Booking fees for buying tickets over the telephone from West Ham’s new ticket partner Ticket Master have increased by 30% to £1.95 per ticket. Under the current contract with See Tickets at the Boleyn Ground, Bondholders/Season Ticket Holders/Academy and Youth Academy Member pay £1.50 per ticket. However, buying tickets online for the Olympic Stadium will remain the same at £1 per ticket booking fee.
A source close to the ticket office told Claret and Hugh
“Unfortunately, this was a tough decision but we took in the fans view on the problems encountered with the current box office particularly in the time spent waiting on the phone due to the small size of the See Tickets call centre”
The source added “It’s tough to find an improved system at the same cost, Ticket Master offer a better service but for this, supporters will have a slightly higher charge applied to their transactions. We have battled hard to keep the online the same and this is where biggest improvement in terms of demand and also usage will be seen”
Bull****. £1 to add a game onto your season ticket? No human intervention, just a computerised process where the actual work to make it happen is done by the customer. And a great deal done just to keep it to £1. Outrageous.
But that’s how Ticket Master gets paid. The booking fee is their cut of the ticket as the agent
So what exactly does Ticketmaster (or any of the licensed scam artists dressed as ticket brokers/agencies) actually do for their money and why does any club need them? It’s just a made up charge that breeds resentment when we all see the scam for what it is.
No Ticketmaster = no fee. Where’s the problem with that when they are doing nothing but raise a phantom charge in the first place?
Ticket master own and run the software and host and run the website. They also own and run the call centre with all the associated employment costs and telephone costs.
Most sports clubs outsource their ticketing
So the calls to Ticketmaster wiIl be free as they are collecting cash on so many other fronts? Of course not. Facility fee, transaction fee, booking fee, it’s all just money for nothing. The club must know every cost in advance, so why not just make the face value of the ticket the total price to be paid?
Ticketmaster has raised a few eyebrows. There are several instances of tickets for large events being sold out via Ticketmaster in a very short time only to reappear on their subsidiary Ticketsnow for eye-watering sums very shortly after. They have had issues with several high profile artists because of this.
This site rightly commented on and criticised unscrupulous fans reselling final game tickets for obscene amounts. If West Ham achieve the success we are all hoping for, expect this to become a far more common occurrence for domestic and cup competitions via Ticketsnow.
It would be good if C&H could use their links at the club to see if they would be willing to reassure fans and confirm that this isn’t the case and that there are restrictions (hopefully a complete ban) of West Ham tickets from being resold on Ticketsnow. For an idea of the mark ups involved, tickets for AC\DC that had a face value of $44 were supposedly resold for just under $2000.
The resale of football tickets are strictly controlled by law. I am told Ticket Trader will be re-launched at the beginning of the season
Resale is permitted if authorised by the organiser of the match. Sunderland, Everton and Chelsea all have agreements with various companies, Stubhub, Viagogo etc.
As I say it would be good if the club would expressly state no such agreement is in place, otherwise given the reports, it is something I expect to see more of, not less.
I note that for the Juventus game the discount for over65s/under21s has been reduced from the usual 50% discount for these type of friendly games to only 25% so instead of costing £25 a ticket will now cost £40 – so much for making the new stadium FAMILY FRIENDLY
Try and think ********s???your paying players wages,** plus a few add ons.