Red death to the touts

What’s the best New Year party you’ve ever been to? Mine, if all goes according to plan, will be this 31 December at the Battersea Arts Centre. Never mind that I’ve chosen the only night of the year when the tube runs into the early hours to go to an area without a tube. Punchdrunk’s Masque of the Red Death post-performance ball promises hedonistic delights such as are not to be found auld lang syning down at the local.

I’ve written about the experience that is the Masque of the Red Death here before, since when tickets for the sold-out performances have been fetching up to £300 a time on ebay. Which makes £75 a head for Punchdrunk’s New Year bash sound almost reasonable (especially when even auld lang syneing it down at the local can cost you £20 a time to reserve a place round some parts of London).

Even better value, though, and not to be missed if you can possibly get there, are the ordinary tickets for the now-extended run of the Red Death. They’re currently on sale for performances until mid-April via the National Theatre box office. But get in quick if you don’t want to end up bidding silly money for tickets on ebay because these are bound to sell out quickly.

How to stop the touts

This seems as good a time as any to revive one of my pet anti-touting proposals for events that could sell out several times over. I’ve suggested it to Michael Eavis and the Glastonbury crew on a couple of occasions but neither they nor anyone else has so far taken it up.

It is, quite simply, that since tickets for major events will invariably – and inevitably – end up being sold for well over their face value on ebay or by other means, why not make a virtue out of it and auction a proportion of the tickets directly? The idea of a first come-first served set up, or a Led Zeppelin-style lottery, is an admirably – and unusually – egalitarian one. In theory, at any rate, everyone (who can pay) gets a (sort of) equal chance to get what tickets are available.

In practice, though, there’s always someone willing to sell to those who are willing to pay over the odds. So why not accept the fact, milk the rich for whatever they’re worth (and segregate them from the rest of us, so we can throw beer at them on the night), and give the balance to charity?

I’m absolutely confident that it’s only a matter of time before this idea is adopted by major event organisers – with one small modification. They’ll keep the extra money from the auctioned tickets for themselves.

A night with the Red Death

Hot from the special care baby unit, an evening at the old town hall that is the Battersea Arts Centre provides a welcome distraction. If you haven’t already got a ticket, it’s too late now because the Punchdrunk company’s Masque of the Red Death is sold out to the end of its run in January.

Billed as a ‘promenade performance’, it’s a cross between moving theatre, a circus, an art installation and an old-fashioned fairground chamber of horrors. The old Victorian town hall has been taken over and transformed for the purpose into a dimly-lit labyrinth, prepared with meticulous – and macabre – detail to bring to life the darkest recesses of Edgar Allan Poe’s imagination.

You’re encouraged to dress for the occasion and to explore the building on your own, anonymous behind the masks that are distributed on entry (along with a Victorian penny with which to ‘buy something to keep you safe’). I didn’t have much success in following the theatre narrative, and found myself wandering off into a dark basement corridor, where a hand clasped me by the throat and pinned me to the wall as a trickle of absinthe was forced into my mouth.

'The last person who came here I hanged for six hours until he died,’ hissed a voice as a hand felt its way slowly beneath my mask and across my face. Fingers tightened around my eye. ‘And before he did …’ A sudden snatching motion with the hand. ‘… I ripped his eye from its socket, and made him look on it with his other eye.’

People with a heart condition, Muslims and recovering alcoholics are advised not to apply. But for the rest of you, get in character, dress the part and join the queue for returned tickets. I won’t spoil things with further details in case you’re one of the lucky ones.