My stupid mistake and I'm gutted...has anyone else done something similar?

[Punsandroses]

Last October I booked theatre tickets for me and DH to see Hamilton and I was so exited.

Unfortunately shortly after that I received a cancer diagnosis, so normal life went put the window ...but I had that to look forward to.

Last night the date finally came round, yeahhh....and both me and DH donned our finery, had a bite to eat, drink in the bar and made our way to our seats.....only to find other people on them! After a bit of confusion we realised we were a week late! The theatre staff were so kind but as it was the last night it was sold out.
So we left totally gutted and down £200.

Please tell me I'm not the only one who has done something so incredibly stupid.....it may make me feel just a tad better!

They should have booked their own hotel then! Bloody hell 🙄🙄🙄🙄

Bet they wished they had!

I'm not sure if I believe the ones who claimed to have turned up to the wrong theatre show, and found people already sitting in "their" seats, either. You wouldn't get past the staff checking your tickets, surely.

man in front of us in the hold luggage queue at the airport was told he was at the wrong airport! Considering we had waited over an hour; i wasnt sure he would get to where he needed to be and drop his bags and still make his flight...

They only check the date. They can’t possibly remember every seat number that’s already gone through.

Back in the day, before mobile phones, I worked for a company that provided products to the building and similar industries. I was a junior in the development labs, not the warehouse but was asked to drive a pickup load of product 200 miles to a very important client. I asked if I needed to load it and was told no, despatch will handle that, just get going. I liked driving and a 400 mile round trip with lunch expenses and likely overtime sounded great. Off I went to despatch, saw the truck with the canvass cover raised over the load bed, asked for the keys and headed off.

About 10 miles from my destination I went over a pothole a bit fast and thought I'd better check the load. What met my eyes when I unclipped the canvass was an empty load bed, the canvass being held high by the curved rails that no-one ever bothered to use. I slunk off to a pay phone and called our reception. I got as far as "Err Hi it's nutsuchaniceguy" before our receptionist broke down in fits of laughter. After she'd finished chuckling she put me through to my boss who said they'd realised my error as I turned out of the gate and had been eagerly anticipating my call. I returned home to a welcome party of staff from the warehouse, manufacturing and the office and spent months being asked if I was sure any container I happed to be carrying was full. The VIP customer was apparently also very amused. The only good thing is that I didn't discover the error in their "goods in" so only mercilessly teased by one workplace.

Some years later when Barnet and Brentford were both in the same league, I had a ticket to see my team play them away. For a few weeks I'd told people I was off for an away day to see us play the Bees. On the morning I grabbed the ticket from the drawer and headed off. On arrival at Barnet (Underhill where they used to play) about 10 minutes before kickoff I was surprised to see so many supporters of another of our league rivals walking towards the away end and not a shirt or scarf of my club in sight... I set off for Brentford with the radio tuned to get the scores. I was about half way there, stuck in a traffic jam and likely to only see the last 30 minutes when Brentford went 3 up. I turned round and drove home.

You would think that post 9/11 you would not be able to end up on the wrong flight what with all the checks and security but flying home from our honeymoon from LA in 2002 we found a couple sitting in our seats. We did the checking seat/row numbers etc then DH spotted that they were supposed to be on an internal flight to the east coast. It really knocked my confidence in antiterrorism measures.
2 out of the last 3 times I have been to theatre/a gig they were struggling to get ticket scanners to work properly and were doing a quick manual check which I doubt included date and seat they just wanted to see that you had a ticket.
All bar codes look very similar, in the days of paper tickets it was much easier for staff to spot that you have a ticket with red edging and a dagger on in which was the tickets for last week's Macbeth rather than the blue background with a boat on for tonight's performance of the Tempest.

I'm not sure if I believe the ones who claimed to have turned up to the wrong theatre show, and found people already sitting in "their" seats, either. You wouldn't get past the staff checking your tickets, surely.

Nobody ever checks my actual seat, it's always a cursory glance to make sure you're in the right area/door etc.

I'm so sorry about your diagnosis and hope you're getting the care you need. I have absolutely done the same thing but only have the menopause to blame. Bought tickets for my favourite contemporary ballet who were visiting Sandler's Wells (we don't live in London) , put it on the calendar at point of purchase for the Saturday. Day came around, went to download tickets....had booked for the previous Tuesday.... Husband saw the funny side and sweetly bought another pair so we could still go...

We went to Goa and as the plane started descending and the pilot said ‘the time in India…’ someone starting kicking off because they didn’t know Goa was in India. He got on the same plane as us coming back too, still moaning.

I think he thought it was like the Seychelles from what I could gather.

Oh dear, but this made me lol.
I'll bet the deceased stranger would have seen the funny side 😁

Went to the wrong funeral - too early at the crematorium. Snuck out and stifled laughter outside. Went for a hospital clinic appointment the day before. Had to go back to work and ask for more time off the following day. Once booked return train tickets for my sister to come up from Manchester. Discovered I’d booked them the wrong way. Glasgow to Manchester. Thankfully the rail clerk sorted it out! I could go on. I run my calendar on my phone now and don’t book trains!!

My daughter booked everyone’s flights and hotel for her brother’s wedding, her and her husband, me and her step dad. Her dad was coming the following day. Turned out she’d somehow only booked him the flight home from Cyprus to Glasgow. She phoned him asking him how good a swimmer he was! Fortunately there was a seat on the outbound flight but he had to stowaway on the hotel bus (other family arrivers smuggled him on).

I have a friend who found very cheap flights from Manchester to Florida. Booked it and all the Disney stuff. 2 kids very excited.
Turned up to Manchester airport, to realize the flights were from Manchester, New Hampshire to Orlando...devastated.

They can't have done even the most basic reading of their ticket and departure info.
Terminal, check in time (international flights need longer than domestic), flight time (3hrs vs 8hrs).
It's one thing to turn up and realise you haven't paid for check in luggage or the special meal, but to not have the minimal knowledge of the journey you think you're taking is rather poor.
The domestic airline probably doesn't even fly internationally so the airline name should have alerted them.

I sent DH with our middle child to a nursery classmates birthday party in a village hall. DS got straight on the bouncy castle and soft play things and DH stood at the side for a while, then caught who he thought was the classmates mum and gave her the birthday present and card I'd taped ontop saying, "To Ava". The mum looked awkward apparently and said "Ava? This is Jane's party, I wondered who you were"

DH looked around and didn't recognise any other parents, but he rarely did drop off or pick up so didn't twig. DS didn't know anyone but didn't tell DH because he was having a great time 😂 i sent them a week early to the right venue, but wrong date. DH was mortified, especially asking for the present back for next week 😂

I watched my aeroplane take off without realising it 🤷🏻‍♀️

Oddly, we're still 'half decent'.

If someone turns up on the wrong day, and there's a chance we can shoe-horn them in, AND if they don't come with an attitude like yours, 😉, we do our best.

Bought tix online for that afternoon to go up a bell tower. We were in Venice, I'd bought tix for Florence.

Back in our younger, skinter days, DH and I bought a secondhand garden shed on eBay from what we thought was Burnham in Buckinghamshire for about £35. We hired a cheap wreck of a van for the day to collect it, only to find out that it was in Burnham-on-Sea in Somerset! It took us hours to get there and we had to dismantle it in the rain then drove for hours back to Brighton. We then added up all of the costs of this journey and realized we could have gone to B&Q and got a new one for the same price.

@nearly55 ..for some reason your description of your DH saying " 'Oh my God! That's not Janet!' when he saw the lovely bride coming down the aisle has me in a fit of laughter .😂

There is a Blackpool Sands in Devon @Flippingnora100 and I often wonder if anyone has ever got them muddled up and booked a holiday and gone to the wrong one. The other one that gets me is St Ives in Cambridgeshire and Cornwall