[M George]

Right, I am sure this subject area has been broached before but I feel the need for a rant about Ticketmaster.......

I have just booked two tickets for 'West Side Story' in Manchester tonight and I am so cross it's unvelievable. Not only has £1.80 processing fee (what the hell?) been whacked on PER TICKET but I've also been charged £2.75 to collect the tickets at the box office. HOW THE BLOODY HELL IS THAT JUSTIFIED??!! I am incensed and if there were any way of booking at the Palace Theatre I would do it but sadly it's a Live Nation venue so it's Ticketmaster or nothing.

DOWN WITH (insert strong seven letter swear word here) TICKETMASTER!!!! It's EVIL!

[Nancy]

Not only has £1.80 processing fee (what the hell?) been whacked on PER TICKET

Did they say what a 'processing fee' covers? Is it a new name for booking fee or was there a booking fee as well?

Quite shocked also that you have to pay to PICK UP your tickets? Presumably the Box Office print them out on site so it is not like there is a courier cost to cover or anything. Outrageous!

N

[MaxCady]

Ticketmasters other Booking Number is 01613851138
A lot cheaper than ringing 0870????

[LondonTheatreUK]

Ticketmaster now charge booking fees (or service charges) and processing charges (postage or box office collection - either way it's the same price) seperately. On top of each ticket.

[M George]

Did they say what a 'processing fee' covers? Is it a new name for booking fee or was there a booking fee as well?

Quite shocked also that you have to pay to PICK UP your tickets? Presumably the Box Office print them out on site so it is not like there is a courier cost to cover or anything. Outrageous!

N

Outrageous indeed. I can just about cope with the booking fee per ticket because I am used to it but £2.75 to pick them up at the box office is a total disgrace!

[Terry]

Even worse... where they can, they now do "FastTicket" for some events...
Which they email you a pdf file.. and you have to print out yourself...
THEY charge YOU about £3 a time for printing your own ticket...

[Terry]

/

[Orchestrator]

Even worse... where they can, they now do "FastTicket" for some events...
Which they email you a pdf file.. and you have to print out yourself...
THEY charge YOU about £3 a time for printing your own ticket...

They sent my wife tickets for the wrong West End show. How carp is that?!

[Laughingmonsta]

well i was looking at taking my neice to a show in liverpool and when i saw the chrages i said stuff this, my guess is its only going to have knock on effects to the theatre industry!

[Matthew Winn]

I had a long-running dispute with Ticketmaster three years ago. It was never settled to my satisfaction. Eventually their stubborn intransigence wore me down.

It started several years earlier, when on a couple of occasions I'd specifically requested front row seats and had been sold tickets further back even though front row seats were available. The reason was that on each occasion the front row seats were at a reduced price because they were nominally restricted view. The Ticketmaster operators had looked at the top price seats only, thereby overlooking the front row seats.

I complained about that at the time and was assured that Ticketmaster would take steps to train its operators to make sure the problem never happened again. But then three years ago I made five bookings in a row on separate occasions, and on every single one the Ticketmaster operators made exactly the same mistake. When I wrote to them, among other things Ticketmaster's customer service staff ...

... denied that the front row seats were available (even though one of their own staff had rebooked me into a front row seat when I complained).
... called me a liar.
... said their staff couldn't possibly make mistakes like that.
... sent me a reply without paying postage, so I had to pay 92p to read them telling me to go to hell.

And would you believe it, their staff still make the same mistake on a regular basis. They have a monopoly on telephone bookings at many venues so they don't have to bother with good service.