London show cancelled 40 mins before start

Undervalued

photome said:

regardless of the law if any live venue, be it theatre, football, gigs, started to refund for travel in the event of a late cancellation we would soon be without such venues

Indeed.

Also assuming the late cancellation was because of an exceptional level of cast sickness, beyond the scope of their normal understudy provisions, how would the OP have felt is they had seen a third rate performance for their ticket price? 

Equally some major productions rely on complex stage engineering which can break down. If that happened the only options may have been some kind of costumed concert or complete cancellation?

Many major weather dependent sporting events (e.g Wimbledon or the Lord's Test match) provide an insurance backed guarantee of two hours play. That is not a lot out of what often might be 8 hours scheduled play at Wimbledon. Plus, it only gets you your ticket price refunded and not any other expenses.

user1977

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

MobileSaver said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

MobileSaver said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

(c) doesn't apply to the OP (I presume), with (a) those loses were foreseeable (the trader would have known where the OP lived as you need to provide at least a billing address to pay by card and so knew the OP would have to travel to the venue), with (b) those loses were caused by a breach on the part of the trader.

I completely disagree.

For (a) the card address could be anywhere (friend's card, company card) and the ticket delivery address could be anywhere and anyway I seriously doubt all 8 people live at the same address! Regardless, unless the vendor was explicitly told in advance that they were travelling by train to the venue for the sole reason of watching the show then any such losses were not foreseeable.

For (b) the vendor wasn't in breach of contract, was it?

Even without the address it's obvious people have to travel to venue, tickets for shows aren't sold locally only for those in the immediate area. 

When you say the vendor wasn't in breach of contract what are you suggesting?

Yes, everyone has to travel to a venue but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a cost to that travel so any loss won't have been foreseeable unless the vendor was notified in advance of that cost.

The vendor sold tickets to a live event and the vendor supplied the tickets. The contract specifically stated that (obviously) live events can be cancelled or postponed, what would happen if such a situation arose (a refund in this case) and then they honoured that refund.

What breach of contract do you think occurred?

photome said:

regardless of the law if any live venue, be it theatre, football, gigs, started to refund for travel in the event of a late cancellation we would soon be without such venues

They'd still be there, they'd just have insurance to cover it. 

Is the insurance readily available and how much is it going to add to the cost of everybody's tickets? Why shouldn't the punters arrange their own insurance if they're concerned about the costs incurred?

MobileSaver

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

MobileSaver said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

MobileSaver said:

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

(c) doesn't apply to the OP (I presume), with (a) those loses were foreseeable (the trader would have known where the OP lived as you need to provide at least a billing address to pay by card and so knew the OP would have to travel to the venue), with (b) those loses were caused by a breach on the part of the trader.

I completely disagree.

For (a) the card address could be anywhere (friend's card, company card) and the ticket delivery address could be anywhere and anyway I seriously doubt all 8 people live at the same address! Regardless, unless the vendor was explicitly told in advance that they were travelling by train to the venue for the sole reason of watching the show then any such losses were not foreseeable.

For (b) the vendor wasn't in breach of contract, was it?

Even without the address it's obvious people have to travel to venue, tickets for shows aren't sold locally only for those in the immediate area. 

When you say the vendor wasn't in breach of contract what are you suggesting?

Yes, everyone has to travel to a venue but that doesn't necessarily mean there's a cost to that travel so any loss won't have been foreseeable unless the vendor was notified in advance of that cost.

The vendor sold tickets to a live event and the vendor supplied the tickets. The contract specifically stated that (obviously) live events can be cancelled or postponed, what would happen if such a situation arose (a refund in this case) and then they honoured that refund.

What breach of contract do you think occurred?

If the booking companies just supply the tickets in that case there is a contract with someone else for the show itself

That's the thing though; there isn't a contract with anyone else. The only contract the OP has is with the ticket seller and that contract is not in breach. 

Regardless, even if there was a contract with the show itself, that contract would only promise to use best endeavours to put on a live event and would refund if unable to do so - there would still be no breach of contract if the show was cancelled.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I do agree the specific costs for the OP, or any one as an individual, may not have been known depending upon what information was given by the OP when forming the contract.

Exactly! Unless notified when forming the contract, the vendor cannot have known if the OP would have incurred costs or to what extent so how can the loss have been foreseeable?

Intrinsically the CMA guidelines you refer to are all about "fairness" and there's nothing fundamentally unfair about the OP losing travel costs if the show is unavoidably cancelled (don't forget the balance to this "injustice" is that the vendor refunds all monies paid for tickets so they're losing out too.)

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head

So you are saying that all service contracts are best endeavours with a promise of a refund if the service doesn't go ahead (assuming terms are written in such a way) so a consumer never has a claim for any loses suffered due to non-performance? 

I disagree on the unknown for travel, as I said they'll ask for an address, most people give the address they live at and it's likely that's where they will travel from, if they travel from some place else, fair enough that's it's on them. 

I don't agree about the event losing out, I of course agree that they are indeed losing out, probably significantly, but they are in business, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and, to be frank, so what? 

user1977 said:

Is the insurance readily available and how much is it going to add to the cost of everybody's tickets? Why shouldn't the punters arrange their own insurance if they're concerned about the costs incurred?

If there was demand it would exist

I understand all these places say they won't pay for lost travel but how many places say deposits are non-refundable? Just because companies can get away with as it hasn't been challenged doesn't necessarily make it correct.

If being correct results higher costs such is life. When you book your ticket you'll be paying for many things that are required by law already. 

Of course I may very well be wrong and ticket prices are safe  

jon81uk

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

So you are saying that all service contracts are best endeavours with a promise of a refund if the service doesn't go ahead (assuming terms are written in such a way) so a consumer never has a claim for any loses suffered due to non-performance? 

I disagree on the unknown for travel, as I said they'll ask for an address, most people give the address they live at and it's likely that's where they will travel from, if they travel from some place else, fair enough that's it's on them. 

I don't agree about the event losing out, I of course agree that they are indeed losing out, probably significantly, but they are in business, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose and, to be frank, so what? 

user1977 said:

Is the insurance readily available and how much is it going to add to the cost of everybody's tickets? Why shouldn't the punters arrange their own insurance if they're concerned about the costs incurred?

If there was demand it would exist

I understand all these places say they won't pay for lost travel but how many places say deposits are non-refundable? Just because companies can get away with as it hasn't been challenged doesn't necessarily make it correct.

If being correct results higher costs such is life. When you book your ticket you'll be paying for many things that are required by law already. 

Of course I may very well be wrong and ticket prices are safe  

If you have E-tickets or collect from the box office you only need to give the billing address.

 If ticket vendors were to be liable for refunds for costs in getting to the venue in the event of unforeseen circumstances then I expect the entire event industry would need rethinking and it likely would just result in either poor performances to avoid the need to cancel or some other way to try and get out of it (for example with sports events wet weather is outside of their control so I expect they would just refuse to refund at all which is even worse than the current situation).

MobileSaver

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

So you are saying that all service contracts are best endeavours with a promise of a refund if the service doesn't go ahead (assuming terms are written in such a way) so a consumer never has a claim for any loses suffered due to non-performance?

Typically, yes, service contracts are written so that liability for events is limited to the cost of the ticket if cancelled for reasons outside of the vendor's control. As mentioned previously, it's different if the cancellation is due to negligence on the part of the vendor.

the_lunatic_is_in_my_head said:

I disagree on the unknown for travel, as I said they'll ask for an address, most people give the address they live at and it's likely that's where they will travel from, if they travel from some place else, fair enough that's it's on them.

If an online E-ticket system is used then the vendor may never even get to see your physical address; even when validating your payment some payment processors will just confirm the payment was authorised and not reveal the cardholder's address.

However, even if you have physical tickets delivered to your home address, there's nothing to tell the vendor that you will be travelling from that location to the venue's location for the sole purpose of watching the show so how can losses be foreseeable?

As in the OP's case you may be buying the tickets for other people (and perhaps some of them are travelling from Australia) so how is the vendor to know that there may be foreseeable losses there? Perhaps the OP had already arranged to have a meal before the show at the restaurant next door, so how could the vendor know that there may be foreseeable losses there?

Of course, courts are not infallible and even though on a legal basis they shouldn't, there's always a miniscule chance the OP could "win" (typically because the defendant doesn't turn up or settles beforehand as their legal costs would be more than the claim) but it's not something I'd risk spending any more money or time on...