Watchdog - Time to complain?

[Savage]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/consumer/tv_and_radio/watchdog/contact_sport.shtml
I wonder if we would get an official response if we all e-mailed Watchdog?
Not to complain about Prince but to complain about the lack of facts about what we have paid for via ticketmaster:mad: . The fact that the package seems to have changed from what we bought.
What do you think?
Use the link above to voice your opinions to watchdog!

[zaria7]

I'm with you on this. Ticketmaster have handled the information badly, but ultimately it's AEG who are running the show and will be the ones implementing any change of description on the VIP package. Have sent Watchdog an email too! :mad:
The more people who do this the better chance we have of getting something done!

[unique]

at the moment you have no real grounds for complaint, as you haven't attended the event, and you don't even have your tickets, so until the event you have no evidence that you aren't getting what was advertised, or even what you expected to purchase

if you have been allocated your seats, and you believe you aren't located where the tickets were advertised to be at the point of sale (not what they changed it to say at a later time), then you should phone TM customer service to find out the position first, and if they confirm you aren't getting the seats that you bought "as advertised", then you can consider contacting the citizens advise buro and trading standards

however, no amount of complaining is realistically going to get you any better seats if they have already sold the seats you want to someone else, so i would suggest leaving the complaints until after the show, and look at options of getting a refund or partial refund

essentially you want to sit in the best seats you can, with money no real object (within reasonable grounds), so whatever you have bought will be the best you will get, so your next stage is to aim for a partial refund after the event if those seats weren't as advertised. if you complain before the event you just aren't going to get better seats, however they may offer you a refund and cancel the ticket, and if you reject that offer it may affect any entitlement to any future claim as you were aware of your ticket position before attending. if you don't complain, you can argue you were unaware of the seating location not being as advertised and look for some form of compensation. if you argue after the first show, you could try aiming for an upgrade or free seat in a good location at another show

at the moment i'm confident that everyone will get the seats that were advertised at point of sale, so i think people are getting a bit stressed out for no reason, but with the cost of the shows, travel, accomodation, and then aftershow party tix all adding to the stressful situation

[Savage]

Unique. I wish we could all be as confident as you.

All we want to know is what seats we are in. Ticketmaster were paid up front so the least they can do is let us know what we have paid for.

Especially when they keep changing the goalposts!

That is what we want!

[zaria7]

Unique you're right about not complaining before, as it will only get us refunds - not what we want, but it is so annoying to have no real info at all about our deat locations from TM when we have paid all this money. All we want is to know exactly what we paid for, so we can make a decision about whether we have got what we paid for at the time or not. It's a lot of money to pay for so little info to be given. \people who bought so called VIP tickets from other sources have been given seat numbers so I can't see what the problem is with TM.
Now with talk of 'mid' tiers being involved - well the situation is causing a lot of stressed out unhappy punters who deserve better quite frankly.

[unique]

everyone just needs to have patience and wait until the tickets are allocated, there's no need to get stressed out over nothing

i don't think the goalposts have changed in the way that you think. consider this...

how many floor seats are there in total?

how many seats would it take in one row to circle the whole stage?

how many nites are there?

so how many vip tickets being sold over all the nites?

how much are the tickets?

when did you book your ticket?

what number is your ticket allocation?


you see, there are so many vip tickets available over the nites, that there is plenty availability for those who purchased before the terms changed to get very close seats. there is a limit to how many people will pay £240+ on one ticket to a show, most people will go in pairs, so thats about £500 a nite on tickets alone, the high price keeping sales down a bit.

it looks like there are about 500 seats (count them if you like for the exact number) in the floor area, and most people i've heard from have ticket allocations in the low numbers. ticketmaster say seats will be allocated on a first come first served basis, thus if your seat number is under 400 you are pretty much set for a floor seat

what could have happened was that the promotors under estimated the demand for vip tix, thus after selling out so many in a short period, they added the lower/mid tier vip tix, so perhaps at first they didn't expect to sell all the floor seats, thus didn't make arrangements for more vip tix, so they were added later, and they had no plans to do this initially, otherwise they would have advertised the tix as such in the first place, just like they did with the vip tix for the last shows. you will notice that even after the changed the advertising they mentioned floor and tiers, so at the point they changed the wording they may have still have some floor seats still available, otherwise they could have changed the wording to say tiers only, altho the remaining seats on the floor could have been single spots, so if you booked one ticket you get on the floor, but book a pair and the only 2 seats together is in the tiers

rather than complain about it online, you are best to call ticketmasters customer service department for further information as they may be able to tell you the likelyhood of floor seats based on the ticket allocation and time of booking, and how many floor seats are available.

the last thing to consider is that you are talking about a prince concert. if you expect anything to go as planned, and be normal, then you're following the wrong artist. the unpredictable and sometimes shambolic nature of the organisation, and last minute changes and cancelations is just what allows us the chance to have aftershow concerts, secret gigs, trips to paisley park, and invitations to tv shows. out of all of the many artists i follow, i've never been to rehearsals, soundchecks, afterparties, aftershows, tv shows, studio trips, singing/dancing onstage, and god knows what else from prettymuch anyone else, but i've done all that and a lot more with prince. you won't get jon bon jovi taking you to a late nite movie after the conert would you? or paul macartney having a kareoke session during the soundcheck? michael jackson wouldn't pull you onstage to dance with him would he? ok, maybe if you were young and male perhaps.... but those are the things we get from prince, and you would never expect any of it from anyone else, but with prince many fans do expect so much because we've got so much in the past

whilst he could have done fan presales and made the floor area for club/exclub members as he did in the past, i think he purposely choose not to do this for a number of reasons. firstly, because the last time in the uk, london in particular, he not only noticed, but commented that it was the same people in the same seats in the same rows every nite, primarily guys, and he'd rather have a front row full of girls. he also mentioned we must get sick of seeing the same show all the time, so this time he knows he is going to have different people in different seats every nite. another reason could be because the last time in london he knew he could have charged a lot of money for front seats like other acts did, but instead he let his fans get the best seats first, and not have to pay extra for them, and even have an afterparty/show afterwards. after playing vegas he's shown the value of his ticketprice is much higher, but he has still allowed fans the chance to see the show at a low price, so not everyone has to pay high prices. if/when he brings an online club back, he can then point out that look how things were when we didn't have a club, you had to pay high prices for vip tix, and weren't sure where you were going to sit, and had to join the same sales as eveyone else, so if you want the best seats you better appreciate the work the club does instead of slagging it off. all members had great opportunities for the best seats, and without booking fees, which most other online clubs charge for presales, so over the years the club was opened i saw over 2 dozen shows with no fees, and got the best seats (front row in fact for almost all shows, and onstage for many). i think it's only now that we all realise how much we miss the clubs benefits after all, and we are being treated like fans for other artists are treated, instead of the vip treatment we used to get without paying the vip fee's