More Bollocks About Booking Fees

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 12:00pm

Ambassador Theatre Group has introduced a revised booking fee structure across its network of regional venues, which will see between £1.90 and £4.90 added to the face value of each ticket when purchased online or by telephone.

The venue operator is the UK’s largest theatre owner and manager with 27 theatres and nearly 37,000 seats outside London.

This month, it announced an overhaul to booking fees in its regional venues - the new fees do not affect its 12 London theatres. According to ATG, the structure will simplify charges and will result in the average amount paid in booking fees reduced by around 10%.
Simon Palethorpe, managing director for ATG Tickets, said, 'the changes represent the latest step in rationalising ticketing across the group, but it was still a “work in progress” and the group had yet to address differences in transaction fees across the venues. The fee structure was a bit complex. It had come about because of the acquisition of the Live Nation theatre venues [ATG purchased Live Nation’s UK Theatres in 2005], so we had lots of different structures - depending on the location of the venue, depending on whether it was an old ATG or old Live Nation venue. That didn’t make a lot of sense.”

According to Palethorpe, the old system had booking fees priced at £2.50, £4 and £5.25, although there was significant variation between venues. The new structure will see three basic levels of booking fee across all ATG regional venues.

Musicals and premium one-nighters will attract a charge of £3.90 per ticket, drama and other one-nighters will be £2.90 a ticket and children’s programming will have a booking fee of £1.90 per ticket. Booking fees will be reduced by £1 to a £1.90 if the face value of the ticket is less than £15, while it will be increased by £1 if the face value is more than £50. On top of this, ATG will continue to charge a transaction fee, charged per transaction no matter how many tickets are bought, which ranges from £2.85 to £4 depending on the venue.
“We wanted to try to keep it as simple as we can,” Palethorpe added. “In particular we were getting quite a lot of consumer feedback that the £5.25 per ticket fee was going too far - especially since a lot of that was on one-nighter shows which tended to actually have a slightly lower price point for the face value than many of the drama and musical products. So, we’ve brought those charges into line with musicals.

“Overall, more tickets have come down in price than have gone up in price - in terms of the fees we are charging - and, overall, if you were to take our current basket of tickets we sell in a year, this is a very significant reduction in the overall fee levels we are charging. Part of my job is to try to sell more of our tickets and more of other people’s tickets - if I can persuade them that we can do a good ticketing service for them - and make up that revenue shortfall.”

Booking fees and transaction fees are not charged if tickets are bought in person at the box office or if the purchaser is a holder of an ATG Theatre Card - the group’s £30 annual membership scheme.

Updated On: 4/27/12 at 12:00 PM

[Phantom of London]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 12:39pm

I can understand why ATG want to standardise its booking fees and no point running a business if you have different charges, but they should standardise the fee to £0:00, why should you pay a booking fee? Airlines, Hotels and Trains don't charge a booking fee, why should theatre owners and producers be allowed to rip their fans off?

They can stuff their restoration levy at their arse also.

Updated On: 4/26/12 at 12:39 PM

[tommyslim]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 12:42pm

i was going to book for 9 to 5 the other day online. 4 tickets was going to come to almost £25 in fees. Its a fu***ng joke!

so off i went to the box office in person and got them without it.

its a joke! A £5 transaction fee would more than cover EVERYTHING and even thats pushing it

[Princeton Returns]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 2:12pm

This proves that fees have nothing to do with running costs, why would a fee be more for a musical than a play? There is no difference between the booking procedure from one show to another.

You also wouldn't walk into M&S the at the till be told, oh that's an extra £5 per item purchase fee.

I'm so thankful none of my local venues are ATG owned, and I rarely book directly with them for London unless I really have to.

I actually don't mind the restoration fees, within reason as in theory they have a point

[abitoftap]

Posted: 4/26/12 at 2:13pm

Putting aside the outrageousness of the fees in themselves, let alone the level, Simon Palethorpe has a strange understanding of "simplification"

[ClapYo'Hands]

Posted: 4/27/12 at 3:04am

I wouldn't mind paying these restoration fees if they actually went somewhere...The poor old Bristol Hippodrome is 100 years old this year and is in desperate need of refurbishment, but all ATG are interested in is the ****ing money!

Delfont Mackintosh all the way!