[Paul 66]

Pamella Anderson has cancelled her appearance in Aladdin on the 13th December. Dispite promoting the show on her name and the Amdassador Tickets Website listing the show as Aladdin - Staring Pamella Anderson they are not offering refunds and will only exchange tickets for a £5 per ticket fee. What a rip off. I just sepend 10 minites on a premium number being talked down to. If you are effected apparantly you need to complain, in writting!, to Kevin Paplin at the wimbledon theatre. Small Claims court for me I think!

[MrsDoyle]

Pamella Anderson has cancelled her appearance in Aladdin on the 13th December. Dispite promoting the show on her name and the Amdassador Tickets Website listing the show as Aladdin - Staring Pamella Anderson they are not offering refunds and will only exchange tickets for a £5 per ticket fee. What a rip off. I just sepend 10 minites on a premium number being talked down to. If you are effected apparantly you need to complain, in writting!, to Kevin Paplin at the wimbledon theatre. Small Claims court for me I think!

Sorry Paul, you're paying for the show not the star unless possibly it's a one man show.
I think all of us have had at least one disappointment in booking for a star and getting an understudy at one time in our lives. For me it was this year when I went to see Ken Stott in View from the Bridge, I was upset as I was really going to see him but I gave it a chance and the understudy was brilliant!

[Paul 66]

Sorry Paul, you're paying for the show not the star unless possibly it's a one man show.
I think all of us have had at least one disappointment in booking for a star and getting an understudy at one time in our lives. For me it was this year when I went to see Ken Stott in View from the Bridge, I was upset as I was really going to see him but I gave it a chance and the understudy was brilliant!

In principle I agree, and the same has happened to me in the past, but that has been an on the night unavoidable situation, however the show is actually advertised on the ticket booking page as Aladdin staring Pamella Anderson and they have over 2 weeks notice that she is not appearing, the issue I have is that they are prepared to change the tickets, fair enough, however they want £5 per ticket to do so!

[armadillo]

I don't believe for a single moment that you are really going to court over £5 per ticket, however, just in case I am wrong (it does happen!), please come back and report the result.

[Ian]

OK. First things first. It is REALLY not worth going to court over a £5 fee to change tickets.

However, theatres are going to have to be a lot more careful in their advertising. Wyndhams are under threat of action over misleading advertising after they displayed a (very) selective quote from a review for The Shawshank Redemption.

Others have really pushed the boundaries of acceptable advertising. I have not seen the Wimbledon advert (make sure to take a copy of it) but harking back to the early days of SoM at the Palladium, there were big adverts proclaiming "See Connie Fisher in The Sound of Music" Connies name being in bigger letters than the show title. In that circumstance I don't believe - and I am NOT a laywer - that the theatre could hide behind the argument that it is the show not the star, and that the terms and conditions are printed on the ticket. Both the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, and the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 would - I THINK - have superseded the theatres terms in selling a ticket. It is one thing if the star is unable to appear due to ill health, and another if they have contracted to be elsewhere, or (in the Palladium's case) the producers have employed someone else to alternate the role without spelling out which dates. Producers can't have it both ways. Either they principally advertise the show, or they advertise the star. If it is the latter then I think standard concert terms are more applicable where a refund is offered if the headliner does not appear.

If you want to take this further then I suggest, and I repeat I am not a lawyer, that IF, and only IF, Ms Anderson is advertised equally or greater than the production, that you take a copy of the advert, research the above named Acts, and write to the theatre naming and quoting from the acts. I would not threaten court action - it really is not in your interests unless you intend actually commencing an action. Keep it short and polite. My guess is that "as a gesture of goodwill" they will waive the fee.

Law, and the interpretation of law is under constant change. Generally theatre tickets have not been worth a legal challenge, but the increasing cost and the nature of the producers adverts are HEADING towards a showdown in a few select cases. It is worth noting that the Palladium backed down and offered refunds in the early days of Connies absence. Many, if not most, consumer disappointments are not worthy of refunds, maybe including yours, equally some theatre terms and conditions are open to challenge. As the producers of The Shawshank Redemption are discovering.

[Marius Pontmercy]

The Broadway system seems sensible to me: if the star is billed above the title, you can get a refund if they're out; if they're not, you can't. (Producers are under no obligation to bill anyone above the title, and the rule that below-the-title performers were ineligible for leading actor Tony awards no longer exists.) That way there couldn't be any arguments: a Patrick Stewart fan would know before they booked that they would be able to get their money back if he was out of Waiting for Godot, but that they'd have to take the risk if they wanted to see Hamlet.

[Weez]

Except that's not actually a rule; a lot of people believe it, and a lot of theatres will follow it, but it's not a RULE, just a sign of goodwill on the part of those theatres that do it.

I also wasn't aware that below-the-title performers were ever ineligible for leading nominations. The case still stands that above-the-title is automatically considered leading and below-the-title is automatically considered supporting, but producers have always been able to petition and say "I know he's not above the title, but we want you to consider him for lead", and they regularly do so.

[Matthew Winn]

I looked into this a few years ago during one of the other times when this issue came up here, and (as I understand it) the legal position is that the buyer is expected to understand the limitations on what the vendor can deliver. In the specific case of wanting to see a star in a show, the theatregoer is expected to be aware that any member of the cast can be ill or on holiday, and that therefore no matter how boldly the name of the star is promoted it cannot constitute a contractual agreement to provide the star at all performances. It defies credibility to claim that ticket purchasers are completely unaware of the concept of understudies and somehow missed the many stories of star absences over the past few years, so people buying tickets know that there is a chance that the star may not appear and enter into the contract on that basis. What they want isn't part of the contract.

On the other hand, there is a requirement on the production to make a best effort to provide the star. Someone pulling out of a show because of illness or other unavoidable cause is one thing, but if the star decides not to do all performances or withdraws because of contractual disagreements then there may be room for a claim against the production on the grounds that the star's absence is avoidable: the star could have performed, but didn't.

[Marius Pontmercy]

Except that's not actually a rule; a lot of people believe it, and a lot of theatres will follow it, but it's not a RULE, just a sign of goodwill on the part of those theatres that do it.

I stand corrected, but I've never heard of Broadway theatres refusing a refund, and I have heard of shows losing quite a lot of money over that sort of thing.

I also wasn't aware that below-the-title performers were ever ineligible for leading nominations. The case still stands that above-the-title is automatically considered leading and below-the-title is automatically considered supporting, but producers have always been able to petition and say "I know he's not above the title, but we want you to consider him for lead", and they regularly do so.

I'm talking a long time ago... I think the rule was changed around the time that Chicago and A Chorus Line were originally on Broadway, because there was some controversy about one of the cast of A Chorus Line being nominated for leading actress when she wasn't above the title. But if I'm wrong about the first part of my post I could have made that up too!