Capital Theatres ambition is to share extraordinary live experiences with everyone again and again through building a sense of belonging for anyone who visits or works in our three venues in Edinburgh – the Festival Theatre, the King’s Theatre and The Studio. We are committed to providing excellent customer service. Our staff are our most important asset and they always strive to make a positive difference to your experience. We expect all team members to carry out their duties in a respectful and professional manner and to make every reasonable effort to deal effectively with any problems that may arise.

If we make a mistake, we will apologise, we will listen to customer concerns and we will seek to resolve the problem “there and then”.

Customer inappropriate behaviour 

Our staff have the right to work without fear of inappropriate or offensive behaviour from customers or others.  

Inappropriate behaviour might include: 

• Aggressive behaviour
• Disrespectful behaviour
• Threats
• Violence
• Intimidation
• Bullying
• Intoxication (drink or drugs)
• Behaviour contrary to legislation on protected characteristics
• Sexual harassment 

Capital Theatres reserves the right to ask customers to leave. It is the responsibility of the Duty Manager to assess whether inappropriate behaviour warrants eviction.  Our Duty Manager has an obligation under licencing regulations to maintain good order and if any customer refuses to leave when they have been asked to, police will be called.

A shared experience 

A performance is a shared experience that all theatregoers should be able to enjoy without being disturbed or distracted by those around them.  We realise that this is subjective, and audience expectations may be different for different types of performances. 

Things that other customers may find disruptive during a performance include: 

• Conversation with friends
• Use of phones or other mobile devices either for browsing, conversation, messaging/emails, sharing to social media, etc.
• Singing along
• Moving about, standing up, multiple visits to the bar/toilet
• Wearing of tall hats
• Rustling of sweets or crisp papers 

At the end of the show, standing ovations and taking pictures or films of the curtain call (unless the company announcement at the start of the performance says otherwise) are very much welcomed.

Customer Feedback

We take customer feedback, good and not so good, very seriously and proactively encourage dialogue so that we can learn from our actions and provide a better service in the future. 

We prefer to deal with customer complaints “there and then” so that we can resolve any problems right away.  If the conversation becomes heated or adversarial, then we will seek to calm it down and/or restart it when any anger has diffused. We will fully investigate any complaints to understand what has happened and if there are any underlying causes which we can resolve. 

If you would like to provide feedback about your experience at one of our theatres, please click here.

Unresolved Issues 

If Capital Theatres has not fulfilled its obligations under this code of conduct, we will follow up as appropriate with relevant team members, which may include training, performance management, or disciplinary procedures as laid out in our Employee Handbook. 

After a full investigation, we will consider the following actions if we feel that any of our staff have been subjected to inappropriate behaviour from customers: 

• Make a note on the customer record that an unresolved issue has occurred or remains pending 
• Inform the customer that they are no longer welcome at our venues and that we will refuse to sell them tickets for any performances, which may be for a set period of time or in perpetuity 
• Inform the police or other statutory authorities of any criminal offence, or pursue civil action against them 

This policy was last reviewed 27 April 2024