26 replies to this topic

[Craig_G]

We all know the price has just become stupid now and the more cynical people could probably claim the deposit scheme is more of a con than anything.

We've got 6 tickets, which are £185.... plus £5 booking fee..... plus £4.95 p&p.

Now as this is a group booking, how can you justify an additional £10 each per ticket?  Surely they are "administered" together and "posted & packaged" together?  And that's not even taking into account travel/parking permits etc.

mmmm.

[fowls]

I would've thought the £185 + £5 processing fee is for each ticket, and the £4.95 P&P is for the entire order?  That's how it is for all the major ticket sites.  

Edited by fowls, 06 January 2010 - 05:00 PM.

[Dark Star]

fowls, on Jan 6 2010, 04:59 PM, said:

I would've thought the £185 + £5 processing fee is for each ticket, and the £4.95 P&P is for the entire order?  That's how it is for all the major ticket sites.  

It is, you pay a £5 booking fee per ticket and £4.95 postage per order.  The booking fee is significantly lower than normal, most events it's a good 10-15% of the face value.  The day of the £200 ticket isn't far off though.

[Kyelo]

Craig_G, on Jan 6 2010, 04:56 PM, said:

We all know the price has just become stupid now and the more cynical people could probably claim the deposit scheme is more of a con than anything.

I, amongst many others who attend other festivals I'm sure, strongly disagree

[llcoolphil]

BenchBuddah, on Jan 6 2010, 05:25 PM, said:

I, amongst many others who attend other festivals I'm sure, strongly disagree

I agree. Whilst it isn't cheap it represents brilliant value for money  

[Craig_G]

I know this guys.  But it wasn't that long ago I'd be paying about £150 for a ticket, without having previously already paid a £50 deposit. I'm just being cynical in jest.

[cejx]

Craig_G, on Jan 6 2010, 04:56 PM, said:

We all know the price has just become stupid now and the more cynical people could probably claim the deposit scheme is more of a con than anything.

We've got 6 tickets, which are £185.... plus £5 booking fee..... plus £4.95 p&p.

Now as this is a group booking, how can you justify an additional £10 each per ticket?  Surely they are "administered" together and "posted & packaged" together?  And that's not even taking into account travel/parking permits etc.

mmmm.

Another thread is commenting on the value for money that Glastonbury actually is... and I have to say, I agree.  OK, 200 nicker is a lot, but you don't get owt for nowt, and you get a lot for your 200 quid.

Booking fees are a ballache, but £185 to G fest, £5 to the 'superb' SEE for ensuring all ticket purchases go smoothly (ahem) and a fiver to post em out.  Seems fair enough.  If only SEE would use their fivers wisely and install a system that works!

Deposit scheme?  Con?  Why?  Seems good to me.

[srvman]

cejx, on Jan 6 2010, 05:31 PM, said:

If only SEE would use their fivers wisely and install a system that works!

It does work, works much better than ticketmaster or any other highly anticipated event i have attempted to get tickets to...

[eFestivals]

cejx, on Jan 6 2010, 05:31 PM, said:

If only SEE would use their fivers wisely and install a system that works!

what gets missed with rants like this about See is the limited stock problem not suffered by most online retailers and the consequences of that on the money available for investment.

Think about it.....

If (say) Amazon goes out of stock of a popular item it can simply order some more stock and sell it. The same can never be true for gig tickets.

And of course, for (say) Amazon, the more stock they sell the more profit they have available to invest in infrastructure (more servers) - the same 'bottomless pit' of profit is not available to ticket agents.

[cejx]

srvman, on Jan 6 2010, 05:34 PM, said:

It does work, works much better than ticketmaster or any other highly anticipated event i have attempted to get tickets to...

I guess though, when they screw up - they really do screw up and when eventually they do put things right - after a gadzillion premium rate phone calls, you really resent paying them that fiver!

[eFestivals]

srvman, on Jan 6 2010, 05:34 PM, said:

It does work, works much better than ticketmaster or any other highly anticipated event i have attempted to get tickets to...

yup - when I'#ve tried to buy tix from ticketmaster and failed (cos it sold out while in their stupid queuing system) I've been sent thru a confirmation email and a confirmation of despatch email for tickets I never purchased.

That's one f**k-up that See Tickets has never managed to do as far as I'm aware.

[cejx]

eFestivals, on Jan 6 2010, 05:40 PM, said:

what gets missed with rants like this about See is the limited stock problem not suffered by most online retailers and the consequences of that on the money available for investment.
.

I'm not ranting. I would never compare SEE with the likes of ticketmaster who in my opinion are useless with their incompetent queuing system and incorrect emails.  SEE are ticket purchasing perfection compared with them... which I'm to comparing them to!




Ah yes Neil.... I see you've fallen foul of the queuing system too!

Edited by cejx, 06 January 2010 - 05:47 PM.

[srvman]

seetickets arent perfect but they are the only company up to the job...could you imagine ticketmaster handling glasto, would be a nightmare...
and the last two years they have been in the large part superb..

[fowls]

cejx, on Jan 6 2010, 05:46 PM, said:

I'm not ranting. I would never compare SEE with the likes of ticketmaster who in my opinion are useless with their incompetent queuing system and incorrect emails.  SEE are ticket purchasing perfection compared with them... which I'm to comparing them to!




Ah yes Neil.... I see you've fallen foul of the queuing system too!

No way, I MUCH prefer TM to See.

Here's my rant (in a quote box so people can easily ignore it if they want to)

Quote

See
-Continually crashing
-Always send out their tickets at the very last minute
-No option for account, so have to enter the same info every time you order a ticket and have to save all those confirmation numbers to track ticket progress

TM
-Site can handle the traffic
-Send out their tickets as soon as they get them (many times I've gotten tickets months before the gig while my friends who order through See get theirs a week before, sometimes only a few days before).
-The account means you can order tickets with a few clicks (and so can get tickets before the major traffic starts) and you can see all the tickets you've ordered on a single page.

The queueing is a bit annoying, but it's better than constantly refreshing because the site's crashed.  The quick buy with the account usually gets in before the queue though since you don't have to waste time entering your address etc.

See tickets have been known for randomly cancelling tickets because of 'suspected card fraud'.  If the customer asks what's happened they're told the tickets are cancelled and there's nothing they can do to get them back.  Never happened to anyone I know with TM.

And there was that year (think it was 05 or 06?) when See got in trouble because tickets for Reading/Leeds weren't arriving til the Wednesday of the festival (i.e. when people had already left for the early bird arrival).

When a popular tour goes on sale, I always manage to get tickets on TM before my friends get through on See. So say all you want about TM being corporate whores or whatever, but their system is much more efficient than See's.

(rant over)




See handled Glasto alright, but for plenty of people the site crashed at such a point where they didn't know if they had tickets or not.  2 of my friends only knew they had tickets when they tried a second time to be told their number had already been alloted a ticket.  I'm pretty sure I remember it happening to a few people on here too.  Not exactly the reassurance you want when you order tickets, especially since confirmation emails are pretty slow in coming.

Edited by fowls, 06 January 2010 - 06:53 PM.

[srvman]

fowls, on Jan 6 2010, 06:30 PM, said:

No way, I MUCH prefer TM to See.

Here's my rant (in a quote box so people can easily ignore it if they want to)



(rant over)




See handled Glasto alright, but for plenty of people the site crashed at such a point where they didn't know if they had tickets or not.  2 of my friends only knew they had tickets when they tried a second time to be told their number had already been alloted a ticket.  I'm pretty sure I remember it happening to a few people on here too.  Not exactly the reassurance you want when you order tickets, especially since confirmation emails are pretty slow in coming.

an account system with see would be an unfair advantage to those, who dont want to create one, the queing system at ticketmaster is awful, if anything, worse than just refreshing as most times i go backwards in line.....

for those complaining about the cost.....5 quid for postage is fair, its recorded delivery! 5 quid for handling is fair enough, they are a company, its their job to make money....they have to pay for extra wages and technology to support demand for festivals and tickets and make porfit, i dont blame them for this, at least it isn't as ridiculous as ryanair, who charge 10 quid to use a visa....

ticketmaster would charge just as much, infact i would guess more, they have ridiculous charges for cheap tickets you get by email...

[srvman]

and ticketmaster im postive, would attempt to do what they do now, and tout a percentage of their tickets for high demand gigs to the highest bidder(get me in and viagogo are affiliates of ticketmaster, and this is why they are a sharr of c**ts).... bit of norn irish slang at the end, you get the jist though

[mkgirl1981]

i think i read somwhere a reading ticket was £180, if thats true then personally i think glastonbury is great value esp as you can take your own drinks in.
my friend went to download last year and all you could take in was a small bottle of water

[beamends]

Craig_G, on Jan 6 2010, 04:56 PM, said:

We all know the price has just become stupid now and the more cynical people could probably claim the deposit scheme is more of a con than anything.

I don't see how the deposit scheme is a con. It performs two very useful functions. The first being for punters like us. We are a minimum wage household, so finding 2 x the full ticket price less that 6 months after the festival is impossible. With the deposit scheme we can know we have ticket reserved and can make the sacrifices to save up the full amount secure in the knowledge that we are not wasting our time. The second is that the deposit scheme helps the festival's cash flow early on, and is good evidence for creditors that money will be paid. I imagine many of the businesses that contribute to the whole experience take out overdrafts/loans to cover their costs until the day. If one bank called in a debt to one or more suppliers due to fear ot tickets not selling, I'll bet panic would set in (aided by wild speculation in forums such as this) and many debts would be also be called in - end of festival.
    

Quote

We've got 6 tickets, which are £185.... plus £5 booking fee..... plus £4.95 p&p.

Now as this is a group booking, how can you justify an additional £10 each per ticket?  Surely they are "administered" together and "posted & packaged" together?  And that's not even taking into account travel/parking permits etc.

The booking fee is SEE's profit. See effectively buy all the tickets at face value, add a fiver, and sell then to you (that's how most ticket sales are handled). £5 is a very reasonable markup I'd say. As for P&P - have you sent a registered letter recently? Then you have to pay people to put things in envelopes, the actual cost of printing tickets, the envelopes themselves. £4.95 is quite reasonable for that too.

Quote

mmmm.

So put in a bid yourself for the ticket sales for Glastonbury for 2011. If you can even get close to £9.95 per ticket you are in the wrong job - start selling tickets!

The only thing that could be better would be for payment to be allowed by credit card - I'd willingly pay the 2.85% (or whatever the festivals/See's bank charge) for the peace of mind (debit cards are charged at a fixed fee, around 35p normally). I suspect though that the requirement for credit card companies to refund in the event of cancellation is a major reason for credit cards not being accepted, as the banks would charge-back to the festival (they do it automatically - there's no debate with the retailer, even if, say there were a flue epidemic and the council stopped the festival) - which would bankrupt it. With debit cards festival goers would just have to join the queue of other creditors for a re-fund, which might leave enough breathing space to save the festival.

[rexclark]

Can't stand TicketMaster, not a huge fan of SEE either but they are better and I find if you have a problem SEE sort it out pretty quickly in my experience.

[eFestivals]

srvman, on Jan 6 2010, 07:03 PM, said:

and ticketmaster im postive, would attempt to do what they do now, and tout a percentage of their tickets for high demand gigs to the highest bidder(get me in and viagogo are affiliates of ticketmaster, and this is why they are a sharr of c**ts).... bit of norn irish slang at the end, you get the jist though

GetMeIn are owned by TM, they're not merely an affiliate.