Case study

Aug 20, 2026

A reduced workload, happy customers and additional revenue: how Ticketsolve Protect worked for Leicester Square Theatre

Leicester Square Theatre received multiple refund requests every day - adding to the workload of an already busy team. Despite this, Sales Manager Gillian Toddfrey had held off on introducing ticket protection for years, because she didn’t want to compromise on the customer service her box office was known for. That was until she tried Ticketsolve Protect. Since introduction, the percentage of sales refunded has halved, the box office team has less work to do, and LST has even earned money - all this without affecting customer satisfaction.

Refund rate halved

as a share of sales

£11,500

of ticket income retained

£8,000

earned from Protect sales

Leicester Square Theatre sits just off the square itself, on Leicester Place, with a 400-seat auditorium and a programme of comedy, cabaret, dance, music and theatre. It welcomes the biggest and best of British comedians, from Bill Bailey to Jo Brand, with the Museum of Comedy running as a sister venue down the road in Bloomsbury.

A comedy-heavy programme means a lot of bookings, and a lot of bookings means a lot of people who might not be able to attend on the night they’ve booked. The theatre chose to manually manage requests, and their response was extremely generous.

In practice, around 90% of people who asked for a refund got one, with a small per-ticket admin fee charged to process refunds, and the option for the box office to resell the ticket if the show was likely to sell out. Gillian explained that as a system, it worked, but it meant that a team member had to make a judgement call on each request, with more uncommon ones being escalated to managers - increasing the workload at every level.

“There's so many little jobs that I would rather the box office team have time for that they're not doing because they're just dealing with that huge influx of emails"

Protecting the customer relationship as a priority

The decision to move to Ticketsolve Protect wasn’t made from one day to the next. The team held off on making the move for years - and had even talked about building their own solution rather than moving to an out-of-the-box option. The reason for this is because the venue has built up a strong relationship and level of trust with their audience that they wanted to protect. The box office had built its reputation on saying yes, and Gillian couldn't see how they could continue to do so whilst compromising based on rules set by an external provider.

'We were not going to be able to continue to provide the level of service that we do, because we were going to be working within the constraints of [another system].'

But recently, the demand for refunds has begun to grow, putting pressure on an already busy team.

‘It was getting to the point where the refund requests were almost unmanageable, all day every day.'

So when Ticketsolve introduced Protect, Gillian decided to give it a go. She felt the 90% approval rate, and the proven track record of fair, fast claims resolution reflected LST’s existing values.

Simple to switch on, easy to forget about, and a reduced workload to boot: setting up Ticketsolve Protect

As Ticketsolve Protect is part of their existing platform rather than a bolt-on, there was nothing to integrate, no separate system for the box office to learn and no new supplier relationship to manage. The theatre switched it on, and Protect was added to their booking journey.

Since then it has needed no ongoing attention. There's no queue to manage, no dashboard to check, no claims to assess. The box office has a single standard reply to refund requests, directing them to claims partner Refund Protect, rather than having to individually assess and respond to each request, meaning the volume of work related to refunds has massively reduced.

'It has hugely reduced the workload of the box office. It's taken away all that decision making, they just have a standard email.'

Customers apply directly to Refund Protect, who manage every step of the process from application to payout.

We don't even really notice that it's in place, which I think is quite a good thing. It doesn't cause us any issues at all, it's just running in the background doing its thing.'

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Matching the existing level of customer service

Most importantly - there were no complaints from customers.

'We certainly do not get any customer complaints about it, which was my concern when we first took it on.'

Part of the reason for this is that the venue has continued to respond to claims outside of Refund Protect’s refund parameters, at their discretion. For example, a recent claim was declined based on Refund Protect’s definition of an immediate family member - the theatre team disagreed with this, and refunded the customer itself.

'That's our decision. Nobody's taken that away from us, we can still make that decision.

The results in numbers

The results have shown up in the box office team’s reduced workload, and the venue’s continuing positive relationship with customers - but also in sales numbers:

The percentage of sales refunded based on customer cancellation requests has halved, falling from 1.7% to 0.86% in the 8 months before introducing Protect compared to the 8 months after - despite sales increasing by nearly 40% during that period.

In the same period, the average number of requests received per week dropped from 19 to 13 - with these requests being much quicker to manage, too.

The refund rate has also stabilised - in 2025, the percentage of sales refunded varied between 0.8% and 6.7% depending on the month. So far, in 2026, the refund rate sits at 1.6% or below, making forecasting much easier for the venue.

Retaining revenue - and earning secondary revenue

Under their old process, every refund was paid from the theatre’s own income, but now full repayment to the customer is managed by Refund Protect - and the theatre retains all income from sales. And that amount is not insignificant - the theatre has calculated that so far this year, they’ve kept roughly £11,500 of ticket income that they would have refunded, had their old setup still been in place.

And in addition, Protect is a revenue-generating product in its own right. For every Ticketsolve Protect product sold, LST recieves 25% of the fee charged. Through this setup, they’ve earned nearly £8,000 since introducing protect - with no additional revenue for the team.

'We've made that money for essentially doing nothing - and it's reduced our workload.'

Put the two together and Protect has been worth £20,000 to Leicester Square Theatre so far this year.

The theatre also continues to retain income on ticket resales - as when a customer claims before the performance, the theatre can put the seat back on sale. This amounts to just a couple of sales per month, but it’s worth it for a venue that regularly sells out comedy runs.

From reticence to recommendation

Gillian’s the first to admit that Protect has changed her mind - and that it’s changed the game for LST.

'I was fairly resistant to anything like this, but it has very much worked for us. I'm happy with it.'

Most importantly, she would - and has been - recommending Protect to other venues:

'I would recommend it to people. When I was at the Ticketsolve Workshop I did say to a few people, try and get it set up as soon as you can, because it just is a money maker.'

For Team Ticketsolve, a customer who held off on introducing ticketing protection encouraging peers to use our product is about the best result we could ask for!

Gillian Toddfrey

Sales Manager

We don't even really notice that [Ticketsolve Protect] is in place, which I think is quite a good thing. It doesn't cause us any issues at all, it's just running in the background doing its thing.

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