MSE News:Ticket sellers targeted in booking fee crackdown

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Theatre and music ticket sellers are told they must display booking fees clearly when customers buy online ...

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Ticket sellers targeted in booking fee crackdown

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• They will just add on booking fees onto the face value and claim that there are "no added booking fees"
  So a Ј20 + Ј2 fees ticket will become a Ј23 + "no booking fees" ticket
• this is a big step in the right direction but I still think that there is a trading standards issue as well as an advertising issue. To explain, a theatre can still advertise a ticket for Ј20 and an extra Ј5 compulsory 'booking fee' as long as they are up front with the information. This means that although they are advertising a Ј20 product, it is not possible to buy the product at Ј20. Surely, if extras such as booking fees are compulsory, they should be added to the headline price. Imagine a train company advertising tickets for Ј20 then being charged a compulsory handling fee even when buying the ticket at the station bringing the price to Ј22!! Whether it is a fair price or not is irrelevant. If it is not possible to buy the ticket for Ј20 by any means, it should not be legal to be advertised as such. It should be advertised as Ј20 plus surcharges.
• Never really worried to much about this, but it really should just be in the price or very upfront about it.
  With that booking fees are nothing in comparision to the touts, they need tackling.
• I personally have sent tweets to Martin Lewis to try and get him and his team on the case about this issue. I goto quite a lot of gigs and concerts. The likes of Ticketmaster and See Tickets have been doing this for too long.
  For example I very recently bought two tickets priced at Ј10 each from See Tickets. I got a 'booking fee' and 'handling fee'. They also put on an extra Ј1 for 'refund protection policy'.....this made my two tickets Ј27.31. Which is almost a 1/3 extra. I did not notice the 'refund protection policy' and I am guessing there was a small box I had to tick to opt out of that (because basically it is a nonesense way of making a bit of money).
  Pricing needs to be more transparent and these companies, at times, really push the boundaries of ethics.
• The whole practice of 'Booking fees' is wrong and should be outlawed.
  When you go to McDonald's, do you pay booking fee for buying a Quarter pounder?
  Ticket companies and venues job is to sell tickets. They make enough money from merchandising, advertising and from events. It's time that the practice of 'booking fees' is outlawed.
• It's not only online ticket sales that have 'hidden fees'. For example, if you go in person to the Welsh Millennium Centre theatre in Cardiff you will be charged an extra Ј1.50 a ticket if you pay by debit card, cheque or theatre tokens. They will only waive the fee if you pay in cash.
  Imagine if a supermarket tried to charge Ј3 extra for paying by debit card for Ј80 of shopping. Glad to see someone is starting to tackle this rip off.
• Our local theatre and the associated event venue started charging booking fees about 10 years ago, and then slapped a charge on for paying by credit or debit card. For a while I was willing to go there in advance and pay by cheque, given that wandering around a city with Ј80 in cash was probably not a brilliant idea.
  In the end, having walked down with a cheque already made out, to be told that they wanted to charge me an additional Ј1.50 fee for some spurious reason to see some band I loved, I had a very calm discussion with the clerk and said that not only would the venue lose that Ј80 booking, but that I would probably knock going to concerts completely on the head if they went ahead with the charge. I didn't buy the tickets.
  I've never been back since, and sadly for the venue, realised that this discretionary spending is something that I can live quite happily without. I don't *need* to go to the theatre. I don't need to see bands live and I don't miss it.
  If they put the charges on the ticket price in the first place, I would have known how much it was going to cost to go to the concert, play, event or whatever and could make an informed decision. Being told that I have to pay several more pounds on top of what I thought was the price seems like a rip off to me, and being told, 'It's the industry standard' sounds like double-speak to me. I don't care how you choose to run your industry and I don't need to be trained to know. I just want to buy a product you say you're selling at a clear price.
  Having got out of the habit of going, they've lost me as an audience member permanently, as I've found other ways to spend my disposable income. Their loss, and all for a Ј1.50 charge.
• I'm delighted to see the Government doing something about this now.
  I complained to the Manchester United Ticket Office General Manager over 3 years ago and accused them of endorsing and 'legalising touting' by Viagogo, who Man Utd refer you to when (United) they have sold out for a game.
  The mark up on a face value ticket was 57% when I enquired, which is outrageous.
  They would not allow my friend to give me his 2 season tickets for a game. They informed him the only way was for him to sell them to Viagogo and they would sell them on for him. They of course would have charged him a fee and me a booking fee.
  Out of principle anyway, I refused to buy.
• Bought what I thought were "normal" Early Bird tickets for C2C @O2. Thought I was dealing with a normal ticket seller - didn't realise Viagogo was a market place re-seller.
  Paid Ј454.33 in total
  (2 tickets @Ј189.99 per ticket + booking fee (Ј57)+ handling fee (Ј5.95) +VAT (Ј11.40)
  What really bugged me though was the ticket price: got a big surprise when the .PDF tickets arrived with face value of Ј85 each. There's a big jump from Ј170 to Ј454.
  Viagogo explained that they are an online ticket marketplace and have no control over the ticket costs and just add 15%.
  I'm pretty savvy, but this caught me out, so be warned. Yes, I was prepared to pay that price at the time - but I just thought that was the price of the tickets, not that somewhere along the line there was over 100% mark-up.