Pricing

[penelopesimpson]

But why are tickets allocated to agencies that are (effectively) NOT reputable - i.e. they're known to sell them on at many times the face value? (Or do Ticketmaster sometimes do that too?). And anyway why not just sell them all through the venue? (Do the agencies pay a lot more for them than we do?).

 

Booking fees are really annoying. If they didn't sell the tickets/have an audience, there wouldn't be much point putting on the performance. And often there's no real choice as to booking method so no way of avoiding them. I suppose if they didn't have them, though, they'd just charge more for the tickets. I don't know if the fees are really related to the costs of the booking systems etc, or just a way of getting more money from purchasers.

I saw a Watchdog type programme on this problem. They have sophisticated algorithyms that allow them to purchase blocks of tickets as soon as booking opens. A lot of rock bands protest and Elton John is very vocal on the problem. However, this shouldn't happen with ROH who would surely have systems that detect this kind of purchasing pattern. I am baffled

[aileen]

The ROH has a list of approved ticket agencies. I don't know know who is on it. I believe that people buy tickets from agencies out of ignorance. If you buy from the ROH or the Wells you have the tremendous advantage of being able to sell or exchange tickets for a minimal charge. A couple of years ago a grandmother had over-enthusiastically bought too many tickets to see her grandchild perform in the RB's Nutcracker and was trying to sell some of them on this site as family members could not go / did not want them. If she had bought them directly from the ROH then she would easily have been able to return them and obtain a full refund (minus the admin charge) but as she had bought them from an agency she was stuck with them. I don't know whether she managed to sell them in the end. I suspect not as they were at the upper end of the price range and most people who are looking for Nutcracker tickets on this site are seeking inexpensive tickets.

[alison]

As I said previously, Viagogo is a *resale site*.  That means that people who buy tickets from them are buying from someone who has bought a ticket from the ROH and is trying to make money from it.  The ROH are quite within their rights to refuse admission to anyone buying one - and Viagogo's policy IIRC says that they will refund if your ticket is invalidated.

[bangorballetboy]

Viagogo is not a ticket agency (like Ticketmaster), it is a secondary sale site; i.e. people who have already purchased tickets can put those tickets up for sale. It's not illegal to do this with ballet tickets in the UK, but such a resale would be in breach of the conditions of sale. People who buy ROH tickets in this way can rightfully be declined admission. I don't know why anyone thinks it would be illegal to do so.

[LinMM]

Well at least you can get your money back then.

 

But I cannot think why anyone would do this it seems completely immoral to me as it seems to be taking advantage of people's ignorance.

Just as in the St Petersburg case recently we nearly died when we were told what price the Mariinsky tickets were being advertised at by these agencies ....literally twice the amount for seats in the same part of the theatre!

[alison]

The ROH has a list of approved ticket agencies. I don't know know who is on it.

 

From the ROH site:

 

"Are there any other authorized ticket vendors?

The following ticket outlets are the only agents used by the ROH:

• Albemarle
• Abbey Box Office
• Theatre People (Encore Tickets)
• Discount Theatre (Encore Tickets)
• Lashmars
• Love Theatre
• See Tickets
• Ticketmaster

All other ticket outlets, agents and websites are not authorized to sell ROH tickets. Any tickets bought through other outlets are invalid and may be forgeries. Find out more about the importance of using authorized vendors."

 

I was very surprised the first time I saw someone with Ticketmaster tickets for an ROH performance.  I still don't really understand why the ROH needs to use agencies at all, because I'd have thought it would only increase the risk of dodgy ticket sales if you have ROH tickets printed on other agencies' ticket stock.

[penelopesimpson]

One reason for people using agencies could be that if you type Royal Opera House into Google, the first site up is Viagogo Tickets for Royal Opera House. They have more than sixty tickets for Woolf Works across all performances and a seat in the Stalls is £162

[Jan McNulty]

Janet, you can always opt to pick the tickets up at the box office to save on the postage fee. I always do this but usually pick them up the next time I visit the theatre, you don't have to wait until the day of the performance.

 

 

 

I prefer to have the tickets in my hot sticky hands but I think charging a per-ticket fee and postage on top is reprehensible.

 

Mind you ... Birmingham Hippodrome are by no means the worst offenders!

[Alice Shortcake]

I also prefer to have tickets in my hot sticky hands...mainly because I can't trust my hot sticky brain to remember that I bought them! I've missed several performances because of this.

[alison]

One reason for people using agencies could be that if you type Royal Opera House into Google, the first site up is Viagogo Tickets for Royal Opera House. They have more than sixty tickets for Woolf Works across all performances and a seat in the Stalls is £162

 

Which I suppose the sort of people who only ever read in the newspapers about £100-tickets at the ROH will probably think is par for the course

 

Mind you, when I bought tickets for the tennis at the O2 via Viagogo the other day the original price was indicated somewhere, because I remember thinking what a bargain it was (fortunately, because the match was pretty rubbish!). OTOH, that may have been the organisers trying to offload unsold tickets, rather than profiteers. 

[alison]

On 26/11/2016 at 00:52, alison said:

 

From the ROH site:

 

"Are there any other authorized ticket vendors?

The following ticket outlets are the only agents used by the ROH:

• Albemarle
• Abbey Box Office
• Theatre People (Encore Tickets)
• Discount Theatre (Encore Tickets)
• Lashmars
• Love Theatre
• See Tickets
• Ticketmaster

All other ticket outlets, agents and websites are not authorized to sell ROH tickets. Any tickets bought through other outlets are invalid and may be forgeries. Find out more about the importance of using authorized vendors."

 

I was very surprised the first time I saw someone with Ticketmaster tickets for an ROH performance.  I still don't really understand why the ROH needs to use agencies at all, because I'd have thought it would only increase the risk of dodgy ticket sales if you have ROH tickets printed on other agencies' ticket stock.

 

Interesting to see this from the ROH website now:

 

"The only place that you can buy tickets for productions at the Royal Opera House is through our own website. All other ticket outlets, agents and websites are not authorized to sell ROH tickets."

 

I don't know whether that's Covid-related or not, but I'm pleased to see it.