Not quite sure what inspires me to write this, but here’s a hypothetical way for you to make a small fortune:
Suppose a hugely popular international rock band, lets call them WWII Submarine, had just announced a word tour that was set to play around 110 dates, most of which would be in huge sports stadia and arenas with capacities in 5 figures, but guaranteed to sell out quickly.
Now suppose you ran a ticket agency with a virtual monopoly on major gig ticket sales (lets call them, oh I don’t know, Ticket King) and a policy of slapping huge “booking fees” on top of any sales. Well now, you’d be able to charge what you like, wouldn’t you? Does £26 to print and mail four small pieces of paper sound reasonable to you, for example?
Now here’s some simple arithmetic:
£26/4 = £6.50 per ticket x 50,000 (guess, average) x 110 (roughly). That’s rather a lot of money, isn’t it?
Of course I had no problem paying this this morning to secure my tickets for their Twickenham date later this year, because my money worries are over: last week I received a letter from Transport for London apologising profusely for a mistake on the Oystercard system that had resulted in my being overcharged for a journey I made at the start of the month, and enclosing a cheque for a full refund of the amount. The only problem is, I’m just not sure I can cash a cheque for “no pounds and twenty pence only” with a straight face.