If there’s one thing bound to get me cross it’s an inflated booking fee. You've booked tickets for a gig and the price is hiked up for no clear reason. Companies are charging an extra fee for performing the service for which they exist.
I had a letter in from a reader this week telling me she'd been charged £3.50 per ticket booking fee and a £5 delivery charge when buying two £12 tickets. That's half as much again!
When they arrived she saw her fiver had paid for a second class stamp and an envelope full of third-party advertising, which they should be paying her to read.
What annoys me is that all these charges should be in the ticket price in the first place, or should just cover costs.
Incensed, I did a bit of research and found out it's not unusual to pay such a high price, with booking, delivery and so called service charges totalling £15-£20 on top of the ticket price.
So what can we do about it?
I always search for the venue's own website rather than going through an agency. The best venues are those which maintain there own box office rather than outsourcing it to a separate company.
If you can get to the venue ticket office there are usually no additional charges. But make sure you buy with cash (as they'll still often want to charge £3.50 per ticket even with a Debit Card).
Independent record shops also do good deals. If you are going to the type of gig that indie shops support, you can usually pay on the door for a pound or two extra which won't help you get tickets for stadia tours, but should help out for small bands on the up.
What do you think of booking fees? What are your tried and tested methods to help cut the cost of booking tickets to concerts, shows and exhibitions?
Click on the comments pane below and share your tales of what has worked for you...