, unemployed, mums and children, immigrants, disabled and tourists.
It has always been very pleasing to see all these folk really enjoying themselves!
The Royal Festival Hall has changed the programme in favour of one to provide a number of free events from a range of art forms including music.
So far these have not proved very popular with the groups of people mentioned above.
The Royal Festival Hall is fortunate that for tax reasons they have charity status which gives them a lot of advantages including funding from the Arts Council.
In April 2007, the Arts Council made a total award of £16.5million which included £7.2million to meet the final shortfall in funding for the refurbishment of the Royal Festival Hall.
So they have no need to worry should their change of direction result in lower revenue since they will be protected by the Arts Council.
We have complained to the Arts Council about our dissatisfaction with the Royal Festival Hall regarding levels of service received.
We were reassured by an excellent reply.
They said they were aware of some of the bad publicity the South Bank received on opening and believe that the management team there are taking good steps to address some of our concerns, in particular the marketing and customer service standards.
Douglas Walters
Tudor Court, Sidcup

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld.
Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

Comment on this article.
(You must supply your full name and email address for your comment to be published)

Name:

Email:

Comment: