Radio City Music Hall
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
1260 6th Avenue,
New York,
NY
10020
116 people
favorited this theater
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Well, the curtain used at the beginning of the wooden soldier scene is actually one of the scrims that we used to project “Marshmallow Moon” in years past. The tour bus was a pain in the ass. The whole front fell off during one show. There were many other mechanical problems during other shows which prevented it from coming out on stage. One time during a turn, it stopped and the Rockettes had to dance around it. During breaks I would here them talking about “another problem with the bus” over the box. It was funny at times. I am hoping also that some of the other projection will return next year. I am pretty sure the 3-D is safe. And as far as filling Bob’s shoes, they are pretty big to fill but I will do my best.
I also forgot to mention in my post above that one of my favorite parts of the show was the mini history lesson on the History of the Music Hall. It actually brought a tear to my eye when they talked about how close the Hall came to being closed forever back in ‘78. Luckily it was saved, literally at the last minute and many generations to come will be able to enjoy this grand theater as we have.
After the show, I walked outside and tried to imagine what it would have been like to have had not just Radio City, but The Roxy down the Street and The Capitol one block away. All with a minimum of 5,000 seats and all with stage shows. All within a single block! Radio City is truly the last of its kind. Since it is the last theater in the world that still presents a stage show, it is the last theater where a patron can truly imagine what it must have been like way back when. The only disappointment is that they don’t have periodic movie engagements.
Great post Luis, nice to hear your thoughts.
RCDTJ, A curtain is in use I wondered about. One scene where you see it used is at the start of the Wooden Soldiers, it looks very much like the old travelor that was removed a few years back for a Disney show. The curtain went up as the Rockeete’s filed in, Althogh it went up instead of opening like a traveler, I wondered if they put the original traveler curtain back in for the show.
It looks like the tour bus was difficult from a technical point of view. It must have been awful went it fouled up.
I am keping my fingers crossed for sosme of the projection in the show to be put back in and sure hope the 70mm 3-D remains as well.
Please keep us posted. After Bob left the Hall I was afraid we were not going to be kept up to date on the goings on there. Thankfully you came along to fill Bob’s shoes. His posts were/are some of the most informative and educational we have here at CT.
Luis, I’m glad you liked the 3-D. Don’t expect to see the tour bus again next year though. There were problems after problems with it the whole time. I too think it is worth the money seeing. I probably saw it over 200 times this year and I would take my kids to see it. I do miss some of the scenes from previous years though.
I just saw the show last night, and I respectfully disagree with the old Rockette who was disappointed. I thought it was the best Christmas show that I’ve seen Radio City in the last three decades. The 3D sleigh ride is fun and the stalwart March of the Wooden Soldiers was masterfully performed. The show’s tour bus number was a pretty amazing technical feat and the dancing Santas was great fun. The show had fireworks on stage, snow falling over the audience and, of course, the incredible Living Nativity scene (yes, with camels). We took our 12 year old niece and she was captivated by the performance. By the way, it was nice to see both organs playing before and after the show.
For me, it is definaitely worth the $100 ticket; especially when I compare it to a Broadway show where orchestra seats are between $110 and $120.
Oldjoe, you sound very much like Cineplex Odeon management just before we went bankrupt.
I can’t be the only person to notice that anyone actually SAW the show this year is recommended it on this post, and the only detractors are people who didn’t see the show this year.
An old rockette saw it did not like it, i saw it ten years ago and did not like it, it is too expensive, well maybe its not that expensive but still won’t go, and the best one yet – i don’t like parades LOL !!! but you still want to know if there are camels, or do they still play organ….or is there still an orchestra ….HA HA HA
OK …the people who like the show will go and we will tell all the others who want NOTHING to do with show EVERYTHING about it
case closed
Well attendance definitely wasn’t lacking this year. The show did very well. I would definitely spend my money and bring my kids.
Talking to a friend of mine who was a Rockette in the late 50’s. She was also in MUSIC MAN and MOST HAPPY FELLA. She told me she attended the Christmas show two weeks ago and was very dissapointed. Not worth the money. While it wasn’t terrible by any means, she was just not happy with the performance or staging. She realizes things do change over the years, but she said this would be the last time she would attend. Even living in Conneticuit, it wasn’t worth the trip. Now this is from someone who PERFORMED AT THE HALL for over a year. Interesting, especially after reading all of the pro and cons from the previous comments.
For those of you who may have missed it, the Christmas Spectacular, shown on NBC last week, is being repeated on Bravo,
Monday 12/24 and Tuesday 12/25
Thanks for that historic ad, Warren. Note the difference in billing between Astaire and Ginger Rogers. This was their first film toghether and they had obviously not yet been established as the celebrated dancing team that would go on to co-star in nine subsequent films for RKO and (for their swan song) MGM.
Thank you REndres for answering the mysteries of the side soundproof booths at RCMH I’ve pondered about for years. It’s my favorite magic theater in the World. Many years ago I was fortunate enough to be given a one person tour of Music Hall by then Rockette Carol Harbich who showed me around during her break time. We wound up in the office of Scenic Designer John Keck who let me scan the bound books of past stageshows in his office while viewing the marvelous model of the Hall with mechnical minature elevators. For a final treat I ask Carol if she would kiss me on my cheek in the middle of the turntable while 6,000 people watched the feature film. As you know you can see the audience faces brightly lit by the screens illumination through the perforated holes from behind the screen, but of course the patrons couldn’t see us. Carol complyed and that was my one shining moment in Camelot!!!! Then I treated her to lunch at Toot Shors (twas a resonable tab as well) and I’ve since learned that Toot’s landlady was Queen Elizabeth . Apparently the Royal Family owns the structure in NYC. Thanks again, Until soon,Hank
lbnybill… it’s great if you live or work in the City and can get to the RCMH box office to get tickets and avoid tickemaster’s exorbitant fees. But for a lot of folks living out of Manhattan, or more than a quick subway ride away, you’re pretty much stuck with the added expense. Again… I didn’t mean to turn this into a back and forth argument. It is merely a matter of personal taste and opinion as to the show’s merits and value. For me, I was disappointed when I saw the show a few years back. I found it sagged in parts and was overly long for the attention span of an average pre-teen child. I’m almost positive that the pricing scheme was much higher a few years back, but perhaps I’m wrong. I would agree that at $100 a ticket – particularly at $70 on a weekday – the price seems fair enough in comparison to the cost of other live entertainments in NYC. Perhaps the show has been much-improved over the last couple of years and my evaluation might be different if I took in the latest edition. I just haven’t had a desire to check back on it and the kiddies haven’t been exactly begging for a return trip! They’re much more excited about the New Shanghai Circus show at the New Victory Theatre next week (top tickets for members at $35 apiece). Maybe next year!
If it too expensive for your taste – fine that is your opinion. If you doesn’t like cheaper options…ok I Personally , i like 3rd mezz.
The point is don’t complain that your seat is over $100 when you can the exact same seat on different day for 30% less and 40% less when you include ticketmaster. That is choice that people make for conveinence, and you pay for that conveinence, and it was obviously worth the money to them at time or they would not have paid it ….there are other options , other choices, certainly better choices than going on and on about it here ….
As far as Young Frankenstein, I’ll wait for two-fers, that is my choice . If they don’t come, I ’ll rent the movie….probably funnier anyway
I think some of you are missing the point.
I will happily pay $120 to see the new musical YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN or repeat a classic show like A CHORUS LINE from a good orchestra seat. I will also gladly pay up to $100 for the urgency and suspense of a Yankee game.
I will not pay $20 per seat to see what I recall as akin to watching the Macys Thanksgiving Day Parade in from a bad seat at Yankee stadium. It is just not good value for money.
In my opinion, for a suburban family of four the RCMH Christmas show, Broadway musical and live sports are no longer reasonably priced. The latter two can survive without families.
If you are paying over $100 for the christmas show – that is choice that you are making and no one else is to blame. Besides the discount that old joe mentioned ( you CAN see the show the for $20) . But I bought FULL PRICE in DECEMBER —– $70 FRONT ORCHESTRA seats. Did I Go on a saturday night? NO – that is $100 Did I pay and extra $11.20 tickemaster charge per ticket and delivery charge to my house for another $20. NO – I saved money by going to the box office and buying my tickets. So I save about $200 by seeing the show on a Wednesday and picking up the tickets myself. Was It worth $280 for a family of four – Definately . It cheaper than sitting in prime seats for Broadway, Baseball, Football, Hockey and Basketball , a concert, the met, or carnagie hall or any other live event you can think of? YES. It the most reasonably priced seat in town.
The booth you’re talking about is indeed a broadcast booth. There’s one on each side of the auditorium, although the one on the Prompt side was used as storage for the Electric Department when I was there. The one Opposite Prompt had space for an announcer and engineer, and was used to broadcast at least one show just before I started there in 1974. It then became the Tape Room, with the much mentioned tape machines when the format changed in 1979. It also was used for Sound Department wireless mics and cable storage. Since they now use hard drives for the pre-recorded audio in the show, they are probably up at the 2nd Mezzanine mix position.
Here’s an architectural mystery at Music Hall,over on the righthand side of the RCMH auditorium,at orchestra level,there is a sound proof booth with a glass window ,it’s under one of the choral stairways. The view from this booth faces the audience so was this for a director,agent,or management person to watch the patrons reactions to performers or films?? The booth is now a continuing corridor that connects to backstage and maybe always did. Was this constructed originally for radio broadcasts, seems unlikely since there were studios for this purpose in the building? The booth does not have a view of the stage, hence it has always left me to wonder what it be for???
1932 Christmas RCMH opens with an archestra of 90, chorus of 100, ballet of 60 and 48 other performers. Top ticket is $2.50.
In early 1933, due to poor results, movies are introduced and prices are dropped to a range from 33 cents to 99 cents. First-run movies cost at most $2.00 (live orchestra) and a live Broadway show tops at $3.00.
From then on RCMH movie policy is to always keep prices just slightly above first-run Broadway movie theatres in order to attract the masses and fill the large venue.
I’d also hasten to add that RCMH is hardly just “making a go of it”… With Cablevision’s deep pockets and with a healthy schedule of year-around bookings, I don’t think the Hall will miss my couple of hundred bucks this year, or next.
Hey oldjoe… Don’t label me a “Grinch” or a hypocrite merely because I balk at paying high prices to see the show. Let me remind you that I already DID pay in excess of $450 to take my family of four to see the show back about 4 or 5 years ago. I also shelled out to attend the Tony Awards in 2001 and had previously taken my kids to see a Barney show at the Hall. I’ve also attended concerts at RCMH and grew up seeing a movie and a show just about every Easter and Christmas in the 1970’s. And I was there in Easter of ‘78 when the death knell was about to be sounded for the theatre, signing petitions outside of the box office with my Mom and Dad to help save the place. I do not need a lecture on how lucky we are to have this Grand Old Lady still with us and looking 75 years YOUNG!
Having said all of that… I think that I have a right to decide whether or not I find this show to be worth the $100 dollars per ticket it would cost to sit in the very best seats. For my particular tastes, it is NOT worth an annual pilgrimage. I saw it once and watched my kids squirm in their seats towards the end and that was enough to hold me over for a quite a while. You make excellent points about the bang for the buck offered by the show in terms of all the scale and scope of the extravaganza – but again, for me, once was enough to hold me for a while.
I know that it was originally planned simply as a, well, as a “music hall”, and that at one time it was planned to have it replace the Metropolitan Opera House, but it was eventually built with a projection booth, so they must have known which side their bread was buttered on all along. And, at 6,000 seats, you can bet it was never meant to appeal to anyone other than the masses. I know that times change. I’m just saying that it is a shame that one can no longer go to RCMH without budgeting for it, and that it no longer operates as a movie palace. It is good that it operates at all.
Hi oldjoe. I am grateful that Radio City Music Hall is still open. For me, the problem is not so much the price of the ticket as it is the change of the times. It was wonderful to be able to go to RCMH as a teenager and be able to catch a movie and a great stage show at an amazingly affordable price. That was the original concept behind movie palaces, great entertainment in luxurious surroundings at a price that any average Joe can afford. At prices nowadays RCMH has become the sort of elite spot that movie palaces were never meant to be. Will I pay one hundred dollars to see the Christmas show? Yes I will, when I can spare it.
Grinches, you whine that theatres are closing and nothing is being done to save them, then you have a viable theatre that is making a go of it and has restored the theatre impecably and you whine that it costs too much . you can’t have it both ways. Ed -the theatre almost closed forver in 1979 for not making a profit….so maybe bad management priced the show @ 11.50 The RCCS is still less that broadyway and there is always 50% off promo for shows before thanksgiving $35 for orch seats….$20 for 3rd mezz, so justin you and friends can still go in november and have dirtywater dog on the corner after the show for $100 with all due respect, it should be MORE than a broadway ticket, a 30 piece orchestra, 36 person dance troup, over 20 other singers dancers little people, 2 organists…and thats before you count all the staff behind the scenes…..there is no other show in NY that compares …it is worth $100 prime price in December.
Today I got a $100 bill from my mom for xmas…enough to buy me a ticket for the show. When it comes to the xmas show, i’d rather be with other people rather than being alone in a big theater.