Can concert ticket prices be increased after you've paid for the tickets?

[Lavenderlid]

I splurged as a present for dh on 4 tickets to a concert he will love. Purchased several months ago from ticket line, and paid at the time.
They (ticket line) have contacted me to say the tickets in that block were incorrectly priced, and I need to either pay extra (another £66), or move to seats in a block right on the edge, or cancel. I've booked a hotel so don't want to cancel, don't want a limited view, but also don't want the prices to go up to over £100 per ticket!
It just seems wrong - I booked and paid for the tickets, and now I'm told to pay more - I know if they made a mistake in advertising they don't have to honour it, but if the mistake goes as far as taking my money, surely we have a contract they can't break?
I just don't know, if this is fine I will have to accept it but it's really tainted the extravagant present already.

I wouldn’t think would be allowed. Surely, if they’ve taken your money, you have entered into a contract, and they have sold the tickets at the agreed price. If they advertised at the higher price, but took a lower amount, then maybe. However, it’s sounds like you purchased the tickets at the price advertised.

Yeah I'd decline to pay more for sure! Their error. They can suck up the loss.

"I selected X type seats which were advertised at the time as £Y, and have received confirmation of my purchase from you. Thus, I am not able to accept anything other than my prebooked seats in return for the amount you sold them at on Z date"

Not sure what the correct answer is, would be interesting to see what would happen if you just turn up on the night, if you haven't already spoken to or contacted them, you could plead ignorance ....

Although I suspect they may void the tickets if you just ignore.

Asking the same question on their twitter or Facebook feeds may focus their attention into considering whether £60 to a company valued at £2.8bn is worth the negative publicity...

Thanks! Their email sounded so final. Said it was human error - yes but not mine!
It is one of those large concerts with different tickets costing different amounts in different areas. There are dearer ones than the ones I selected, and cheaper ones. Nothing ontoward about my purchase. If the mistake was spotted sooner, I could have selected different seats I might still have been happy with, but it's now 3 months after I bought them.
I wonder if there a legal loophole for them though, maybe they can legally do this?

“ Consumers must not be misled as to the price, location, terms, adverse factors, etc that may affect their enjoyment of the event.”

“You must give consumers clear and accurate price information before they buy a ticket.”

ticket sale rules

sale and supply of goods
Details on forming a contract.

Riverlee - thanks so much for those links, this page from the second one seems relevant - I think if they want to they could probably just cancel my tickets (in which case I would definitely buy from a different seller!)

The terms & conditions say, "We reserve the right to change the price of tickets following purchase, before or after they have been despatched to you, if we become aware that the tickets were listed at an incorrect price, including typographical errors or due to inaccurate pricing information received from the Event Organiser." They are clear that, if you don't agree within 14 days, they will cancel the tickets and provide a full refund.

Your contract is actually with the promoter of the concert, not Ticketline. It may be worth taking it up with them.

From a legal perspective, even if they are in breach of contract, all you are entitled to is a full refund. You can't force them to honour the tickets, I'm afraid.

This happened to me before, bought tickets for a concert over the phone, the person charged me for seared tickets instead of standing tickets that were 50% more, although I didn’t know that at the time,
We were supposed to collect the tickets from the venue on the night of the concert but they called us a couple of weeks before to tell us the mistake and gave us the option to pay the difference or have a refund, I tried to argue that I paid so a contract was made but they said the sale wasn’t final until the tickets had been collected, the price was wrong and we could either pay the actual ticket price or have a refund and no tickets.

We paid.

I don’t think you’ll have much luck arguing either, there is always something in their T&C’s about the sale not being complete until you receive the tickets and them being able to correct pricing mistakes.

You might be better cancelling and booking again if you can still get tickets at the price you wanted originally.

Thank you both. Definitely doesn't seem like we have a choice. I can imagine anything else doing this - Tesco phoning me up asking for extra money for example!
The mistake (if it was really a mistake - I expect they wish to increase the price) will have affected a large group of people. It seems so incompetent to not only get it wrong, but to wait months before noticing and correcting it.

Thanks so much for checking out the t&c @prh47bridge
I've just had a look to see what I could buy elsewhere, and the exact same block is coming up as £75 (what I paid, plus booking fee) and not the £95 ticket line are looking for! But then maybe this other site will change theirs too...

So at any point before they send the tickets, they could keep increasing the price!? confused]

That does seem very unfair, doesn't it? I mean they're bound to know people will have booked time off work, made travel plans etc the closer it gets to the time - a bit like a house seller putting the price up.
I think I'm going to cancel and try to rebook with someone else, it has left a bad taste with me regarding this seller, legal or not!
I've really appreciated all the comments on here by the way

@MichelleScarn

So at any point before they send the tickets, they could keep increasing the price!? confused]

Yes and no,

They can’t just decide ‘this concert is popular, we could increase the price and make more money’ the ticket face value is the final sale price.

However, if the tickets have been missold,
Like in my case I was sold standing tickets but the agent sold me them for the price of seated tickets,
That’s an error so they can ask you to pay up to the face value of the ticket.

Or if the concert was cancelled and rescheduled,
There are a few reason,
But it’s either mid sold or something has to have changed about the concert.

exact same block is coming up as £75 (what I paid, plus booking fee) and not the £95 ticket line are looking for!

That rings alarm bells for me.

I would contact the other ticket selling company and check their prices are 100% correct.
It could technically be pricing issue from the venue, that’s been passed on to the ticket distribution companies, so you might have the same issue with the second company eventually.

But if it’s all correct I would definitely buy tickets with company 2 and tell ticketline to refund me.