what is a 'booking fee'?

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i've just been and bought tickets for francois kervorkian at sankey's soap. a booking fee was charged. i want to know what it's for. i'm not being disingenuous, i've paid booking fees many times before, i'm just interested.

― michael wells (michael w.), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 11:48 (twenty-three years ago)

it's this thing

― Alan (Alan), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 12:11 (twenty-three years ago)

YOu know those people who have to take your call and post the ticket and arrange all that shit? They have wages. Isn't this obvious?

― alix, Tuesday, 24 September 2002 12:32 (twenty-three years ago)

i walked into virgin records, paid, walked out with my ticket. so "all that shit" becomes obsolete, no?

― michael wells (michael w.), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 12:38 (twenty-three years ago)

They still delivered a service, but yes, that is different. Maybe they are thieving capitalist scum?

― alix, Tuesday, 24 September 2002 12:47 (twenty-three years ago)

that's what i suspected. however, i would *genuinely* like to know what the justification is. if anyone here is privy to this information then make yourself known. thank you.

― michael wells (michael w.), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 13:50 (twenty-three years ago)

were you using a credit card? in that case, they might be charging you the percentage they lose because of it.

― joan vich (joan vich), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 16:03 (twenty-three years ago)

I will not answer this question untill you append "(and can we eat it)" to it.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 24 September 2002 16:09 (twenty-three years ago)

what is a booking fee? (and can we eat it?). and, no, the fee is charged whether you pay by cash, cheque, card or 'in kind'.

― michael wells (michael w.), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 07:22 (twenty-three years ago)

Well I suppose Virgin just get the tickets at face value cost and need to make a profit out of selling them on or else they wouldn't bother.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 07:29 (twenty-three years ago)

It's just commission, with a slightly nicer name

― Sofa King Alternative (Sofa King Alternative), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 09:03 (twenty-three years ago)

Rats, Sofa King stole my answer.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 10:52 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think it's a nicer name.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 11:04 (twenty-three years ago)

were you using a credit card? in that case, they might be charging you the percentage they lose because of it.

Here in the US, it's illegal to charge a premium just because someone uses a credit card.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo (cindigo), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 15:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Its an easy way of saying "How can we get even more $ out of these people when they complain that ticket costs are too high" = booking fee

― brg30 (brg30), Wednesday, 25 September 2002 19:05 (twenty-three years ago)

three years pass...

I've just booked a pair of £37.50 tickets for The Strokes, Belle & Seb and the Super Furries in Hyde Park this summer.

I bought them over the interweb. Each ticket had a "convenience charge" of £4.50 added to the price, and as there was no option given for collecting the tickets or having them sent by normal post I had to pay a further £4.50 for special delivery.

So that's a total of £6.75 in fees and charges for each ticket, or 18 per cent of the actual ticket cost.

Which strikes me as a fucking rip-off, to be honest.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Friday, 24 February 2006 07:42 (twenty years ago)

Closer inspection of my confirmation email reveals that postage was actually £4.95 AND there was a £4.95 "processing fee" charged on top of all that.

So that's £18.90 of charges in total or £9.45 for each £37.50 ticket — that's a QUARTER of the ticket price.

― Hello Sunshine (Hello Sunshine), Friday, 24 February 2006 09:10 (twenty years ago)

my letting agent charges an annual 'admin fee' in a similar vein.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Friday, 24 February 2006 09:18 (twenty years ago)

Ah yes. No doubt that covers the man-hours involved with writing you a wee letter to set out this charge.

― suzy (suzy), Friday, 24 February 2006 09:35 (twenty years ago)

quite so!

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Friday, 24 February 2006 09:37 (twenty years ago)

cashing cheques takes time and effort.

― The Man Without Shadow (Enrique), Friday, 24 February 2006 09:38 (twenty years ago)

Sunshine, that seems completely outrageous. I remember there was a court case here some years ago when a woman ended up paying something like £40 in charges alone for booking eight tickets for her son and his friends to go to some big outdoor concert. Her problem was the same as yours: there was no other way for her to buy the tickets, so it was unfair to claim that the booking fee was some kind of added extra and it should be included in the ticket price.

Strangely, I seem to remember that she won her case, and yet there are still monstrous booking fees for things. Kanye West's gig in the Point Theatre carries a booking fee of €6.95 per ticket.

― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Friday, 24 February 2006 10:29 (twenty years ago)

Taht's nothing! We charge £75 booking fees for our products! Financial advisors and data analysts gotta eat!

― Boris and the Johnsons (kate), Friday, 24 February 2006 10:31 (twenty years ago)

yes, it is a way for them to exploit you and make as much £££ as possible from you, they are fucking SCUM. once though i was trying to book tix for the delgados at koko and the only way to do it was thru ticketbastard so i swallowed my pride and started going through the stuff online. booking fee £3 per ticket, the cunts. but then "processing fee" another £3.50? fuck off! the tickets were only like £12 or something, that's half the ticket price again! and i wasn't even having them sent to me! so i emailed koko asking them if i could come buy them at the venue and got an email back saying no, only through ticketmaster, they had an exclusive deal with them, so i emailed back and said fine, i thought ticketmaster were exploitative and unacceptable and i refused to go along with it, so i would take my chances with the touts (who were also exploitative and unacceptable, but i abhorred ticketmaster more) and if i didn't get in, well tough, and the lovely man emailed back saying ok fine, there are 3 tickets on the door in your name on the night, face value. so it is sometimes worth doing that...

― emsk ( emsk), Friday, 24 February 2006 10:49 (twenty years ago)

b-b-but why the fuck should you have to go to a venue and actually complein, just to get some tickets which were apparently available all along? it's totally fucking mental and i hate it. wegottickets are the only ones who seem not to be fleecing fuXors. grrr.

― CharlieNo4 (Charlie), Friday, 24 February 2006 11:37 (twenty years ago)

yeh, absolutely. but if people just shrug, swear and pay the booking fee, and it's easier for the venue to farm it out to those shitheads, then why would they not use them? (obv moral blah but that's not what they're doing it for.)

― emsk ( emsk), Friday, 24 February 2006 11:39 (twenty years ago)

eight years pass...

*grumble grumble* £3 on top of every ticket I just bought - how is it justified considering I purchased online via the website and am picking up the tickets from the venue on the night? Why not just add £3 to the cost of the ticket? *mutter grumble*

― monoprix à dimanche (dog latin), Friday, 5 September 2014 11:44 (eleven years ago)

I'm guessing there's quite a crowd of people who are jealously dividing up your money, pence by pence, and that a booking fee is divided differently than the ticket price.

― Aimless, Friday, 5 September 2014 17:30 (eleven years ago)

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