Car Park Confusion

As you may just have read, I went to watch Stephen K. Amos last night at the Parr Hall.  I parked my car on the car park that adjoins the Pyramid’s own car park (bear with me).  It used to belong to the council, but now it is a privately-owned pay & display.  The kind of car park that is full of signs threatening you with fines and clamping if you even think about not paying and displaying.

Now, every time that I’ve been to a event at the Parr Hall, the ticket machine has been displaying ‘not in use’ and nobody is sure what to do.  Last night was no exception.  Most people decided that since they couldn’t pay they wouldn’t pay.  Some took photos of the machine as ‘evidence’, and I quite clearly jumped on that bandwagon.  Bizarrely, some people decided that they would go to the totally unrelated car park across the street and buy a ticket from there.

If anyone from the parking company were to show up, would they be within their rights to fine everybody parked there, even though there is no way of actually paying? It’s a very weird situation.

Two questions:

Why is parking a car such a pain in the arse?

What on earth is the deal with the car park next to the Parr Hall’s car park?

It seems unlikely that I’ll get any answers to my questions but I thought it was worth a shot.