FLOSS Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 (edited) As there are two more performances at which Osipova is to dance Tatiana I thought it might be interesting to visit a couple of these resale sites to see whether there were any tickets being offered and what sort of prices the sellers were asking for them. Not surprisingly I found tickets for sale for both performances at highly inflated prices including some for seats in the Upper Slips from which there is virtually no view of the stage. As it is so easy to find tickets being offered for any number of performances at the Royal Opera House on these sites I can't help wondering why it takes no action against the vendors by cancelling the tickets and then taking action against the original purchaser by cancelling any Friends Membership they may have and banning them from buying tickets in the future? Its conditions of sale state very clearly that it reserves the right to cancel tickets which are offered for resale. Does anyone else find its apparent indifference to such activities more than a little odd as it can be argued that by allowing this activity to continue unchecked it suffers a certain amount of damage to its corporate reputation ? Edited January 23, 2020 by FLOSS 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zxDaveM Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 perhaps no one has reported this to the box office/ROH so they are blissfully unaware. Though you would hope they would be looking out for this sort of thing, rather than turning a blind eye to it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob S Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 Alex Beard has talked about this subject before following the popularity of various operas. They are aware of it, maybe cancelling tickets is easier said than done given the infrequent zapping of ticket barcodes at the entrance to the auditorium. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bangorballetboy Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 There are a number of presumptions in the original posting. How do you know the ROH isn't taking action? If the tickets are cancelled, that won't stop the seller from still advertising them for sale on a resale website. How do you know that Friends memberships aren't being cancelled? The ROH announced recently (during the Fidelio kerfuffle) that it had done so. 3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 56 minutes ago, Rob S said: maybe cancelling tickets is easier said than done given the infrequent zapping of ticket barcodes at the entrance to the auditorium. My tickets have been zapped without fail recently. 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RuthE Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 1 minute ago, Lizbie1 said: My tickets have been zapped without fail recently. When I was last there on Tuesday night, my ticket wasn't zapped because of a problem with the scanner(s). And there's still at least one door on which there is never a member of staff - the one into the Stalls Circle on the left, nearest the stage - and perhaps the doors into the Upper Slips as well, unless they have put ushers there since they introduced the scanners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dawnstar Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 3 hours ago, Rob S said: Alex Beard has talked about this subject before following the popularity of various operas. They are aware of it, maybe cancelling tickets is easier said than done given the infrequent zapping of ticket barcodes at the entrance to the auditorium. I had a recent experience that indicated that cancelling a ticket doesn't necessarily stop it from zapping anyway. I swapped seats for a performance of Manon in October, still in the same area but further along to get a better viewing angle. When I entered the auditorium the ticket I had with me was scanned with no issue. Then when I got to the seating area & looked at the ticket I realised I'd been an utter idiot & had brought the old ticket rather than the new one. Fortunately I realised before I tried to sit in the wrong seat but I was surprised that the ticket had scanned alright as I assumed that when a ticket was returned virtually its QR code would have been voided so it would no longer scan, but that evidently wasn't the case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alison Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 When I've returned tickets to the box office I've received a message saying that the QR code has been cancelled so the ticket will no longer work, or something along those lines. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 I managed to have my ticket zapped twice when I had a senior moment and first entered the auditorium at the wrong level. More substantively on Floss’s post, if the ROH sees tickets being put up for resale and the ticket can be traced to the original purchaser, I would hope the ROH would take strong action. I know this has been done on occasions (as BBB says) and I know Friends membership has been withdrawn but I don’t know whether resale sites are subject to regular audit by the ROH. Whilst cancelling Friends membership is clearly a sanction, I’m not sure how it would be possible to ban people from purchasing tickets once general booking opens. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capybara Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 I contacted ROH Customer Service about this and have received the following reply: "Regarding third party ticket selling websites, we have a very firm policy on ticket re-selling and if we become aware that re-sellers are Friends, we immediately terminate their membership. While we are not aware of a large mass of membership re-selling in this way, the terms and conditions of membership make our position very clear. We are continuing to look at new ways to strengthen our approach so that re-sale restrictions are more visible. The situation is that identifying these tickets can be difficult as we sometimes cannot see who has bought the tickets with the ticket order numbers, which resellers deliberately hide. Therefore, we can only do this when someone comes in with resold tickets and it is brought to our attention. We have consistently argued against the harmful practices of ticket re-sellers such as Viagogo who violate the terms of our service and, most worryingly, undermine the customer by putting profit before consumer experience. We will continue to be very vocal in our opposition until we see an end to this immoral practice." I have now asked whether the ROH is undertaking any monitoring of ticket re-sale websites. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lizbie1 Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 4 minutes ago, capybara said: The situation is that identifying these tickets can be difficult as we sometimes cannot see who has bought the tickets with the ticket order numbers, which resellers deliberately hide. Therefore, we can only do this when someone comes in with resold tickets and it is brought to our attention. I don’t understand this - surely they know by the seat number? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JohnS Posted January 23, 2020 Share Posted January 23, 2020 19 minutes ago, Lizbie1 said: I don’t understand this - surely they know by the seat number? Resale sites may well advertise a ticket for sale in an area (eg Orchestra Stalls), not a specific seat number. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now