The Great West End Ticketing Scandal

How hidden agents' fees are holding us to ransom

As a journalist and reviewer, I’m always disappointed if I have to pay to go to the theatre. If I can’t get a ticket for free, then I’m not interested. This may sound like a ridiculous way to behave - and it’s caused me to miss some great shows - but buying tickets in London has become such a idiotic business that I’m simply no longer interested.

Next time you go to the theatre (or a concert, or a major sporting event) try asking the person next to you how much they paid for their ticket. If it’s anywhere near what you paid, I’ll eat my Jimmy Choos. The arcane and incomprehensible system of ticketing agencies has made it almost impossible for anyone to tell you what your seats are really worth.

It’s even harder to find out what the view from your seat is like. There are pages of small print to wade through (12.III Your ticket is not refundable in the following circumstances: i. If we’ve sold your ticket to someone else as well; ii. If none of the actors turns up, and it gets performed by stagehands and volunteers from the audience instead; iii. If the theatre burns down, etc., etc.).

The Office of Fair Trading has recently investigated the situation and discovered that ticket agencies are marking up prices by as much as SIXTY-SEVEN PERCENT. Now I don’t mind paying through the nose for a West End show if the money’s going to brilliant actors and underpaid theatre staff. I do resent it, though, if two thirds of my money is going straight to a ticket agency, places I’ve always imagined being staffed by bloated, cigar-chomping spivs, who spend all day drinking brandy and counting their money.

Imagine if every time you wanted a CD, instead of wandering into HMV and paying the price on the packet, you had to face a crowd of a dozen competing individuals, many of them with severe personality disorders, shouting random prices at you. This is what it’s like buying tickets, and until something changes, I’m blagging what I can and skipping the rest.

The Amazing Technicolour Sale

Andrew Lloyd-Webber, who co-owns eleven West-End theatres, is considering an offer to sell off four of them (the Duchess, Apollo, Garrick and Lyric). Lord Lloyd-Webber who has built up an estimated fortune of £400 million, claims that he really has no understanding of business and wants to return to his first love and concentrate on composing once again.

Chauvinist Pigs Still Flying

No surprise among London’s ladies when it was announced this week that the pay gap between genders is wider here in our fair city than anywhere in the UK. The figures may be distorted by all those millionaire city boys, but it looks like the glass ceiling is still firmly in place.

Tate Modern To Expand

The Tate Modern has announced plans to expand by investing £100 million in a new wing. The extension to the Bankside building will increase space at the Tate by 60% and relieve over-crowding. The new space will not only house new works of art, it will also contain an education area. Critics have suggested that they're expanding because the space is there, rather than for any artistic reasons.

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