To think the refund policy for west end shows is a joke

[PeachPandy]

I have booked 9 tickets to see a show on Saturday. Just been told by one person they have the flu. They sounded awful on the phone. I said “no worries, I will ring the box office and see what they can do”. Oh my gosh. Unhelpful was an understatement. I asked if we could part exchange - ie book two tickets for a later date. The person on the phone said “no”. Silence. I then asked if there’s anything they could do to help me out. “No”. Silence. Only the whole booking can be exchanged.

Im not asking for a refund. Just really fucking unhelpful!

If I book a london show, I don’t expect a refund. Apart from during covid restrictions.

I went on a school rewards trip to see Matilda. Due to non-payment, we ended up with 12 spare seats. Over a month in advance and they wouldn’t refund them! The show was a sell out - utterly rammed. The image is of hundreds of pounds of unused seats! 😔 (no children from my school are in the photo, even scribbled out)

Refund policies do vary across the West End and National theatre. I do however have some sympathy with the theatre here. It might be very difficult to sell a single ticket particularly if it is in the middle of a block. Perhaps the best option would be to see if you can find someone else who could go with you and pay for the ticket. I

It is really short notice for the theatre to try and sell a pair of tickets for Saturday, especially if they are not sold out in full for the performance

ETA as others have said, try Twickets

You are less than 48 hours from the performance so like any holiday it’s to me unreasonable to expect a refund when they will struggle to resell due to short notice, or at an extremely low price via third party vendors. Easier to find two people yourself instead of?
Also, in order to refund two tickets they would have to refund the whole booking to your original card, then rebook 7 more tickets, which during that process may not guarantee all being together if people are booking online at same time. A massive faff and potentially bad customer service and/or complaints. Hence the whole booking only promise.

Why on earth do you automatically think you deserve a refund?

I would never expect a refund from tickets. Surely you just sell them on or give them away if you can’t sell them. It’s mad that you think a theatre would just swap 2 tickets because someone’s unwell

I wouldn’t expect a refund. Can you ask someone else if they can come?

That sounds about normal.

I regularly go to a few different theatres - there is no refund or exchange policy, unless you buy their insurance at the time of buying the tickets and even then that only covers illness with a doctor's letter etc.

Sell it on twickets

Well you are asking for a refund. The seat will be refunded and that's what the producer will see on the report, and they will ask the theatre why it was refunded. Imagine how often the Box Office staff have to tell people like you that they can't have a refund.

Its the policy of every show in every theatre. So now you know, before you buy 9 tickets, which is a bit Cavalier. Also now you know to charge your friends up front or get them to sort their own tickets, so if they cancel, the expense is on them.

Maybe they could have refunded nearly 20% of tickets and given 20% of the actors the night off that night.

Well they weren’t really rude, they were factual!

It like their booking system cannot exchange a single ticket from a block booking. And credit or part exchange for another for most systems is just not a thing. Storing money on your account etc it becomes and administration nightmare. It get lots of fucked up and some gets and earful and you get horrific grief from customers.

unfortunately for most places the way to standardise systems is to say no.

Do you live in London? Every west end show I go to is packed and sold out!

OP it depends on the theatre and agent I guess. When my mil died they made it easy for us to change our tickets. Recently I couldn’t attend another show and sold for a small losss on Twickets( the theatre said no but were polite about it when I called. Get them on there asap!

Can you return the nine and then instantly buy 7 back?

On-sell to someone else or accept the loss, assuming it's in line with terms and conditions. Always get ticket insurance for the more expensive ones. Like any booking for anything, sometimes it's bad luck and not much you can do about it.

Its the policy of every show in every theatre.

Not every show and not every theatre.

The National Theatre does swap for credit for a different performance until 24h ahead for most shows, subject to an admin fee. I have done this well in advance when a friend couldn’t make an event - the seat next to me was sold and I then used my credit on a different event and suggested that some other friends came with me, so the Southbank did well out of that

However, in general, I suspect that’s more to do with their funding and mission re inclusivity than cos it’s economically smart.

My local theatre will refund for credit after sale only at its own discretion - which I would imagine means if they think they are likely to resell and recoup costs.

They obviously have a hard line with this that will be in the T and C ‘s
the silence was due to you just asking the same thing and refusing to to accept there very clear answer
if there not going to move on this there really isn’t a discussion to be had on this

It sounds like they could have been a bit more polite about it but it really is on the booker to either add insurance or take the hit.

If people were allowed to refund or swap tickets at such short notice as standard it'd be a nightmare to deal with. Especially as you're asking to split a booking, which may not even be possible in their booking system front end.

You chose the wrong title for this thread. People obviously don’t have the patience to read the whole post.
It might just be their old booking system that they can only push back the whole booking and not part of it. Obviously 2 seats would be easier to fill than the whole booking at this time.

Sell the tickets yourself. It’s not down to the theatre to take the hit on this.

ticket insurance exists for exactly these situations.

Your school couldn’t fill twelve spare seats? Raffle them off to parents, offer to another local school…. Such a waste

They have no obligation to change your tickets for something that is not their responsibility, you needed to get insurance on your booking, or sell the tickets yourself on a resale site.

I wouldn’t ever expect to be able to exchange or get a refund on show tickets. There are often people trying to on-sell tickets to all sorts of things on my local FB groups and I’m assuming that the reason is that either they asked for a refund and couldn’t get one, or they didn’t even bother asking because they assumed it would be a no.

As others have pointed out, that is what ticket insurance is for. I don’t normally purchase it because I don’t want to pay the extra cost, but I would expect to just take the hit if I couldn’t attend.