I bought some friends tickets to an event as theirChristmas present. I'd put a lot of thought in and booked with good intentions thinking it was right up their street, local, (used some tactical questioning and found out they had no plans on this day, too). To cut a long story short, they've decided not to go. I've found out just in time (through asking, I'm not sure if they had the heart to tell me outright) so I contacted the venue and I've paid a fee to transfer the tickets (refunds not in their policy). Another set of friends have said they'd quite like to go, so DH and I will make an event of it with them next month. If I hadn't asked, the tickets would've just gone unused.
I've obviously been really off the mark with my gift buying and I wouldn't want to force anyone to attend something that they don't want to go to, so I'm not upset with them, but I'm a little disheartened that I've got it wrong (even though they've loved stuff like this in the past).
AIBU to not replace the gift with anything if I'm technically reusing the value of their tickets (minus fees) to use them myself and treat another set of friends? We wouldn't necessarily be going if I hadn't already booked the old tickets. It feels wrong that I've not really got them anything now, but I'm also not really flush with cash myself at the moment.