Blue Square Concert Guide

• OP seats: temporary chairs laid over the orchestra pit lid, 1–3m from the stage. They are not sold at all when a show uses a live orchestra, and when they are, the stage sits above your eye line, so you are looking up.
• Tier 1 (1,066 seats): two longitudinal aisles split it into left, centre and right blocks, and a cross aisle about 10m back splits front from rear. The centre block runs from about 4m to 24m from the stage. For facial detail, take the front centre block (inside 12m); for the best all-round balance, the front of the rear centre block. The front left and right blocks are the closest of all but sit more than 30° off the centre line.
• Tier 2 (430 seats): the balcony front is 20.3m from the proscenium (a drawing dimension) and looks down at about 15–17°. You are up high, but the whole stage reads at once, which is why this is widely called the value seat. One catch: the very front row can catch the railing, so pick row 2 or further back if that bothers you.
• Tier 3 (270 seats): the balcony front is 23.3m from the proscenium and looks down at about 25°. The downstage floor can be clipped, so it suits set tops and full-company numbers more than close acting. The steps are steep — take care with older visitors and children, and bring opera glasses.
• In short: tier 1 centre to be close, tier 2 centre for the whole production, tier 3 if budget comes first.

Check the distance, angle and height to the stage for any block in the seat view simulator — the seat positions there come straight from the official drawings.

• Most of the room is a flat floor. There is no rake in front of the stage, so it runs as standing, or with chairs laid out as reserved seating. The chair layout changes completely from show to show.
• Only the back has fixed raked seating — 8 rows. The section gives a row pitch of about 0.9m and a step of about 0.37m, so the bank climbs nearly 3m over its 8 rows. It is at the back, but the steps keep sightlines steady.
• The house is roughly 25m deep and 22m wide, and about 30m from the stage front to the last row.
• The stage is 21.6m × 10.8m (main stage deck) with a 6m × 2.7m stage lift. Get-in is through a 4.8m dock with a 5-tonne lift and a 1:12 ramp.
• In short, this is a standing room first. If you want to be close, your queue number is your sightline; if you want a rake, aim for the stepped bank at the back.
• We have not built a seat view simulator for this hall, because the seats are laid out fresh for each show — publishing coordinates for a layout that is not fixed would imply more precision than actually exists.