Ticketmaster - a strange way to do business

[Simpo Two]

Wanted to get tickets for an event at a theatre and it seems they use Ticketmaster to sell their tickets.

First thing was that the best seats were 'presold' and you had to buy them from a third party at an inflated price. That seems like blatant touting to me; why do Ticketmaster allow it?

Anyway, I got an e-mail acknowledgement saying: "We’ve checked your order and can confirm your tickets will be delivered by Royal Mail Special Delivery to your address. Once tickets have been dispatched from your seller, we'll email you to confirm and provide you with a tracking number." Fine.

Then today I get: ''Great news! We’ve checked your order and can confirm your tickets will be available to collect at the box office on the day. You will be able to collect your tickets from an hour before the event starts."

So somebody's charged me for Special Delivery, then decided to pocket the money. Is this normal for Toutmaster? Can I demand they post them as stated?

[Simpo Two]

There's no need for any middle-men - a theatre can sell its own damn tickets. They did it for centuries and it worked fine. All middlemen do is put the price up.

[Simpo Two]

Well of course Ticketmaster haven't answered my message but I found the theatre's box office number. As well as not answering the phone, I see that even the theatre has a '£3 booking fee'. What the heck is that all about? There never used to be 'booking fees'.

If you take off the fee, the actual ticket price is £27.50. But I've ended up paying about £37 thanks to Ticketmaster, its touting system and the RMSD I never got

[Simpo Two]

I should point out it's not a band but a stand-up comedian (Milton Jones), so I doubt laundering drug money is a prime motivation.

[Simpo Two]

[quote=boyse7en]The booking fee is the bit that the people actually selling the tickets get. So when you phone up to buy tickets (i know most are online these days) the £3 is the bit that the call centre gets for providing the service.../quote]

Sure. But this was on the actual theatre's website. The theatre charges a £3 booking fee to sell to you a ticket (unless there is some agency hiding in the mix) https://ipswichregent.ticketsolve.com/shows/117359...

I'm starting to think they add it 'because they can'.

[Simpo Two]

The Moose said:

[Haven't you just answered your own question? The theatre aren't selling the tickets!

www.ticketsolve.com?

Ah, you may have a point. Why can't the theatre sell tickets? Is it too difficult these days?

Soooo... let me get this right.... you buy tickets from Ticketsolve for £3 extra, then stag them on Ticketmaster for another tenner... Maybe instead of being a theatregoer I should just buy every ticket for something and sell them the next month for for 20% profit...

[Simpo Two]

Well it proves my theory

Touting must be legal or Ticketmaster would go to jail too, so it must just be a question of scale.

But what really prompted this thread was not the price, because I knew what I was paying when I clicked the button, but that Ticketmaster said I'd get the tickets by RMSD and then the 'great news' I had to get them myself. That's why I feel swindled.

[Simpo Two]

untakenname said:

If they say it's by special delivery then either do a chargeback on card of if you want to go to the gig then afterwards go through the small claims process to get the money back.

Thanks. £5 doesn't warrant going legal of course but I might drop a line to the CC company afterwards.

[Simpo Two]

The Moose said:

StevieBee said:

The Moose said:

IMHO, there’s nothing wrong with touting.

Why do you say that?

Touting artificially restricts the supply of tickets which inflates their value meaning someone who'd like one is either forced to pay a higher price or not go to the event. I don't see how this is in anyway OK - but willing to hear an alternative view.

It doesn't artificially restrict the supply! It results in the ticket value going to the market rate from the originally depressed sale price.

My opinion is that it's part of a free, capitalist market...which I believe is right.

I can actually argue this both ways.

1) If a theatre is selling a ticket for £30 then people should be able to see the show for £30.

or:

2) A ticket has a market value - what people are willing to pay - so view the theatre price as 'trade' and then retail it for as much as you can. However I don't find it parallel to, say, a car dealer, because the latter adds value (service, warranty) etc. And my ticket is not being delivered in a gold box on a red velvet cushion.

[Simpo Two]

Well, Ticketmaster asked me for a screenshot showing the bit about RMSD and I sent it.

Just got this reply:

Ticketmaster said:

Many thanks for your reply,

Thank You for that information. The emails have come from our Ticket Exchange Resale department. They are correct by advising originally the tickets were due to be dispatched by the seller by Royal Mail Special Delivery.

Unfortunately the seller called and spoke with me and advised that they had not received the original tickets from us to dispatch to you.

When this happens we raise an internal query to check if we can transfer the original tickets into a new account for you which we did.

When we have transferred the tickets if the event is close we will always duplicate the tickets for venue box office collection on the day of the event to guarantee you can attend.

That is why you now have to collect the tickets on the 27/02/2020 when the doors open at 6:30 pm.

The following is the breakdown of your charges:

Face Value £27.50

Quantity 2

Per Ticket £32.42

Subtotal £64.84

Processing Fee £8.10

VAT £2.04

Discount £0.00

Ticket Cover £0.00

Delivery £2.08

Total Price Paid (GTV) £77.06

You have not paid for Royal Mail Special Delivery so we cannot refund any money back to yourself. The delivery charge of £2.08 will cover the cost of the tickets being sent to the venue for collection.

We do apologise that we cannot offer anything further regarding this and hope you understand.

If you need any further assistance please do not hesitate to contact us.

Does that make sense?

'Unfortunately the seller called and spoke with me and advised that they had not received the original tickets from us to dispatch to you.'

Why not just post the tickets to me and send the reseller his cut?

[Simpo Two]

skwdenyer said:

Simpo Two said:

The Moose said:

[Haven't you just answered your own question? The theatre aren't selling the tickets!

www.ticketsolve.com?

Ah, you may have a point. Why can't the theatre sell tickets? Is it too difficult these days?

Standard theatre contracts are a problem here.

If the theatre uses a 3rd party ticketing service, that service has all the cost & hassles of running the website & ticketing system (not to be underestimated). The theatre receives face value for the tickets. The production takes a cut of the box office (unless there's a buy-out in place).

If the theatre runs its own ticketing, it has to carry all the cost and hassle from its share of the box office, lowering revenues. If the theatre tries to put in a "box office less £3 per ticket" clause in the contract, the act complains they're being stiffed.

Way easier for the venue to offload ticketing and let the punters foot the bill. No real business case for doing anything different. A change of law would be required to eliminate booking fees.

Booking fees are one thing, but the issue I have is people who buy tickets to shows they have no intention of going to, then using Ticketmaster's 'Ticket Exchange' service to resell. Whilst the tickets I got say on the back 'Reselling of tickets is not permitted' - they obviously are.

[Simpo Two]

skwdenyer said:

I don’t like that it happens, FWIW, but as a matter of principle I’m unclear how it should be stopped. What other things are you happy to lose the right to re-sell? Is wholesaling per se something that should be outlawed? Or are concert tickets a special case all by themselves?

If I can't beat them, then I'm happy to join them. I asked Ticketmaster what returns I could expect on an investment of £1,000 They didn't answer, but said that the original buyers can't sell tickets for more than they paid for them.

I have yet to dig out what the real picture is.