Thursday, May 03, 2007

Kaiser Chiefs fight booking fees by, erm, calling them something else

An email pings into our inbox from our old friends the Kaiser Chiefs, reminding us they're about to play a series of gigs in the UK:

Back in the UK, our shows at Hyde Park London (Sun 17th June) and Harewood House Leeds (Sat 16th June) as part of Wireless are selling out fast, to avoid disappointment book your tickets now if you haven't already, you can get them direct from us right here to avoid wasting money on big booking fees and avoiding the touts.

The link is to their website, where they're indeed selling Hyde Park and Harewood House tickets without a booking fee. There is, however, a "Payment Processing Fee" of £3.50 a ticket, or a hefty 8.75 per cent.

Even more bemusingly, if this payment is to cover the cost of the payment being processed, why is it per ticket, rather than per transaction?


4 comments:

ian said...

Especially as payment processing fees are limited by law to 3%...

Oh Look. I clicked on the link. It's calling a booking fee now. I predict a ripoff.

Unknown said...

I wrote to the office of fair trade about booking agents charging processing/booking fees per ticket rather than per-order.

They didn't give a shit.

I'd still like to know why it costs Machester Apollo £5 to print off one ticket, and £10 to print two, during the course of the same phonecall.

Simon Hayes Budgen said...

perhaps this is where touts are going wrong - they should stop marking prices up, and sell for face value. Plus a booking fee.

James said...

"Tha's £22.50 mate, plus £2 pausing-to-take-mangey-rollup-out-of-mouth fee, £3 reaching-into-dirty-bomber-jacket-pocket surcharge and £2.50 interrupting-my-ogling-of-14-year-old-Muse-fans-in-short-skirts tariff..."

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