Concert ticket charges
Well, almost.
And that's the service charge, admin charge, booking fee, whatever the hell they call it, that huge wodge of wedge the ticket selling agency charges you over and above the ticket price, and it makes my blood boil hotter than a volcano kettle.
And where did they come from anyway? What happened to just ringing the box office direct?
And what exactly to they do for their exorbitant fee? At most, they're printing a ticket, putting it in an envelope, and posting it to you.
Although now, and increasingly more commonly, they send you an email and you have to incur the printing costs.
But they won't charge you any less, even for that.
And even their postage charge, is it simply the price of a stamp and an envelope? You'd like to think so, but really, I mean really, when they've got your knockers in a vice to the extent they have, there's no way they'd be reasonable about that, and they're not.
They know that as long as you don't live right next to the venue and you can't actually get there when the tickets go on sale, you've got no choice. In many cases it's the only way you can get your ticket. You want to see your band, you have to use their site, they've got you, and they can charge what they want.
And they will.
Some will charge a percentage of the price of the ticket, like it costs them more to process a £30 ticket than it does for a £10 one. If you're paying big bucks for the ticket, you're paying big bucks for the privilege of buying it as well. It's the ultimate manifestation of capitalism, and the joke's on you.
You book a table at a restaurant, your car in for a service, a cinema ticket, train ticket, you name it, do you have to pay for the privilege of simply buying it? Seems like you're paying twice.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
But, credit where it's due, or not. With the Covid season upon us, and mass concert cancellations across the board, some of us are getting refunds, some not. And it seems that ticket agencies aren't all the same. My own experience this year has been, one AXS ticket refunded in full, one Eventim ticket, partial refund. And what a partial. Of the £14.50 booking/admin/service charge for two tickets, they gave me £1.
Apparently if you're an Eventim customer in Germany, you won't even get that, all you'll get is a voucher, so you have to book with them in future.
I'm sure there are plenty of people out there with similar experiences.
I do remember, way back in the innocent 90's, going into a phone box, ordering a ticket from the box office, and having to pay a whole 26p extra to have them post me the ticket, which was the price of a stamp back then.
No chance of that happening now. I guess they call it progress.
So if you can ever go direct to the box office, do it every time.
And I suppose I've got one plot-line ready to go for the next Cold Steel novel.
Comments
Post a Comment