Does anyone know what the mechanism is? I see nothing on the website. I have one (maybe two) tickets for Sept 7th..Eine Alpensinfonie ...that I might not be able to go to. If it is personal returns to the box office then that would be a non-starter.
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Not looking good for a resale. Maybe give them a call to see if they will accept them back.
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I mentioned this before. Is there anything else you fancy between now and the LNOTP which you might be able to get to, and for which tickets are available? For sold out concerts they should give a refund, otherwise they might do a swap - providing of course they don't lose money in the deal. I was happy with my swap of tickets for Walton's Belshazzar for the Berlioz Requiem.
Failing that you could see if anyone else wants them, for money or otherwise.Comment
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All sorted, thanks.
I do have a spare car parking ticket for 7th Sept ...free to a good home.Comment
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While the RAH is a magnificent building (albeit with seriously dodgy acoustics for orchestral concerts) and the Proms can still have a marvellous atmosphere and attentive audience (the latter becoming rarer by the season, sadly) there are many things that make it a sometimes-annoying venue.
None moreso than the RAH's profoundly unhelpful bad attitude in the area of ticket returns - my views on this probably haven't been helped much by the supercillious indeed borderline arrogant attitude I got from one of the box office staff earlier in the season on this issue. Closest I've ever come to making an official complaint about the place...
Every other self-respecting concert venue I've had regular experience of (RFH, Barbican, Birmingham Symphony Hall, Bridgewater Hall, Liverpool Philharmonic Hall etc) has a perfectly sensible exchange/credit-note system for dealing with returns. With the RAH you have to exchange for another ticket in *this* Proms season, or you can get stuffed, and they're not to keen to advertise even this facility. This is completely antedeluvian and often about as much use as a chocolate crucible.
In reality, there's what the Ts & Cs say and there's what happens in practice. If the box office wanted to stamp out people selling genuinely spare tickets they should stop operating such an unhelpful, unneccesary and bloody minded policy. The situation where concerts like the upcoming VPO Proms can be sold out for months, and those with genuine spare tickets can't return them so they can be sold to those who would doubtless be glad to acquire them is just numbskulled.
Meanwhile, the machinations around this lot make for an interesting contrasting read (and googling will reveal more to the interested):
While I'm off on one, someone at either the BBC or the RAH needs to stop making pathetic excuses and grow a pair on the subject of the behaviour of an increasing number of selfish bar stewards in the audience - the last two nights being a case in point. They could put the preposterous hi-tech laser-display-board (a la I'm Sorry I Haven't a Clue in my mind...) behind the stage to some actual good use instead of displaying abstract intestinal melanges. With messages like "Stop Coughing" "For God's Sake Stop Playing With Your Mobile For a Whole Hour, it Won't Kill You" and "STOP $&$*£ COUGHING OR GET OUT!!!".
Not that I'm in a bad mood today or anything...Comment
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PS - I was so busy ranting that I didn't read Dave2002's posting properly (or at all) before, well, ranting.
Part of the reason for my, er, irritation with the RAH is that (somewhere, can't find it now) they do (or did) state that they will refund tickets for sold-out concerts. Well, they refused to do just this for two sold-out Proms this year. Last year I was given excuses about their being one seat available, ergo we can't do it - despite showing "Sold Out" on their website as of 3 seconds earlier on my mobile.
The first response was "We don't refund tickets". The retort to "You did in the past. Also, it says you do for sold-out events somewhere in your T's and C's" was "Yes, but at our discretion". The retort to "That's very helpful, on what basis is that discretion exercised?" was nothing useful but might as well have been a gallic shrug or "get stuffed". Not impressed at all.
I seem to recall there are venues (possibly Covent Garden) where the best they will do is take the ticket for attemped resale and refund you if, and only if, it's sold. Even if that's the best the RAH could do, it's better than nothing.Comment
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And in contrast, my dealings with the very helpful and pleasant lady at the RAH Box Office could not be faulted !Comment
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Perhaps we have all had different interactions. I had a very pleasant discussion in person at the RAH box office who told me what to do, and in the end I did my swap by phone.Originally posted by Resurrection Man View Post
A good thing about the RAH is that they can issue or cancel tickets over the phone, since they work with the numbers.
Another London hall, the Barbican, will offer refunds if the concerts are sold out, but unfortunately they have (last time I checked, which was a year or so back) no mechanism, or are unwilling to put any methods in place, for dealing with tickets other than with the physical tickets. This means that if, for example, one is unwell, has 2 tickets spare, one is unable to allocate them to friends on the other side of London by ringing up the Barbican box office and letting them know the ticket numbers for later collection. Possibly the RFH may also have the same policy, and years ago I let a couple of tickets to a Rattle BPO concert "go" because there was no way of releasing them back to the hall without taking the originals back, which at the time was completely infeasible.
However I have also noted the business about the RAH web site stating that concerts are "sold out", yet the box office denying this, which seems unreasonable.
Some theatres, such as the National, are good, as tickets can be returned to them even if not sold out subject to reselling, and if later on they sell the tickets they will return money to one's account. Obviously they try to sell unsold tickets first, but this approach seems to work for everyone's benefit.Comment
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I think it's completely reasonable. It stems from the Ticket Return Scheme for box and seat owners. Popular concerts will sell out the other seats early on, and then the box and seat owners who don't want to go will return their tickets in dribs and drabs. Whether or not a concert is currently sold out can vary several times during a single day, and I don't see that it's reasonable to expect the website to be kept up to date minute by minute.Originally posted by Dave2002 View PostComment
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