Flight of the Tickets

Last week I stupidly forgot that Flight of the Conchords tickets were going on sale, so I was pleased to find out that tickets for extra shows were going on sale this morning.  I logged onto Ticketmaster at about 8:50 in preparation for them going on sale at 9am.  Coming up to 9 o’clock I started refreshing the page to make sure I got in as soon as possible and at 8:59 I was able to start selecting tickets.

It all seemed to be going far too easily and I was immediately in the queue.  Unfortunately it also said that there were no tickets available – at 9 o’clock on the dot.  I kept trying in case there was some mistake but none became available.  To say that I was annoyed is an understatement.

I understand that there were only 2600 tickets for the show (at the Manchester Apollo) and that they were going to go fast, but could they really have sold in less than a minute?  What made it more frustrating is that by dinner time there were lots of tickets available on secondary web-sites (I won’t name them for libel reasons, but they’re not hard to find) with prices starting at £70 – for a £30 face value ticket in the rear circle.  If you wanted a decent seat then you would be looking at easily £150+.

In what way does this not constitute ticket touting?  I can understand if someone needed to sell a ticket if they found out at a later date that they couldn’t attend, but four hours after they went on sale?  It’s absolutely ridiculous.  I actually found one site that had a single, rear circle seat for £35.  They were, however, asking for £6 commission and £8 p&p!! Yes, they really wanted £8 to post a small piece of paper in an envelope.  How are they able to get away with this?

If any of the political parties want to do something about this, then they’ll definitely secure my vote.