London show cancelled 40 mins before start

Kinhh

Thanks all. They told us to get there 1 hour before… so, 130. We got there on time and we’re told by door staff. Email of cancellation at 1:48.  What annoys me, is if they’d of at least emailed us at 1:00 for example, we wouldn’t have wasted 4 cab rides. 2 there, 2 back. We had to move dinner to lunch which was back in Victoria… hence the four cabs. Which seams a bit petty, but they were £64 in total. I have contacted them, no response at all. 

sheramber

Emails are  always instant.

My husband emailed me information  from the upstairs study to me in the lounge. It took 2 hours to arrive.

eskbanker

sheramber said:

Emails are  always instant.

My husband emailed me information  from the upstairs study to me in the lounge. It took 2 hours to arrive.

Those lines clearly contradict each other as written, was there a 'not' missing from the first perhaps?

sheramber

eskbanker said:

sheramber said:

Emails are  always instant.

My husband emailed me information  from the upstairs study to me in the lounge. It took 2 hours to arrive.

Those lines clearly contradict each other as written, was there a 'not' missing from the first perhaps?

Yes, Agreed. 

Manxman_in_exile

p00hsticks said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

jon81uk said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

jon81uk said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

So have I read that correctly?

The T&Cs say that if the consumer wants to cancel (refund or exchange tickets) then they have to give (at least?) 48 hours notice, but if the ticket seller wants to cancel then there is no minimum period of notice, and in fact they put the onus on the consumer to check beforehand that the event has not been cancelled or re-scheduled!

If I wanted to be argumentative I might say those T&Cs were a pretty good example of unfair terms insofar as they lead to an imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under the contract.  If the ticket seller wants the consumer to give 48 hours notice of cancellation, shouldn't the seller have to give the consumer 48 hours notice as well?

(Have I misunderstood what those terms are saying?)

I don't know whather 8.1 limits the seller's liability or not.  Again if I was being argumentative I might say it shouldn't as the seller shouldn't be able to exclude liability by relying indirectly on the unfair (ie imbalanced) contract terms regarding cancellation.  If the seller had had to give 48 hours notice of cancellation then the OP's party could have had an opportunity to make other arrangements (change travel plans, arrange to visit other attractions in London etc) and limit their own losses.  But as they weren't given reasonable notice of the cancellation they couldn't do so.  I think they've suffered at least partial direct losses on travel etc.

Of course I'm just being argumentative and thinking aloud.  I'm not saying the OP can necessarily get anything back other than ticket refund.

That doesn't seem unusual though, if you want to cancel tickets you need to give enough notice that they could feasibly re-sell them.
But if a theatre show is being cancelled by the producer its usually very last minute as its either sickness in the cast or an issue with the venue such as a power cut. Very rare for shows to be cancelled with notice.

It may be usual but that doesn't mean it's right.  Maybe they are all wrong.

[Edit:  But if it's reasonable to give the ticket seller sufficient notice to re-sell the tickets, why isn't it equally reasonable to give the buyer the same amount of notice to make other arrangements try to minimise their losses?  Why does it go one way?  I'd hazard a guess that the ticket seller will find it easier to re-sell the tickets at very short notice than the buyer will find it to change their arrangements even if they had the luxury of 48 hours notice]

As I said most cancellations are due to sickness or venue issues that would not normally be known about that far in advance. Generally either a showing is withdrawn due to poor sales weeks in advance or it’s cancelled with hours or minutes notice due to illness or venue breakdowns.
If you only know that both the lead and understudy are ill an hour before showtime how are you meant to give 48hrs notice?

If you argue that the seller might need to cancel at short notice then you must equally accept that the T&Cs should give the ticket buyer the same right - otherwise it's an unfair term.

In the OP's case that's not really relevant though, is it ? I think we're getting sidetracked a bit here.

The OP's not complaining that they no longer wanted to go and see the show thirty minutes before curtain up but the T&Cs didn't allow them to cancel their booking that late. They're looking to see if they can claim a consequential loss for train fares in addition to getting their ticket refunded when the theatre cancelled at short notice.

But being argumentative again, the OP's loss of train fares etc could be said to stem  from the unfair cancellation terms in the contract.  If the cancellation terms had been fairly balanced so that the ticket seller had to give the same notice as the buyer (48 hours) the buyer would have had the opportunity to avoid (or at least mitigate) the losses incurred by needlessly travelling to London to see a show that wasn't going to happen.

If you want to argue that the seller didn't know the show wasn't going to happen 48 hours in advance, faitr enough.  But then the contract terms would need to be be made fair by giving the consumer the same opportunity to cancel within 48 hours - in fact right up to the curtains going up. * 

Also I'm not sure these are consequential losses?  Isn't the test a question of remoteness and whether the losses were foreseeable?

I'd argue these losses were direct losses as they are foreseeable and not too remote.  I'm sure a very large proportion of theatre-goers in London make a special trip to go to London to attend musicals etc and that that is their main purpose in going to London.  I'm sure ticket sellers know this.  As such I think those travel losses are foreseeable and not too remote.

user1977 said:

jon81uk said:

And if the theatre is liable for train tickets, what stops them being liable for plane tickets, hotel costs and other things?

Indeed. "I flew first class from Australia just for this show!".

Obviously that would be too remote both literally and as a question of law...  



In any case, on reflection I'm not sure if this is really a question around cancellation or whether it's actually a question of frustration of contract and issues about losses and damages don't arise.


* Too make a genuine rather than just an argumentative point, the 48 hours cancellation term imposed on the buyer is clearly unfair and unenforceable so long as a corresponding notice period is not imposed on the seller.

tightauldgit

Manxman_in_exile said:

So have I read that correctly?

The T&Cs say that if the consumer wants to cancel (refund or exchange tickets) then they have to give (at least?) 48 hours notice, but if the ticket seller wants to cancel then there is no minimum period of notice, and in fact they put the onus on the consumer to check beforehand that the event has not been cancelled or re-scheduled!

If I wanted to be argumentative I might say those T&Cs were a pretty good example of unfair terms insofar as they lead to an imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under the contract.  If the ticket seller wants the consumer to give 48 hours notice of cancellation, shouldn't the seller have to give the consumer 48 hours notice as well?

(Have I misunderstood what those terms are saying?)

I don't know whather 8.1 limits the seller's liability or not.  Again if I was being argumentative I might say it shouldn't as the seller shouldn't be able to exclude liability by relying indirectly on the unfair (ie imbalanced) contract terms regarding cancellation.  If the seller had had to give 48 hours notice of cancellation then the OP's party could have had an opportunity to make other arrangements (change travel plans, arrange to visit other attractions in London etc) and limit their own losses.  But as they weren't given reasonable notice of the cancellation they couldn't do so.  I think they've suffered at least partial direct losses on travel etc.

Of course I'm just being argumentative and thinking aloud.  I'm not saying the OP can necessarily get anything back other than ticket refund.

No I think you are missing the important part - the consumer has to give the notice if they want their money back (or most of it anyway). If they are happy to lose the money then they can 'cancel' at anytime by not showing up. 

The vendor is refunding the money for the ticket cancelled at short notice - so not comparable terms. 

Manxman_in_exile

Kinhh said:

Thanks all. They told us to get there 1 hour before… so, 130. We got there on time and we’re told by door staff. Email of cancellation at 1:48.  What annoys me, is if they’d of at least emailed us at 1:00 for example, we wouldn’t have wasted 4 cab rides. 2 there, 2 back. We had to move dinner to lunch which was back in Victoria… hence the four cabs. Which seams a bit petty, but they were £64 in total. I have contacted them, no response at all. 

Being realisitc you will probably get nowhere - you'll have realised that most others here disagree with my view.

I think the question is whether your travel losses are (1) foreseeable and not too remote from the decision to cancel the show, and (2) stem from the decision to cancel the show.  I think your travel losses are forseeable and do stem from the cancellation insofar as you visited London in order to attend the show.  Others here disagree and say all you are entitled to is a refund on the tickets.  That view is probably stronger than my view.

But as regards the taxi fares (£64?) I think I'd argue the point further with them and see if you get anywhere.  You could try telling them that the cancellation terms in their contract are so heavily weighted in favour of the ticket seller as against the ticket buyer that they constitute unfair terms under Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (legislation.gov.uk) and that if they'd given you a reasonable amount of notice of the cancellation (as opposed to only telling you after the time they'd told you to arrive) you could have avoided needless expenditure on the taxi fares.  They probably weren't bothered about trying to give you a reasonable amount of notice of the cancellation as the knew that under their (unfair) T&Cs they didn't need to give you any notice.  They try to put the reponsibility for checking the show will go ahead on the ticket buyer!

Try it and see what happens.  You'll probably get nowhere but nothing to lose...

MobileSaver

Manxman_in_exile said:

I'd argue these losses were direct losses as they are foreseeable and not too remote.  I'm sure a very large proportion of theatre-goers in London make a special trip to go to London to attend musicals etc and that that is their main purpose in going to London.  I'm sure ticket sellers know this.  As such I think those travel losses are foreseeable and not too remote.

user1977 said:

jon81uk said:

And if the theatre is liable for train tickets, what stops them being liable for plane tickets, hotel costs and other things?

Indeed. "I flew first class from Australia just for this show!".

In any case, on reflection I'm not sure if this is really a question around cancellation or whether it's actually a question of frustration of contract and issues about losses and damages don't arise.

* Too make a genuine rather than just an argumentative point, the 48 hours cancellation term imposed on the buyer is clearly unfair and unenforceable so long as a corresponding notice period is not imposed on the seller.

There could be an argument that the cancellation terms are unfair and therefore unenforceable but as the vendor has already promised to refund the tickets then it's a moot point.

However completely separately ("Severability") the train fare loss is clearly addressed in the Liability terms and conditions where the OP agreed to take on the risk of those costs if the show was cancelled; so legally the OP has no chance.

Similarly it's unlikely the late notice would be of much help as I suspect the vendor will simply state they informed the OP as soon as reasonably possible; the organisers will have cancelled the event and notified the ticket vendor who then has to presumably verify the cancellation before contacting their customers, all of which takes time.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

MobileSaver said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

I'd argue these losses were direct losses as they are foreseeable and not too remote.  I'm sure a very large proportion of theatre-goers in London make a special trip to go to London to attend musicals etc and that that is their main purpose in going to London.  I'm sure ticket sellers know this.  As such I think those travel losses are foreseeable and not too remote.

user1977 said:

jon81uk said:

And if the theatre is liable for train tickets, what stops them being liable for plane tickets, hotel costs and other things?

Indeed. "I flew first class from Australia just for this show!".

In any case, on reflection I'm not sure if this is really a question around cancellation or whether it's actually a question of frustration of contract and issues about losses and damages don't arise.

* Too make a genuine rather than just an argumentative point, the 48 hours cancellation term imposed on the buyer is clearly unfair and unenforceable so long as a corresponding notice period is not imposed on the seller.

However completely separately ("Severability") the train fare loss is clearly addressed in the Liability terms and conditions where the OP agreed to take on the risk of those costs if the show was cancelled; so legally the OP has no chance.

A 2 second Google suggests one party is unable to exclude liability for their breach of the contract.

I'm not suggesting you are incorrect but since you said "legally the OP has no chance" are able to advise how that term stacks up as being legally enforceable? 

MobileSaver

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

MobileSaver said:

Manxman_in_exile said:

I'd argue these losses were direct losses as they are foreseeable and not too remote.  I'm sure a very large proportion of theatre-goers in London make a special trip to go to London to attend musicals etc and that that is their main purpose in going to London.  I'm sure ticket sellers know this.  As such I think those travel losses are foreseeable and not too remote.

user1977 said:

jon81uk said:

And if the theatre is liable for train tickets, what stops them being liable for plane tickets, hotel costs and other things?

Indeed. "I flew first class from Australia just for this show!".

In any case, on reflection I'm not sure if this is really a question around cancellation or whether it's actually a question of frustration of contract and issues about losses and damages don't arise.

* Too make a genuine rather than just an argumentative point, the 48 hours cancellation term imposed on the buyer is clearly unfair and unenforceable so long as a corresponding notice period is not imposed on the seller.

However completely separately ("Severability") the train fare loss is clearly addressed in the Liability terms and conditions where the OP agreed to take on the risk of those costs if the show was cancelled; so legally the OP has no chance.

A 2 second Google suggests one party is unable to exclude liability for their breach of the contract.

I'm not suggesting you are incorrect but since you said "legally the OP has no chance" are able to advise how that term stacks up as being legally enforceable?

Ultimately, of course, it's for a court to decide whether something is legally enforceable but the standard tests applied are:

• Is there such a term in the contract?
• Is the term unambiguous?
• Is the term fair and reasonable?

If the answer to the above three questions is yes (which in the OP's case they are) then the term is legally enforceable.

For the avoidance of doubt there are two caveats (Negligence and Statute) which may void the term but there's nothing to suggest either of those apply in the OP's case.