Entertainment For Lively Minds
Watch Ticket Agencies carefully
A lot has been written in recent years about ticket agencies and the various complications about buying tickets to shows without being ripped off (I recall a good article in classic rock mag about all this a while ago).
Allow me to share an instance of when it can go wrong. Recently, I ordered some tickets for major show next week with a well known ticket agency who are a sort of E-bay for tickets, where you order the ticket and then some other fan sells his. He sends the ticket and the website arranges the transfer of funds between seller and buyer and takes a cut. In theory it should work smoothly. And sometimes it does.
Not this time. The tickets were posted to me using a courier firm back in May but I was not notified. And for reasons that still escape me, when I checked last week the agency calmly told me that the courier firm had allowed a neighbour (whom I barely know) to sign for my tickets. However, I've never received them and he denies keeping the envelope.
By the way, my account says that the tickets were sent to me on 1 January 1753!
This is a sloppy way to do business and the ticket agency have since ignored both a verbal request for a refund and a written request submitted on their website also asking for a reason why they used a courier who did not ensure that goods paid for were received by the person who paid for them.
Any one got any similar stories, or indeed about ticket agency hell generally?
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Name and shame, Rocker, name and shame...
It's the only language these agencies understand.
By the way, I have been in mortal combat with (what I assume is) Seatwave and would be delighted if others would like to take up the cudgel with me...
Basically I saw the Wikepedia article on Seatwave and thought that it was an entirely one-sided promotional puff piece, clearly cooked up by their PR dept.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seatwave
I particularly like the justification that secodary ticketing is great because people like the excitement of not knowing how much they are going to pay for a ticket. Personally these people should go paintballing or somesuch...
So I changed it to something I considered to be reasonably even handed. And they changed it back. And, well, life's too short to do battle single-handed with the (secondarily ticketed) man.
My version of the entry still exists somewhere I guess. If other people fancy contesting it...
Fact
1 January 1753 was the first full day of the UK's adoption of the Gregorian calendar.
named and shamed
emcee - you've guessed the ticket agency. The courier firm is UPS. I've checked my emails tonite and still no reply.
Seatwave are well known for being like foxes
Not to enter into the blame game here but it is well known that Seatwave do not really care about users. I will give you an example from my personal experience:
-I bought MJ tickets for the shows in London. We all know what happened with MJ but Seatwave did not care. I am still waiting for the refund to happen because all Seatwave can say is that the insurer will come back to me. I wonder for how long do I have to wait for my money to be refunded but is over a month now and still no news.
- In the other hand, my sister bought tickets for another MJ show through viagogo (which happened to be official partners, something I did not know at the time). She claimed the money back and one week later (this is over a month ago) she had the money in her account.
I wonder, what rights has Seatwave to hold my money and for how long? Why their customer service does not even reply to any of my emails?
Loyalty card sceme?
We were in the pub yesterday discussing ticket prices, the secondary market etc. Pissed up logic gave us this solution. Why can't somebody set up a body (similar to the PRS perhaps) wherebye you obtain credits when you buy a CD/download a track/buy a ticket and you can then get priority for these "credits" when tickets go on sale for that artist. This would help ensure tickets go to the "real" fans. The sobriety of morning tells me there may be holes in this scheme but we have to get a better sceme than present where cash effectively goes to the new touts.
There's big coverage in our area at the momemt because of Oasis at Bridlington Spa where people have bought tickets with never any intention of going to the gig other than to sell them on at a large profit.