Ticket Booking Fees

JWBlack

I recently bought 4 tickets for 2 comedy shows through the ticket company SEEtickets by Eventim.  The show was cancelled with 2 weeks notice.  The money has been refunded but the ticket company Booking fees and Order processing fee (surely one and the same🤔) have not been refunded as per their terms & conditions. So £12.10 out of pocket. There was no other way to book the tickets so no choice in accepting booking fees etc.

When the 2 shows were cancelled at short notice - no reason was given and having done some subsequent on-line research on the two reasonably well known headline acts I'm now not entirely  convinced that everything was in place for the gig to go ahead in the first place! So perhaps selling tickets for shows which were unconfirmed.  Regardless, the ticket company does appear legitimate, but with quite a few cancelled shows according to their reviews. 🤔

Surely promoters/ artists, of the standing that were advertised, have insurance to cover cancelled shows and costs etc. This should be passed onto the booking company (that the artists choose to sell their tickets through) to cover their lost costs and subsequently refund the loyal fans? Perhaps something that should have been covered in ticketing legislation.

In my view the ticketing companies need to be held to account more anyway, but I can't help feeling that in this particular instance has this been some sort  ”soft” scam in the first place?

born_again

Ticket selling co's have admin costs in cases like this.

swingaloo

Its all quite normal and legal (if questionable fair) for the fees not to be refunded in case of cancellation. 

Its happened to me several times and I queried and tried to get a refund but no chance. Mine was with Ticketmaster, it was when Peter Kay sold out withing minutes only to cancel his shows a couple of days later.

I would say the fault lies with the artist or promoters not the ticket sellers as they have their overheads to cover.

Ectophile

I wonder how many people realise that the excessive booking fees don't just go to the company selling the tickets. Let's face it: it doesn't cost £12.10 per ticket to run a web site and email the tickets out.

The ticket company's job is to take the blame for the fees.  What the customer doesn't know is that a chunk of those fees will go to the venue and/or the performers.

MyRealNameToo

Ectophile said:

The ticket company's job is to take the blame for the fees.  What the customer doesn't know is that a chunk of those fees will go to the venue and/or the performers.

See you'd think it was the other way round, that a slice of the ticket price goes to vendor just like any other product a seller sells they get an unseen markup. 

It would beg the question why venues bother selling their own tickets then. 

Ectophile said:

 Let's face it: it doesn't cost £12.10 per ticket to run a web site and email the tickets out.

Their biggest cost will be marketing which may not be too bad if you have exclusive rights to selling tickets but could be very expensive if multiple companies are advertising the same tickets. Not only will you be paying per time someone clicks onto your site and buys but you will also be paying for all those people that click onto it and then go away and buy elsewhere or dont buy at all. 

Never advertised a gig online but a Google suggests the average is £2.50 per click and so you'd need an over 20% conversion rate to just break even - thats a fairly high conversion rate target!