What's that all about? 🙄 This has been really winding me up recently! 😬 Buying gig tickets online has changed quite a bit over the past few years. Once upon a time you'd only pay a booking fee of around a quid from many ticket agencies + postage. Things were pretty transparent. Then booking fees started to go up, and other fees were added on that weren't obvious until you got to the final checkout stage. Now some ticket agencies add up to 3 extra fees on top of the face value ticket price! 😮
You used to get a printed ticket with band logos or pictures which made a nice souvenir - many people collected these. Then all tickets became generic computer generated printed tickets that looked the same. 🙄 Apart from Runnin' Blue who still give you a proper printed ticket on the door when you buy online. 👍
Then things moved over to 'Print your own ticket' at home. I actually quite like this as there is no postage fee and you get your ticket instantly to print straight away or save for later. But some ticket agencies do still take the piss and have the cheek to charge you a fee - for printing your own ticket! And saving them the costs of admin and printing it themselves - while you use your own paper/ink and printer. 😲
I do highly recommend WeGotTickets.com though. No fee for printing your own tickets, and their booking fee is minimal - they just add a 10% fee so if the face value of the ticket is £10 you only pay £11.00 in total - nothing else!. Then print your own ticket with a code number or barcode that gets you in on the door. Simples. I have used them countless times and never had the slightest problem - why can't all ticket sales be like this? 😊
Maybe it's time I got to the point. In recent times 'Phone tickets' are becoming increasingly common. I don't have a problem with this - as long as this isn't the only option and there is still at least one other way of buying a ticket. But unfortunately phone ticket only gigs are becoming increasingly common. This I do have a problem with. 😠 I have always avoided phone tickets if possible as there are too many things that can go wrong. Mobile technology and phone reception is not robust...😩
My phone is on the O2 network. A while ago I bought a phone ticket (against my will but there was no other purchase option) and arrived at the venue only to find my phone had no reception at the door to the venue. It was an O2 venue and my phone was on O2! 😲 It looked like I wasn't going to get in to the show I'd paid to see. 😒 Fortunately the security guy on the door was sympathetic and helpful (not often either of those things occurs) and managed to somehow 'piggy-back' my phone to his own so I could get reception and display my ticket. All this took a while - suppose there had been another 20 people with the same problem queuing to get in?
About 3 years I wanted to go and see Combichrist and a phone ticket via Dice was the only option - so I bit the bullet and downloaded their app. I have been forced to use Dice about 10 times since then with no problem - until October this year. Nearly a year before that I had bought a phone ticket from Dice to see Amyl & The Sniffers at Alexandra Palace. It was a big show for them and I was really looking forward to it. My phone was several years old and I had been having problems with it's memory being full of hidden data stored by apps that I couldn't find and get rid of. So I deleted a load of apps that I didn't need or use much. But a load of the hidden data was still there lurking in my phone's memory. So I had to resort to deleting even more apps that I actually used regularly - just so that I could add one or two more apps to be able to get phone tickets. I deleted the Dice app thinking I could just download it again as I had previously with no problem. Only when I tried to add it back to my phone Dice said my phone was no longer compatible with their app! 😠 Which meant I could no longer use the ticket I had paid for! 😡 Fortunately I managed to get a refund from Dice, but that still meant I couldn't go to the gig as Dice was the only source of tickets. 🙄 I had a similar problem with the Primordial Radio app which I had been happily using for years on my phone - then had to temporarily (I thought) delete it and when I tried to download it again found it no longer compatible. Which made me question if it was still worth paying their monthly subs...😟 So do app developers bring out new versions knowing they are not backward compatible with the previous version? Or is it deliberate for some reason?
So this month there are 3 gigs I want to go to that are phone ticket only. 2 of them are on Dice which means I can't go as the latest version of their app is no longer compatible with my phone - even if I still had room to download it. The other gig is for one of my favourite bands - I haven't missed one of their London shows in over 20 years. But this time someone (in band or management I assume) has decided that tickets for the show will be available exclusively from Ticketmaster - instead of with at least 2 ticket agencies as is normal. And Ticketbastard are only offering phone tickets. And only via their own app - which I previously did have on my phone before temporarily (so I thought) deleting it because my phone memory was full. And now I still can't make room to reinstall it. 🙄
So that makes 3 gig in a row I can't go to just because my phone is several years old and I can't afford to buy a new one every couple of years. I'm sure many other people must be in the same boat. Gig going seem's to be becoming a divisive two-tier thing where the less well off are being excluded from being able to attend. There is a new type of person starting to appear - the 'Digital Outcasts'. It is rapidly getting to the stage where if you aren't tec-savvy and well heeled you won't be able to go to many gigs. I am not OK with this.
