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£7 booking fee for 2 tickets... WHY?!!!

Gassin's finest

C'est diabolique
May 12, 2010
37,353
87,819
You've always had to pay that fee, just before they'd hide it in the overall price. I think there was some kind of legal thing put in place yonks ago that said they had to split the booking fee from the event price, so you knew how much was going to the band/film studio/football club etc etc.
 

Maske2g

SC Supporter
Feb 1, 2005
4,257
1,726
It's just another way to rip off fans really. I think it's disgraceful that they charge postage for members now who have cards.

Do the ticket agent have to pay to develop and maintain the functionality, to administer the allocation of a ticket, to a specific membership card?

(Yes is the answer)

If so, why is it a disgrace?
 

yido_number1

He'll always be magic
Jun 8, 2004
8,646
16,809
Do the ticket agent have to pay to develop and maintain the functionality, to administer the allocation of a ticket, to a specific membership card?

(Yes is the answer)

If so, why is it a disgrace?

You may have got a disagree because it was booked directly through the club? When paying directly through the club why should you pay a booking fee? If they want to charge £3 extra why not just put that straight on the ticket. I also hate paying postage and any other source I can find that has free postage I will generally use. I would the same for the product with free postage as I would for the product + Postage just to make a point.
 

stephen509

Member
Feb 21, 2005
277
23
I was a Spurs steward for 10 seasons (finishing last year).

For stewards tickets they don't charge at all. And also no postage fees.
 

rockyhotspur

Well-Known Member
Jul 20, 2008
1,095
1,046
When we played Portsmouth in the FA Cup semi at Wembley I bought 6 Club Wembley tickets from Wembley and was charged £25 administration fee for EACH ticket!
 

Navin R Johnson

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2011
6,376
15,070
My brother and I both have season tickets, when we renewed them we both had to pay the £4 odd for the postage and packing. When we received our new season tickets, both had been lumped together in the same package, but yet we were still charged individually...
This happened to me a few years ago (I know this thread is of about the same vintage as when this happened to me), I emailed the club asking why they charged me £5 twice when the tickets were in the same envelope, they read the emails but ignored them, this had the affect of making me as petty as them. I thought to myself if £5 matters that much to a multi million pound company then it should matter even more to the working man. I went to my local BBC radio station's consumer show, went on air, explained the situation and had a refund in under a week. Apparently it was a clerical error and they were going to contact all those affected. Yeah, right.
 

si_yidarmy

£NIC OUT
Apr 17, 2005
4,717
931
It is because someone has to click a button with their mouse the other end to confirm the ticket purchase. Expensive hard labour. Possibly some of that fee goes towards helping them get out their office chair too if required.
 

Maske2g

SC Supporter
Feb 1, 2005
4,257
1,726
You may have got a disagree because it was booked directly through the club? When paying directly through the club why should you pay a booking fee? If they want to charge £3 extra why not just put that straight on the ticket. I also hate paying postage and any other source I can find that has free postage I will generally use. I would the same for the product with free postage as I would for the product + Postage just to make a point.
i dont care about the disagreers, they live in ignorant bliss, happy to get their information from random internet users who are equally ignorant to the facts. In this case the fact being that the Spurs ticketing services is still software from ticketmaster. It is not free.
 

SandroClegane

Well-Known Member
Jun 27, 2012
3,717
13,842
I work in a ticketing office in the US. The booking fee helps pay for the ticket stock, printing machines, CRM/ticketing system, and its maintenance. Our arena uses quick tap cards as well as tickets, so it goes towards the programming and technology that makes those cards. We built our fees into our tickets, however, as people will complain when they don't know the reason.

It's definitely not the club trying to "screw you". Especially when the fee is a miniscule amount like £3 per seat. In the US, a general fee to go through ticketmaster is usually around $10 per seat USD.
 

Navin R Johnson

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2011
6,376
15,070
i dont care about the disagreers, they live in ignorant bliss, happy to get their information from random internet users who are equally ignorant to the facts. In this case the fact being that the Spurs ticketing services is still software from ticketmaster. It is not free.
I'm a simple bloke, I like transparent pricing, overheads are part of the price-not an add on in my opinion. There can't be too many other businesses apart from ticketing which do business in this way. I'm often not moaning about the total price of a product, I'm moaning about how the final price varies so greatly from the headline price.

As I say, I'm a simple bloke, if it's impossible to buy a £27 ticket for less than £30 then make the face value £30, even Ryanair have cottoned onto the fact that even though they're very often the cheapest flight option the way they build their prices leave people feeling ripped off.
 

double0

Well-Known Member
Aug 29, 2006
14,423
12,258
Well if they continue the way they are we'll end up with smaller crowd at WHL... On European nights were struggling to get 25 thousand.

Don't ask how we'd fill the new stadium.
 

yido_number1

He'll always be magic
Jun 8, 2004
8,646
16,809
I work in a ticketing office in the US. The booking fee helps pay for the ticket stock, printing machines, CRM/ticketing system, and its maintenance. Our arena uses quick tap cards as well as tickets, so it goes towards the programming and technology that makes those cards. We built our fees into our tickets, however, as people will complain when they don't know the reason.

It's definitely not the club trying to "screw you". Especially when the fee is a miniscule amount like £3 per seat. In the US, a general fee to go through ticketmaster is usually around $10 per seat USD.

I understand the example, but when you go to a restaurant and have a meal you don't pay a cutlery fee or extra to get your plate washed in the kitchen? Why don't they just factor the costs into the original price?
 

Rocksuperstar

Isn't this fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have?
Jun 6, 2005
53,290
66,758
Booking fees used to cover the wages of the person at the booking office/on the phone, printing the tickets and, in a lot of cases, covered P&P too. Now everything is digital, so the only cost is if you require a physically printed ticket, and even if you add up the ink and paper, it's pennies still, so how these box office firms get away with charging the amount they do feels a bit of a rip off.

However, if you think about it, it's probably the only way to stay afloat for most of these companies now. The price charged for the event is already climbing fast and if they're selling tickets for, just as an example, a theatre with ~1,500 seats with all tickets requiring printing, £3 per ticket gives them only £4,500 before they even warm up the ol' daisy wheel in the corner. That's not a lot, once you take out all the expenses any office or admin team require for daily operation.

It's a dying industry - same as cash really, tickets will become less and less a physical thing, you'll book online through an automated system and just swipe your phone, or show them a text or some shit, which is a shame as collecting stubs is a great way to reminisce.
 

Maske2g

SC Supporter
Feb 1, 2005
4,257
1,726
Booking fees used to cover the wages of the person at the booking office/on the phone, printing the tickets and, in a lot of cases, covered P&P too. Now everything is digital, so the only cost is if you require a physically printed ticket, and even if you add up the ink and paper, it's pennies still, so how these box office firms get away with charging the amount they do feels a bit of a rip off.

However, if you think about it, it's probably the only way to stay afloat for most of these companies now. The price charged for the event is already climbing fast and if they're selling tickets for, just as an example, a theatre with ~1,500 seats with all tickets requiring printing, £3 per ticket gives them only £4,500 before they even warm up the ol' daisy wheel in the corner. That's not a lot, once you take out all the expenses any office or admin team require for daily operation.

It's a dying industry - same as cash really, tickets will become less and less a physical thing, you'll book online through an automated system and just swipe your phone, or show them a text or some shit, which is a shame as collecting stubs is a great way to reminisce.
Ah, so the design, implementation, maintenance, and cost of the servers is free for digital tickets. Pleased we cleared that up. BOOO ITS A DISGRACE
 

Rocksuperstar

Isn't this fun? Isn't fun the best thing to have?
Jun 6, 2005
53,290
66,758
Ah, so the design, implementation, maintenance, and cost of the servers is free for digital tickets. Pleased we cleared that up. BOOO ITS A DISGRACE

You know what i mean - that shit can (and i expect often is) rented from farms, and aside from that, considering the way modern offices run, those fall under the "daily operation" of the business. Like i said, it doesn't leave much room to earn money for the agent, considering the amount they have to shell out to run that business. Anyway, stop stealing the spotlight from the poor booking agents - arguing the poor, underpaid IT industry is for another thread.
 

SandroClegane

Well-Known Member
Jun 27, 2012
3,717
13,842
I understand the example, but when you go to a restaurant and have a meal you don't pay a cutlery fee or extra to get your plate washed in the kitchen? Why don't they just factor the costs into the original price?
My team does that. Maybe Spurs can't because there are restrictions, I don't know UK law.
 
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