Prom season is starting again and it’s time to enter the ballot to get tickets to attend the Last Night of the Proms. Due to the intense popularity of the evening, the tickets are allocated in ballots only.
(c) BBC Proms
The five concerts ballot
The largest ballot is reserved for people who attend the Proms – which is perfectly understandable – and if you buy tickets to at least five performances, then you can opt into the ballot, which is for about 3,700 seats.
Just remember to tick the necessary box when buying tickets — there’s a preview of the 2023 Proms on the BBC website, and most of the tickets go on sale at 9am on Saturday 13th May 2023, although weekend and season passes are on sale earlier.
The Five-Concert Ballot closes at midnight on Thursday 8th June and successful applicants will be informed by Friday 16th June 2023.
If you attend at least five proms and are unlucky in the ballot, a limited number of Last Night standing tickets are reserved for Prommers who have attended five or more concerts (in the Promming areas of the Hall). Applicants for those can purchase one ticket per applicant on presentation of their five used tickets in person at the Royal Albert Hall at 9am on 18th July, 21st August and 4th September.
The Open Ballot
Normally, they issue a number of tickets in a general ballot open to everyone, but that’s not happening this year because they cancelled the 2022 Last Night Proms out of respect for the death of the Queen. People who booked tickets for last year’s Last Night through the open ballot will get first refusal to buy tickets for this year.
Left over tickets
Any remaining tickets for the Last Night will go on sale for the general public at 9am on Friday 14th July 2023 by phone or online only.
Only one application (for a maximum of two tickets) can be made per household.
There is exceptionally high demand for Last Night tickets, but returns occasionally become available. In the exceptionally unlikely event that there are still some unsold Day Prommer (standing only) tickets on the day, they will be released through their website at 10:30am on Saturday 9th September 2023.
It should be noted that if one is unsuccessful in obtaining Last Night tickets in the Five Concerts Ballot, there’s no refund offered for the 5 concerts. So you’re committing to pay for 5 concerts and hoping you get lucky for the LN tickets.
Well, yes, that’s because the five tickets ballot is aimed at regular attendees to the proms, so they would be buying the five tickets anyway.
It’s not for everyone, but the one sure-fire way to get in is to buy a promming season ticket (£250) which includes admission to the Last Night – and from the best spot in the Hall.
Every year this site purports to tell you how the Proms work. And every year, probably because it just recycles the previous year’s posts and press releases, it claims “Due to the intense popularity of the evening, the tickets are allocated in ballots only.”
“Only” is clearly wrong.
Although it sounds like a lot of money, a season ticket allows you to attend almost every prom. And guarantees admission to last night, WITHOUT having to go through a ballot.
And if you do the arithmetic it’s very good value even if you just want to go to a small number of regular proms AND last night.
Look at it this way. If you only want to go to last night it will cost you £250. Which is probably cheaper than what you’d pay a tout.
Go to four other proms then your last night ticket costs you £50 pro rata.
Etc etc
It’s also worth pointing out that the five tickets ballot is a better route than it’s made out to be here. Especially if you are promming rather than buying seats.
Get your five tickets in early. And ask around when the last night tickets are released for this route. It’s usually in two tranches, sometimes three. Rock up to the box office when the first batch are available, with evidence of your five tickets, and you’ll very probably get one for last night.
Rather than believing what you read here, it would be worth asking people who actually go promming. Find the queue for the arena or the gallery and talk to people who know what is happening