Gig-goers are losing out because of an array of "sneaky" fees that can add up to 25% of the ticket new research has revealed.
The consumer group Which? said the practice was known as "drop pricing" and the extra costs were only ever presented in full at checkout. Usually, punters don't really have long to question the added extras as they may only have a short amount of time to secure their tickets - particularly if the event is a popular one.
Although fees are different for each ticketing site, Which? found sites added around 20% extra onto the face value of the ticket and sometimes this could be even higher. Using tickets for an Anne Marie show last year, Which? revealed what fees are added by the UK's top three ticket vendors to show how much extra punters are paying on top of their actual concert ticket.
Eventim
For Eventim, Which? found the ticket priced at £45 and there were four extra fees added on top. Eventim told Which? that all these fees were mentioned on the first page of the booking process so customers should be aware of them during the ticketing process. The extra fees added on this ticket were:
- Processing fee - £1.50
- Delivery and transaction fee - £2.50
- Booking fee - £5.62
- Venue levy - £1.75
On top of the original price of the ticket at £45, this hiked it up by over £10 to £56.37. On top of this, Eventim can also charge you an e-ticket fee. This gives you the e-ticket which you then have to download on your phone or print at home. At Eventim, this fee sat at £2.50.
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Eventim told Which? its booking fee was set by the client, whilst its venue levy was set by the venue of the event. The company itself set the "fulfilment fee" which covers the cost of delivering tickets to customers and fulfilling orders at the event, and processing fees which cover the cost of running their website, customer services and marketing. Eventim said both these fees were charged per order, not per ticket.
See Tickets
Again at See Tickets, the actual ticket was priced at £45 and there were three charges on top of this. These included:
- Booking fee - £7.37
- Order processing fee - £1
- Fulfilment/e-ticket fee - £1.50
These extra fees nearly added an extra tenner to the cost of the ticket taking it up to £54.87. See Ticket's website says they add the order processing fee and the fulfilment fee to every order. The e-ticket fee - which can also be labelled as a transaction fee - can be applied to both print at home and e-tickets which See Tickets says covers the cost of deploying tech/>technology and/or staff to the venue site. See Tickets said the booking fee covers the cost of providing " a seven days a week, 24 hours a day booking service, labour costs, credit card commissions and all other costs associated with running our business".
Ticketmaster
Again, the face value of the ticket with Ticketmaster sat at £45 but another three charges were added on top of this and these were:
- Service charge - £6.10
- Facility charge - £1.75
- Order processing fee (handling fee) - £2.75
These extra charges added another tenner to the price of this gig taking it up to £55.60 overall. Ticketmaster told Which? that the fees were typically set by and shared with its clients. The group said that as live performances were the "main source of income" for most artists more of the ticket's price was going to them. Ticketmaster says it does however support legislation that requires all-in pricing across the industry.
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