Here is the back side of Royal Albert Hall.
Bigger orchestral concerts take place here.
Chamber music concerts happen at Cadogan Hall (borough of Chelsea). Here is the outside. 
Photography is not allowed inside either halls, but I managed to sneak a photo of the inside of Cadogan Hall from a video camera projection of the hall.
Our first Proms concert of the season featured a program of mostly Thomas Tallis sung by The Cardinall's Musick. This was at Cadogan Hall in Chelsea. As you maybe can tell from the above video shot the rectangular hall has an orchestra level and a balcony with seats along the side and back. We had seats in the back balcony. The sound and view from there was great. The seats are pews with cushions.
The Cardinall's Musick is directed by singer Andrew Carwood, who by the way is also is the first ever non-organist music director at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The group is based in the UK, specializes in English Renaissance music and is named after Cardinal Wolsey, King Henry VIII's advisor for a while until he was charged with treason. (Watch the recent television series Wolf Hall for an excellent portrayal of the affair.) On the program were mostly selections by Thomas Tallis, sung in Latin or English, by various subsets of the ensemble. The one non Tallis work by Cheryl Frances-Hoad was inspired by the music of Tallis. This piece was commissioned by the ensemble. The group expanded to 40 voices for the last selection called "Spem in Alium", a work with 40 individual voice parts. This extraordinary piece is best heard live as you can really see and hear the ever changing number of singers singing this work. All that would be lost in a recording.
Our second Proms concert returned us to Royal Albert Hall for a performance of Beethoven's first and fourth piano concerti and Stravinsky's ballet music Apollon Musagete for string orchestra. Leif Ove Andsnes was the featured pianist in the Beethoven. He collaborated with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra, a conductor-less international ensemble. Leif conducted the concerti from the piano. He is completing a four year Beethoven project with the orchestra (recording all of the Beethoven works for piano and orchestra). The musicians played with a lot of spirit. It was a great concert. I especially enjoyed the fourth concerto, my favorite one of Beethoven's piano concerti.
Our third Proms concert was again in Royal Albert Hall. This time it was the musical "Fiddler on the Roof" with Welsh baritone Bryn Terfel as the lead. The supporting cast were members of the Grange Park Opera and the BBC Concert Orchestra under American conductor David Charles Abell. The opera company is based in the Hampshire countryside of the UK. This conductor played a major part in restoring the musical to its original 1964 version, as the original scores and parts used during its first run disappeared. New scores and parts, faithful to the 1964 original version, were created for a U.S. National tour in 2000. In 2004 there was a Broadway revival of the show (based on the version from 2000) for which the composer and lyricist Bock and Harnick wrote a new song called "Topsy-Turvy". Harnick, the lyricist, is still living and he asked tonight's conductor to edit the 2004 orchestrations. This version we heard at the Proms is now considered the "definitive" version of the show, ie closest to the original 1964 production as you can get. One personal note - the new song "Topsy-Turvy" seemed out of place, both in the story line and in the compositional style.
This performance of Fiddler was amazing. Not only was Bryn Terfel masterful in his role of Tevye, but the whole production was top notch. It is by far the best Proms concert I have ever attended (and I have attended quite a few now). The hall was packed (sold out) for this 1 performance. Too bad it was performed only once.
If you want to attend Proms concerts and order tickets in advance, I recommend buying tickets online at the first available date and time. It is announced on the Proms website when it is (usually in early May). I get up at 3 am CT in the U.S. On that date to get online and in the virtual queue to buy tickets. If you think a concert will sell out (like I thought Fiddler would), you really should buy tickets at the first opportunity.
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