Rolling Stones at Twickenham - The Great Rock And Roll Ticket Swindle!

Shame on you Ticketline and Live Nation - shame on you - only in it for the money?
and what a lot of money you must have made last night in what can only be the biggest ticket scam it's been my misfortune to be an unwitting part of.

Way back last year when tickets were released for the Stones I got on line as soon as they were released and booked 2 tickets as a Christmas present for my partner. There were lots of cheaper tickets going but I thought this would be the gig not to be missed with this being a chance to see the wrinkly living legends - with that in mind I paid more than I've ever paid for a ticket before in the belief that we would get decent seats and be assured that this would be a gig to remember.

I paid £150 per ticket, that's £300 just for the two of us to see the Stones, the highest priced and best tickets available with the thought this would be a good investment and that by paying so much we would be assured of a good seat. After all, I was buying them from a reputable ticket outlet, right? In order to be certain I even mailed Ticketline on several occasions querying the ticket allocation. Of course I was fobbed off each time but that's par for the course with these guys isn't it? so I didn't worry too much, after all I'd just paid them £300 plus, lest we forget, that little added extra 'the booking fee'. Now I know that this sort of money is just small change to the likes of the big boys like Live Nation and Ticketline, but to me it's a big deal as like most of us I don't have limitless funds to throw away and try to spend wisely when it comes to treats like special gigs - and this gig should have been really, really special.

Well, as it turned out I was very, very wrong to place my trust, and my money, with Ticketline. The seats we were allocated were attrocious. Even the Stewards at the venue felt we had been ripped off - as far as they were concerned (and they should know) we had 'restricted viewing'. We were placed in the middle tier to the left of the stage so we couldn't see anything front on, and as we all know the stage show is all geared up for looking straight on. We were miles from the stage as well - it was horrendous - these were bog standard £50 ticket allocations, at £50 it would have been okay - but £150 per ticket it most certainly wasn't.

Ticketline/Live Nation and Customer Care.

Now, if you read your ticket info you will see that in order to make a complaint you have to do so on the night whilst at the venue or they will not see it as valid. Rather than just meekly accept things we decided okay if that's what we have to do that's what we will do. Well, there are plenty of 'customer services' and 'customer care' staff around the venue - but what you find out really quickly is that they cannot deal with your complaint. We were directed to the Ticketmaster box office, (as it transpires Ticketmaster were the major ticket holders and as such were dealing with all ticket enquiries - Ticketline did not have a representative on site) this, of course, was outside the venue and once in the venue you are not allowed readmission! We spoke to a security supervisor and once aware of our plight he very kindly agreed to allow us outside to make our complaint, of course we would have to undergo the searches again but hey, we can cope with that.

It took us half an hour to find the box office and when we got there we were once again in a queue. Finally we got to speak to a representative Jon Hancock from Ticketmaster, and how's this for customer care: he told us there was nothing he could do. We tried to be insistent with the result that he got on the phone and spoke to 'Alison' from Live Nation who would go to the area and make an assessment. Do the words 'fobbed' and 'off' mean anything to you? We had no option but to return to these very poor seats, we did, however expect to find this 'Alison' Live Nation representative when we returned but true to form we never did as she never bothered to show up - total disinterest. Of course by this time we had missed the support act.

Rest assured folks, there is no such thing as 'customer care' from either Live Nation or Ticketline or for that matter from Ticketmaster acting on Ticketline's behalf, in our experience once they have your money that's it - they simply couldn't care less, and most certainly on this occasion they didn't care at all. So our experience shows us quite clearly that they make themselves unavailable to you, the customer, if you are lucky enough to track them down they are disinterested and if you have a complaint it will most certainly NOT be dealt with, you are on your own. It simply isn't worth the effort of wasting your time trying to get your voice heard - it simply won't be, after all, it's too late once the gig's finished isn't it? at the end of the day there is nothing that can be done about a ruined experience and we certainly found that Live Nation, Ticketline and Ticketmaster couldn't care any less for our 'special' experience and I can't stress this point enough - there was no 'customer care' from these people and there was no 'customer service' to be had at the event.

I have to confess that in the past I have bought tickets from ebay, on each and every occasion I've been more than happy with the tickets I've purchased, and on every occasion I've had better tickets than I've ever been able to get from Ticketline or Ticketmaster - what does that tell you? Something's very wrong here, if you can get a better deal from ticket touts the whole system is wrong, in fact the system plain stinks. When are the promoters and the ticket agencies going to wake up to the fact that they must start to offer a service to their customers?

These industry 'big boys' are getting away with blue murder here - why? I think it's because they make it so impossible to get your voice heard or to complain that the majority of folk simply won't bother - what's the point? You won't be taken seriously, your complaint will not be seen as valid and so most of us will just write it up to experience - how many bad experiences does it take before the ticket buying public rebel against this monopoly of greed? As things stand at the moment the customer is well and truly ripped off at every opportunity - we're at the mercy of unscrupulous promoters, ticket agencies that offer no customer care or customer service and we're at the mercy of the ticket touts. There is absolutely no way of guaranteeing value for money and there is absolutely nothing we can do about it. Yes we can complain, I have done and will continue to pursue this, but let's be honest, they won't be interested and nothing will change.

Nothing that is unless we change, unless we refuse to pay over inflated prices, unless we demand that we get the seats we pay for. We shouldn't have to buy our tickets months in advance with no refund on offer if things go wrong, we shouldn't have to put up with a sub standard service.

On top of the whole ticket issues the parking at Twickenham cost us £20 for just four and a half hours - and getting out of the venue was a nightmare, plenty of police and stewards around but it didn't appear that they had much experience in directing the traffic - par for the course I guess.

The Rolling Stones

We think that they probably did a storming gig! Commensurate professionals who know how to work the stage which looked like it was set up amazingly with pyrotechnics and everything! Unfortunately due to where we were the sound quality was poor; we couldn't see the full effects and the small screens were inadequate. But from the bits we did get the old boys really did seem to pull it off big time with masses of classics that really got the crowd going. Seemed like all those unsung heroes; the backstage guys and gals and the lighting folk did a great job and I guess that if you were in the right place it probably was a gig to remember forever! This should have been the gig of the year, and I guess for many it probably was, I'll just have to wait for it to be on the telly so I can see what I missed at a cost of £300++

Live Nation you should hang your head in shame - you can do better than this - blatant greed.

So what can we do to ensure we get the tickets we pay for?

Sadly it would appear that there is very little we can do, as we've already said there is no customer care and no real customer service in our experience. The promoters decide on the ticket prices and then allocate them to the ticket agencies - the problem with this is that they have their favourites so the fact is that whichever ticket agency fits that particular promoter's profile will be the agency that gets the best tickets. As customers we have no way of knowing who they will favour and so no way of knowing where to go to for the best tickets. But surely we should have some sort of service for tickets that cost us £150 each?

Obviously at most gigs the best tickets are going to be the standing tickets - at least you have some choice as to where you will be. We usually buy our tickets on line - but this is clearly fraught with difficulty and probably the best option is to phone the agency and be clear about where your seat will be and just what you are getting for your money.

Although they make it so very difficult we can only say that customers who are unhappy should go through the complaints procedure - we know we'll only be fobbed off but at the end of the day it's only when enough folk complain that these people will have to change.