Glastonbury fan 'loses £16k' over VIP tickets

[bombfrog]

9 minutes ago, Losing my hair said:

Anyway, I really have to get some work done.

Yeah me too, never going to be able to afford those VIP tickets if I miss out on T-day next year!

[shoptildrop]

He could have got a yurt and 2 tickets at Love Fields for less than 4K - might have been a better deal in this case  

[HalfAnIdiot]

23 minutes ago, eastynh said:

I hired a campervan. Cost me £1100 + 250 deposit + 200 for extra insurance. I worked 12 hours on Christmas day and Boxing day to pay for it. I sat in work on those days, pretty much depressed and pretty much on my own. Yet I knew it would enable me to go to the festival as due to health reasons, it is impossible for me to tent it these days. Now the best bit is I did not even have a ticket when I booked the camper, I got lucky in the resale. Yet i was determined that I was going to the festival. I was working god knows how many hours overtime to enable me to buy one of these media/vip/package tickets if need be. Now I am not rich in any way. I probably come from one of the poorest areas out of any member of this forum. Yet I was willing to graft my bollocks off to enable me to go, even if I had failed with all possible legitimate avenues.

Now if I had been had over with a VIP ticket, would I have received any sympathy off this forum? Probably not as no one would have known my circumstances. Would I have deserved any? Yes I think I would. Now none of us know this fellas circumstances, yet people seem a little hasty in judging him. He might have grafted his bollocks off all his life to enable him to pay to get in. I have loads of sympathy for the fella. He is not the bad guy here, it is the scoundrels who have had him over.

I hope you had a great time. I've no issue with how much people want to spend on 'doing' the festival. Each to their own and what meets their resources and needs.

I do have BIG problem with those that seem to think rich and poor are just two mortally equal social groupings and are happy to sit on their high horse and spout off how hard working and deserving the rich are FFS.

The rich must be scrutinised. They have a moral responsibility to use their inherent power in society for the betterment of the less fortunate. Equating that to Marxism is just lazy Tory rhetoric.

I suggest some on here should go out and meet some of these poor people and really try to understand the challenges they face and daily struggles that prevent them from getting out of the mire. You might learn something.

 

Edited July 3, 2019 by HalfAnIdiot

[gherkin8r]

3 minutes ago, HalfAnIdiot said:

I hope you had a great time. I've no issue with how much people want to spend on 'doing' the festival. Each to their own and what meets their resources and needs.

I do have BIG problem with those that seem to think rich and poor are just two mortally equal social groupings and are happy to sit on their high horse and spout off how hard working and deserving the rich are FFS. 

The rich must be scrutinised. They have a moral responsibility to use their inherent power in society for the betterment of the less fortunate. Equating that to Marxism is just lazy Tory rhetoric. 

I suggest some on here should go out and meet some of these poor people and really try to understand the challenges they face and daily struggles that prevent them from getting out of the mire. You might learn something.

 

I live in West Belfast, my partner and mother of our two children spent her childhood squatting in a derelict building. Just for context.

It is possible not to vilify or "other" people who have things better than you or stereotype them because they have money that's all I am saying. Belfast more than any other city in the UK has suffered from this kind of mentality based on identity politics and group thinking. 

[HalfAnIdiot]

5 minutes ago, gherkin8r said:

I live in West Belfast, my partner and mother of our two children spent her childhood squatting in a derelict building. Just for context.

It is possible not to vilify or "other" people who have things better than you or stereotype them because they have money that's all I am saying. Belfast more than any other city in the UK has suffered from this kind of mentality based on identity politics and group thinking. 

It's not identify politics (much overused phrase), it economics. Power must be held to account as I'm sure you would agree.

[DeanoL]

1 hour ago, ghostdancer1 said:

hardly cheating. Glastonbury turns a blind eye to ticket package selling, and in fact actively contributes and supports the selling of VIP tickets and packages. I mean, how do you think the company that screwed him got tickets in the first place? How do you think most of the celebs in the "Celeb spotting" thread got in? Sitting there hitting F5 in October like the rest of us?

But they also say the below.

That’s why this is about privilege. The festival outright says you can’t get tickets any other way. We know that isn’t true. But that is the official line. It’s the privilege of rich people to ignore that statement, to assume it does not apply to them, that “sold out” doesn’t mean “sold out” if you have enough money. But there is also a risk there. A small one, if you pay enough (a higher one if you don’t). But still a risk. If you don’t want to risk being scammed, get your tickets from See like everyone else.

as for those saying that we don’t know the circumstances  and maybe he couldn’t get tickets the normal way, there’s been an entire news piece on this, from a sympathetic point of view. We’re that the case, it would have surely mentioned it. 

[clarkete]

34 minutes ago, eastynh said:

I hired a campervan. Cost me £1100 + 250 deposit + 200 for extra insurance. I worked 12 hours on Christmas day and Boxing day to pay for it. I sat in work on those days, pretty much depressed and pretty much on my own. Yet I knew it would enable me to go to the festival as due to health reasons, it is impossible for me to tent it these days. Now the best bit is I did not even have a ticket when I booked the camper, I got lucky in the resale. Yet i was determined that I was going to the festival. I was working god knows how many hours overtime to enable me to buy one of these media/vip/package tickets if need be. Now I am not rich in any way. I probably come from one of the poorest areas out of any member of this forum. Yet I was willing to graft my bollocks off to enable me to go, even if I had failed with all possible legitimate avenues.

Now if I had been had over with a VIP ticket, would I have received any sympathy off this forum? Probably not as no one would have known my circumstances. Would I have deserved any? Yes I think I would. Now none of us know this fellas circumstances, yet people seem a little hasty in judging him. He might have grafted his bollocks off all his life to enable him to pay to get in. I have loads of sympathy for the fella. He is not the bad guy here, it is the scoundrels who have had him over.

I hired a caravan too and I'm older and can afford it, so to be frank I couldn't give a feck what others think.  I've had plenty of years in tents so have paid my dues.

Do I think I'd deserve the piss take if I'd been as gullible as him?  Of course, anyone who has spent two minutes on this very forum would think "this sounds like a dodgy scam and there are better and cheaper ways to do it".  Indeed if he had posted someone would have pointed him at some of the better known suppliers.

What's all this other sh*te in this subject about poor vs rich?  Clearly people can be good or bad whichever, that's not the determining factor.  It's not valid that people slate all rich folk, but equally those who think they have the high ground by defending privileged folk merely for their wealth and throwing marxism into it too?  It's simply laughable.

 

[gherkin8r]

Just now, HalfAnIdiot said:

It's not identify politics (much overused phrase), it economics. Power must be held to account as I'm sure you would agree.

People can work hard and become successful or wealthy. That doesn't make them bad. It really is that simple.

Grouping everyone who is wealthy together as if they share a set of values or take their world views from their "privileged" position is just a nonsense.

Of course power should be held to account. Is that not happening here because he spent a lot of money on going to Glastonbury? Is him getting screwed over by some other rich person power being held to account? I feel like you are discussing another loosely related issue to the topic at hand. 

[Slugworth]

This thread  haha

[incident]

1 hour ago, ghostdancer1 said:

I mean, how do you think the company that screwed him got tickets in the first place?

Given how much they were charging for them, and the fact that there was a delay in the tickets arriving - I can confidently say that the answer is "not through any official channel".

Basically, for the purposes of this conversation there's 2 main groups that are allocated Hospitality tickets for potential resale to their staff/clients/guests/etc - Media companies, and local landowners who provide space to the festival. In both cases they're told that the tickets cannot under any circumstances be sold on at above face value (which for Hospitality this year was approx £500 each). In the past this has definitely been policed, and companies have had allocations blocked/withdrawn because of it.

That's why legit places like Windinglake Farm and the like are very, very careful to say that they're charging face value for the ticket - and then charge people an obscene amount for the mandatory accommodation package that comes with it.

[eastynh]

20 minutes ago, clarkete said:

I hired a caravan too and I'm older and can afford it, so to be frank I couldn't give a feck what others think.  I've had plenty of years in tents so have paid my dues.

Do I think I'd deserve the piss take if I'd been as gullible as him?  Of course, anyone who has spent two minutes on this very forum would think "this sounds like a dodgy scam and there are better and cheaper ways to do it".  Indeed if he had posted someone would have pointed him at some of the better known suppliers.

What's all this other sh*te in this subject about poor vs rich?  Clearly people can be good or bad whichever, that's not the determining factor.  It's not valid that people slate all rich folk, but equally those who think they have the high ground by defending privileged folk merely for their wealth and throwing marxism into it too?  It's simply laughable.

 

I totally agree with everything you put.

What gets me though is the company who has apparently ripped him off. Surely it is not worth ripping him off as the negative press far outweighs the couple of grand they will receieve for having the fella over. It just really seems a very mad situation overall.

[eFestivals]

43 minutes ago, Slugworth said:

This thread  haha

for once.... 

Not guilty.

 

[HalfAnIdiot]

22 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

for once.... 

Not guilty.

 

What kept you ???

[MEGATRONICMEATWAGON]

3 hours ago, Spindles said:

Dickheads be dickheads.  It might be suggested that running a business that goes bust, not paying it's bills, then restarting an identical business weeks later and doing it again multiple times is most likely a criminal enterprise.  

 

When I was in the building industry there were companies that would just not pay their bills till their suppliers went bust.  British business is riddled with this.  Generally these companies would then wind up, restart with a new name and somehow ALL of the equipment, infrastructure, people and then do it all again, usually with just stickers over the top of the old logo.

 

Honest question here.  Are the people that do this criminals?  Should there not be punishment for this behaviour that ruins the lives of the owners and employees of smaller businesses that go to the wall so directors can get wealthier?  Should those people be allowed to continue to do so?

Are you talking about the scammers?

Of course they should be found and charged with fraud. If the company really scammed someone out of money, false advertising and all that, took the money and didn't deliver on promises, then they should be punished. 

[Spindles]

I was actually asking a hypothetical question.

In this situation there were no scammers.  The company provided a service of a luxury area and accommodation to the festival with a ticket.  They were unable to get that ticket into his hand until Thursday but still provided every other part of the services they offered and offered him £5k for the inconvenience of waiting a day to access the festival grounds, which he declined and left.  They were able to provide everything they advertised, but not to the standard he expected.  This was not a scam.

The ethics of the companies that provide VIP access and services is a whole other matter, but on this occasion it is someone who paid a lot of money to go to a festival, didn't receive the service he felt he paid for and took it all the way to the press in his complaint.  

[clarkete]

1 hour ago, Spindles said:

In this situation there were no scammers.  The company provided a service of a luxury area and accommodation to the festival with a ticket.  They were unable to get that ticket into his hand until Thursday but still provided every other part of the services they offered and offered him £5k for the inconvenience of waiting a day to access the festival grounds, which he declined and left.  They were able to provide everything they advertised, but not to the standard he expected.  This was not a scam.

The ethics of the companies that provide VIP access and services is a whole other matter, but on this occasion it is someone who paid a lot of money to go to a festival, didn't receive the service he felt he paid for and took it all the way to the press in his complaint.  

That seems to be a reasonable take.  I guess we won't know what would have happened if he had arrived, found the ticket was not available and left without using the accommodation at all.  Would they have provided a full(er) refund?
 

[Spindles]

I expect they probably would.  As someone who now works in customer service I would say that offering 30% of the cost back as a gesture of goodwill for failure to meet the customer's expectation is more than reasonable.  I feel like what we are seeing here is just the tantrum escalation of one of those "get me your manager" types.  There has been no scam.

[bombfrog]

3 minutes ago, Spindles said:

I expect they probably would.  As someone who now works in customer service I would say that offering 30% of the cost back as a gesture of goodwill for failure to meet the customer's expectation is more than reasonable.  I feel like what we are seeing here is just the tantrum escalation of one of those "get me your manager" types.  There has been no scam.

My take is completely different.

The guy has paid the price of a family car to attend a festival and has turned up to find that they don't have his tickets. He's waited in the accommodation outside the festival (within earshot so he can hear it all going on) for 24 hours and been told they still didn't have the ticket on the Thursday, so was going to miss two full days of the festival. I think he was more than patient with them and if I were him I'd definitely be one of those "get my your manager types" as you put it.

Remember, when he left he had no idea whether the tickets would eventually materialise, he'd already spent one night outside the fence and we only have their word for it that the tickets turned up after he decided to cut his losses and leave. I cannot believe you are defending these people.

[Mardy]

I’m here to pour oil on troubled waters. Where there is discord I shall bring harmony

From reading about it, I’m pretty confident in saying that everyone involved in this situation is somewhere on the line between c**t and bellend. Ain’t no-one coming out of it looking good. 

[Spindles]

I'm not so much defending them as correcting that people have called them scammers.  I disagree with the idea that money should buy people convenience, it is wholly against my ethos and I disagree further that the people who do so should be richly recompensed when they don't get their own way.

[Spindles]

Absolutely not, no.  There is zero chance.  I live on less than £12k pa and walk/cycle everywhere.  I do all my own repairs, I spend perhaps £50 per year on clothing and wear everything til it falls apart.  All my meals are home prepared from basic ingredients.  I get value from replacing buying convenience with providing effort.  I live a sparse, basic existence and I am happy with that.

[Jamie 2194]

5 hours ago, HalfAnIdiot said:

You really don't have a clue what poverty is do you. I seriously suggest you get out and explore the world beyond your apparent little bubble.

Sometimes I think this is the Young Conservatives forum.

More then you know, if you took time to read people’s posts you would see I struggled to save a business for 3 years not paying myself for 15 months and managing to protect 22 peoples employment at the same time.....nearly lost my home, my marriage and my mind.... so please do me a favour and just fucking do one you patronising twat..... this forum isn't for you. FULL IDIOT

[gherkin8r]

Haha the world of course is only made of two types of people. Conservatives and people who hate the wealthy. 

[bombfrog]

15 minutes ago, Spindles said:

Absolutely not, no.  There is zero chance.  I live on less than £12k pa and walk/cycle everywhere.  I do all my own repairs, I spend perhaps £50 per year on clothing and wear everything til it falls apart.  All my meals are home prepared from basic ingredients.  I get value from replacing buying convenience with providing effort.  I live a sparse, basic existence and I am happy with that.

Compared to some people you live like a prince, you capitalist bastard ?

 

[eastynh]

4 minutes ago, gherkin8r said:

Haha the world of course is only made of two types of people. Conservatives and people who hate the wealthy. 

I am not a conservative and I don't hate anyone. I don't even hate Liverpool fans ?‍♂️