02 Dome ticket rip-off

wurlitzerwilly

Be very careful buying tickets for any show, but especially at the O2 Dome and don't ever buy from Double8tickets.com, who have a street address in London's Charing Cross Road.

We bought tickets back in April for the Barbra Streisand show last night (22nd) and paid £250 each for them to Double8tickets.com, who are a ticket broker. Whilst we expected that sometimes tickets would be priced a little above face value, to cover admin charges, and a fair profit, we did not expect to receive £110.50 tickets that were for seats that were incorrectly described. We ended up as high in the Gods as you can go and as far away from the stage as possible, and due to a badly produced show, we missed parts of it because we were being blinded by some idiot that kept swinging a bright spotlight into the roof.

We phoned Double8tickets.com to point out their mistake, and they point blank refuse to issue any sort of refund. I will be complaining bitterly to O2 and Trading Standards about it. :mad:

BTW, O2 have a really wierd rule about bottles of water!!!
I bought two small plastic bottles of water, from a licensed vendor inside the O2 Dome, to drink during the show, at the rip-off price of £1.50 each. I was then requested to remove the PLASTIC tops from each bottle and discard them in a bucket, for security reasons.
Despite a very heated argument, they would not back down, or tell me why the rule existed, despite me telling them that I refuse to have other peoples' dust and germs in my open topped bottles, so rather than give in, I went without the bottles and will be claiming damages from them for ill-health due to dehydration! I'm all for safety and anti-terrorism, but that petty burocracy beggars belief. :huh:
So if you want tops on your bottles, take some spare ones in your pocket.

Regards,

Alan.

Bamber19

Alan, I fully sympathise with the ticket issue, that's a disgusting overprice. As far as the bottles of water go many venues have this rule because a full bottle with a lid hurts a hell of a lot more and can do more damage when launched from the crowd than an empty or open topped one. Whislt the rule is there for more rowdy gigs and it was unlikely to happen at a Barbara Streisand gig it's probably just easier to have the rule for all gigs. Not sure you can claim damages considering you were free to take the water in and were not being kept there against your will so could have left, also i'm dubious about the level of ill health suffered from a couple of hours without water

wurlitzerwilly

Bamber19 wrote: »

Alan, I fully sympathise with the ticket issue, that's a disgusting overprice. As far as the bottles of water go .............................it's probably just easier to have the rule for all gigs. Not sure you can claim damages considering you were free to take the water in and were not being kept there against your will so could have left, also i'm dubious about the level of ill health suffered from a couple of hours without water

Thanks for the support.

I would say that to offset the "does more damage with the lid-on" theory, it would also do a lot of damage to someone who had slipped because of the water that I'd spilled whilst walking (whether deliberately or not) and they have a duty of care to prevent that. As the rule is not actually written anywhere (I checked) it would be quite easy for them not to take the easy option and to countermand the directive until needed.

No, of course there's no real ill health issue. I'm just hell bent on causing them grief, over their petty burocracy!

Regards,

Alan.

LilMissEmmylou

you bought from a tout, thats how they make their money, they over price the tickets. Re the water, i was always told its due to slipping on the bottles. With a lid on you can slip on it, with the lid off, the bottle just crumples under your foot. Its a common thing in a lot of venues tbh.

Yes id be unhappy about the bad staging of the show re the lights in ur face, but you cant exactly put that on the venue, more down to the production crew.

If you want a ticket at face value, buy it direct from the venue or through a legit method such as ticketmaster, ticketweb, aloud etc etc the sooner they ban selling tickets on through touts, the better.

wurlitzerwilly

In my defence, Double8tickets.com purport to be a ticket "broker" and in my naivety, due to purchasing insurance through a broker, assumed that I would get a fair deal, especially as they state a 15 year trading record. I can now see why you say they're touts and had I realised that, I think I would rather have taken my chances on eBay. O2 were not selling direct at the time, so I was forced to deal through an 'agent'.

You're right about the bad staging being down to Ms Streisand's production team and I should have said that I will be writing to them to complain. I am involved in show production myself, but mostly from being a DVD producer which involves me in camera work, and I am well aware of problems with lighting!! If I find a problem such as that which affects the public, I report to the show 'owner' who usually tries to put it right. Sometimes very difficult when using a venue's own (often decrepit) lights, but in the case of this show, all state-of-the-art expensive gear with a full crew!

BTW I wonder who told Ms Streisand where she could get Cottage Pie made with Mussels? Hell, I hate to be patronised.

Regards,

Alan.

Searcher

Personally I think the biggest rip off here is the price of the tickets in the first place. From memory I think the official prices ranged from £100 - £600 :eek:

And to think, people baulked at the price of the tickets for Madonna and the Rolling stones lol

juno

When I went to the O2 arena, they were selling bottles of water for £1.50 right in front of the entrance to the arena (ie still inside the dome). They were then taking these off you when you went in! And they were £1.80 inside the arena.

wurlitzerwilly

juno wrote: »

When I went to the O2 arena, they were selling bottles of water for £1.50 right in front of the entrance to the arena (ie still inside the dome). They were then taking these off you when you went in! And they were £1.80 inside the arena.

I bought mine from a stand which was outside one of the restaurants. It must have been there officially as it had a cooler that was plugged in to the mains and I'm sure it would have been moved on if illegal.

What really bugs me is that the security guy blatantly lied, by saying that there was water inside the arena (free or otherwise) which there certainly wasn't this time.

Regards,

Alan.

uktim29

wurlitzerwilly wrote: »

I'm just hell bent on causing them grief,

Here we go again!

"Despite a very heated argument"

Hasn't it occured to you that the members of staff don't make the rules. This rule turned out to have a vaild reason. Rather than having arguments with people who have nothing to do with it couldn't you have just left it. Anyway a top removed from a bottle is no health risk anyway, were you planning on holding your breath as well?

Voyager2002

uktim29 wrote: »

Here we go again!

"Despite a very heated argument"

Hasn't it occured to you that the members of staff don't make the rules. This rule turned out to have a vaild reason. Rather than having arguments with people who have nothing to do with it couldn't you have just left it. Anyway a top removed from a bottle is no health risk anyway, were you planning on holding your breath as well?

Can't you give the guy a break!

By this point he would have just found out about his over-priced tickets, and must have been angry and unhappy. In that kind of situation, most people make more fuss over little things than they are really worth. Of course, it was yet another unpleasant experience to ruin his big night out.

Voyager2002

wurlitzerwilly wrote: »

In my defence, Double8tickets.com purport to be a ticket "broker" and in my naivety, due to purchasing insurance through a broker, assumed that I would get a fair deal, especially as they state a 15 year trading record. I can now see why you say they're touts and had I realised that, I think I would rather have taken my chances on eBay. O2 were not selling direct at the time, so I was forced to deal through an 'agent'.

Did you pay with a credit card? If so, and if you have any evidence of what this tout promised you were getting for your money, then contact the credit card company. If there is evidence that you were cheated, they may well be able to reclaim (chargeback) the money from the agent.