booking fees for theatre tickets ...

[FlouncingMintyy]

when you book online directly on the theatre website.

So what's the £2.90 per ticket "booking fee" actually for then?

When I worked in a venue box office the booking fee was the bit the theatre kept. The ticket price went to the promoters/producers of the show.

Much the same as one of those jackets you wear to keep warm on fell-walking days.

Pictures - no way!

That's what we were told. The promoters hired the theatre and set the ticket price. They then chose who they wanted to sell their tickets (the theatre, an agent or both). Each week reports were pulled and the ticket revenue minus booking fee paid to the promoter.

They should just add the cost to the tickets before advetising the price of the tickets. Otherwise it's misleading

One venue I worked for did just that (a classical music venue). We had far less complaints even though the result was the same price.

I believe that the reason that they add the fee separately is due to consumer pressure to do so - previously when it was all added in together, people found it difficult to search for the most competitive price for events with more than one ticketing agent or several tiers of pricing for different seats, so they broke the cost down into face value (the actual price of the ticket) and booking fee so that people could see which vendor had their fees set the highest and book accordingly.