Three Royal Albert Hall seat holders are suing the charity behind the venue for more than £500,000 in damages at the High Court over allegations it ‘unlawfully’ deprived them of their rights to their places.

Roughly a quarter of the venue’s 5,272 seats were sold on a 999-year lease to individual buyers to fund the hall’s construction, in 1866. 

Owners pay an annual seat rate, with many seats passed down from generation to generation.

Under current arrangements, for around 100 designated events each year, known as ‘executive lettings’, the owners give up their 1,268 seats for the west London venue to sell. 

But Arthur George, 78, who owns 12 seats in two separate boxes, and father and son William and Alexander Stockler, who together own four seats in one box, say they have been excluded from more performances than rules allow by the Corporation of the Hall of Arts and Sciences, commonly known as the Royal Albert Hall (RAH).

Lawyers for the three men are asking a judge to declare that the practice of excluding them from other performances is unlawful, and to grant an injunction to stop the corporation from restricting their access beyond the terms of the Royal Albert Hall Act 1966. 

The lawyers told the High Court yesterday that seat holders have a ‘proprietary right to use their seats, or to otherwise sell or give away their tickets’. 

The men are asking a judge to rule in their favour without a trial and award an interim payment of £500,000 in damages, ahead of the full amount being decided. The corporation is opposing the application, with its lawyers stating the case should proceed to trial.

They told a hearing in London that the body has excluded members on other occasions, but this has been approved by members by way of a document titled Memorandum and Guidelines. 

David Satwell, representing the three claimants, told the court: ‘This isn’t a breach of contract case, we say this is a wrongful use of someone else’s property.’

In written submissions, Mr Satwell said: ‘It is not disputed by the parties that the corporation has exceeded its power… by granting more exclusive lets than it is permitted to do under that provision, that it has been doing so for a number of years, and that it intends to do so into the future.’

For the corporation, Simon Taube KC wrote: ‘The claimants, who have each been members of the corporation since before 2008, appear not to have voted against the Memorandum and Guidelines until the 2023 AGM.’

In 2017, Manchester United co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe paid £2.76 million for a box at the venue, which famously stages the BBC Proms, as well as rock concerts and awards nights.