Rip off ticket prices!

[Bucky P]

How is it that it is no longer possible to buy a concert ticket at it's face value? I've just bought some tickets for the Oxford Gang show, the face value of the Kid's tickets is £7.50 then there is a service charge of £2.10 added on to each one and you have to pay another £3.75 for the privilege of actually printing the tickets off on your own printer! I bought some tickets to see Journey in June, £42.50 face value with a total of £26.15 added on as booking fee's, etc for 4 tickets! I used to buy loads of concert tickets years ago, I would go into the box office or phone up to order them and would be charged the face value of the ticket and nothing else, occasionally they may have charged £1 or something for postage which was reasonable. One example was 10 tickets to see AC DC at Wembley in 1986 the tickets were £10 each and I was charged £100 total, including postage, even if the ticket price was the same today you would be lucky to get the same 10 tickets for less than £150!

Rant over!

[DanO1978]

I heard about the rip-off prices UEFA are charging for the Champions League final at Wembley. I'm sure I heard on the radio the booking fee is £20+!!

I refuse to buy train tickets from the Trainline since they added a fee for printing off your own pre-booked tickets at the machine at the station.

[chrisward123]

I think Ticketmaster are at joke at what they can charge you for concert tickets! However sometimes if you really want to see a band/stand up act etc Ticketmaster is the only way to get tickets.

Christian

[DanO1978]

The "admin fee" nonsense makes the touts look honest - at least with them you know where the extra money is going!

[Sea King]

A fee for printing off your tickets? Unbelievable.

[DanO1978]

Another one is the "convenience fee" charged when paying at London parking meters by mobile phone.

[Saracen]

I heard about the rip-off prices UEFA are charging for the Champions League final at Wembley. I'm sure I heard on the radio the booking fee is £20+!!

Its £150 for the cheapest ticket at wembley and a £26 booking fee PER TICKET

[foxfour]

Its £150 for the cheapest ticket at wembley and a £26 booking fee PER TICKET

They charge it because people pay it and they know they can get away with it. Just another facet of "rip off Britain". So long as mugs pay the price and buy the tickets, nothing will change.

[DerekH]

What also annoys me is the term "Booking Fee" - If I make a booking for 1 ticket, a booking fee of say £1.50 would be applied. But why if I book 4 tickets at the same time should I have to pay £6.00? I have booked 4 tickets at the same time therefore only made 1 booking - 1 transaction. So I don't see why I should have to pay 4 booking fees!!!
To be honest it might be better if the ticket was for example £30.00, booking fee was £1.50 (per ticket) and postage was £1.00 to just advertise the ticket priced at £32.50 - at least then we wouldn't feel quite so ripped off as we do. Bring back the days when you could just go to the box office & buy the tickets at face value!

[toom317]

Not sure if this is true or not, but I was told many years ago that the reason you pay a booking fee, is that the agency has bought the tickets at face value and the event organisers are happy to sell the tickets to them, as they have then made their money for the event. The agency then adds on a bit to cover their costs, and for insurance, so you are in effect insuring the event. If the event is then cancelled you only get back the face value for the tickets, and not any other fees. Over the years this has just become a "thing" and is accepted, and people blindly carry on with it. Something is only worth something, if people are stupid enough to pay stupid prices for it, and I get the feeling that nowadays, it is more about being there or being seen there, and making sure everyone else knows you were there, than actually going along to see the event itself..

[Thumper]

You only need to go to the Olympic 2012 site to see rip off ticket prices. Sat there with my card this morning hoping to book a few events... I can't even afford the ONE I wanted to see the most

On the bright side they only charge £6 fee's ontop of the ticket price which includes postage, printing, handling and whatever else.

[PhilW]

Every event we looked at had a £20 ticket available. You don't get to see many events for less than that (assuming they are actually available at the final reckoning)

[DanO1978]

I've put requests in for tickets for four events, all at the £50 per ticket price point. Some of the top category prices were terrifying, even for the "minor" sports.

[vandal]

Not just sporting events.

Over the years as a family, we've been to see Thomas the Stage show, Walking With Dinosaurs, and Bob the Builder to name a few, and once the tickets and booking fees are out the way, what about the outrageous prices for 'merchandise' at these type of things. It's one thing for any family to shell out to go to the event, but you need a small bank loan to finance yourself through the actual show because of this. Don't think Concerts and Pro Wrestling events are any better either.

[Red Dragon]

I've just tried to get tickes for the Manic Street Preachers just now and I finally found a website with tickets, and including "handling fees" they wanted £96 for 2 tickets!!

[psquiddy]

I would love to see Roger Waters performing The Wall at the O2 - but it is £60 for a single (cheap - at the back) ticket plus £7.25 booking fee.

I guess I wont be going then.

[tomcatforever]

Brining this old thread back... On Friday I had to pay £2.50 for Paperless Ticket's for Radiohead at The O2 Arena n October (There was no options you had to have Paperless Ticket) that's on top of £4.75 service charge on each ticket thieving gits

[Wes_Howes]

Here's one I had recently, for Tough Mudder, entry fee £80 (expensive but fair enough), compuslory insurance £10 (err, why is that not included in my entry fee?), booking fee £6 (yeah sure, you want my pin number while we're at it??)

[Dragon Rapide]

" Just another facet of "rip off Britain". No, it's called supply and demand and is as old as the hills. The market price is what enough people will pay for goods or a service. If people didn't pay prices would soon tumble. On a smaller scale it's no different from the inflated prices charges for a host of things at Valentines, Easter, Christmas, Halloween etc...

[vandal]

Just had a look at what Madonna wants the paying public to part with to see her sing at Murrayfield this Summer.

£125.00 is the tickets face value, but thrown in with a programme, a good seat and a laminate, one is expected to part with £250.00, for ONE ticket.

[KevinJ]

Only way you'll stop this happening is to stop buying the tickets. Just wait and see how quickly they come down when faced with a half empty venue. Unfortunately there's enough gullible people out there who will actually fork out £125+ to watch a haggard old bint trying to sing and dance like a teenager.

I remember a friend of mine who is in the Fire Brigade saying that his work were offered a batch of free tickets to see Whitney Houston at Wembley Arena, when she was still relatively popular in the late 90's. He didn't really want to go but got dragged along and said the Arena was empty and she was terrible, spending more time off stage changing costumes than on wailing, padded out with loads of dancers.

I've been to hundreds of gigs over the years but stopped going a few years ago because it just got too expensive to sit up in the gods at vast ugly venues like Wembley or Earls Court and have to watch the act on a big screen anyway with terrible sound quality.

[sjt]

It's not just rip off Britain though it's all over the world! Ticketmaster have a monopoly and there is nothing to be done about it!

The band Pearl Jam tried to take on Tickemaster in the mid 90's....I leave it to you lot to guess who won!!

[DanO1978]

Went to see The Silver Seas at the Garage, Islington last week. Face value £13, plus "£1.75 handling fee". Why not just call the face value £14.75 and be done with it?

[andyxh558]

the best value I have ever had was a day ticket to Hard Rock Hell in Prestatyn, a whole day of metal including some really good bands for £39 each. best thing about it was being in pontins there you had proper loos, quite cheap food and cheap booze.

Another thing that really pees me off is the re-selling market for tickets, I couldnt get tickets for Iron Maiden last year so I went on Viagogo for a couple of tickets and the greedy buggers wanted upwards of £150 for just one ticket that was only £35 face value... however I did get a couple of tickets on ebay for face value and it was a good concert!

[Bucky P]

I tried to get tickets to see Cream on their reunion at the Royal Albert Hall in 2006, I think it was, unfortunately I missed the day they went on sale and tried the day after. All tickets were sold out and the face value was £125, I think, which for a band like Cream I thought was ok, I looked on e-bay, remember this was the day after they were sold, and they ranged from about £350 - £780! I am a big Cream fan and even if I had bought a ticket at £125 and was offered £780 for it I wouldn't have sold it, seeing the gig would have been far more valuable to me as a proper fan. Everything today is about making money and many people do anything to rip others off to make money, it is a fact for example, that farmers grow food primarily to make money not feed people and that just about sums up where we are at!

I didn't get to see Cream in the end but I'm going to see Jack Bruce at The Stables in Milton Keynes on Sunday, next best thing!