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Cirque du Fail
We saw Cirque du Soleil a few years ago and enjoyed the show, so we were planning to go again when we saw that they'd be in Pittsburgh next month. However, we've been overcome by a truly obnoxious ticketing process.
We were chugging along with the not-very-well-designed web site -- chose our show, accepted the offered tickets (which we could only kind-of sort-of locate on the seating chart), filled out all the info including the credit-card security code, were irritated at the $10/ticket service fee (for using the web site) but went ahead anyway, decided the $7/ticket insurance against "lost in the mail" was sleazy and we'd invoke Visa if necessary, and thought we were done -- but no, it then routed us to a page where we had to sign up for some security service "for our protection". That was one annoyance too many, so we fell back to ordering via phone.
The first attempt to do so ended after half an hour on hold with no sign of progress. A later attempt reached a human, who informed us that there'd be a $10/ticket fee (for using the phone), which prompted us to ask where we could just go buy tickets in person, and that turned out to be "nowhere in town". And, of course, they couldn't guarantee delivery without another $7/ticket. And only at this point did we realize that the venue is a stadium, not a smaller place like the last show, and I was pretty dubious about actually being able to see from the seats that were available. I really expected better from a base price of nearly $100/ticket.
So the heck with that. Maybe we'll buy a $20 DVD instead.
We were chugging along with the not-very-well-designed web site -- chose our show, accepted the offered tickets (which we could only kind-of sort-of locate on the seating chart), filled out all the info including the credit-card security code, were irritated at the $10/ticket service fee (for using the web site) but went ahead anyway, decided the $7/ticket insurance against "lost in the mail" was sleazy and we'd invoke Visa if necessary, and thought we were done -- but no, it then routed us to a page where we had to sign up for some security service "for our protection". That was one annoyance too many, so we fell back to ordering via phone.
The first attempt to do so ended after half an hour on hold with no sign of progress. A later attempt reached a human, who informed us that there'd be a $10/ticket fee (for using the phone), which prompted us to ask where we could just go buy tickets in person, and that turned out to be "nowhere in town". And, of course, they couldn't guarantee delivery without another $7/ticket. And only at this point did we realize that the venue is a stadium, not a smaller place like the last show, and I was pretty dubious about actually being able to see from the seats that were available. I really expected better from a base price of nearly $100/ticket.
So the heck with that. Maybe we'll buy a $20 DVD instead.
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So while the timing sucked, VbV is a separate issue altogether.
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I have used the same Visa card to make many online purchases, including ones for higher prices than this (and including theatre tickets from other vendors). So if it's coming from Visa, what governs when they do it?
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That said, every time they sprung it on me there was a (sometimes hard to spot) "never mind that crap" button somewhere.
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It is currently #2, right after Cirque's site.
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Which one are you guys getting for stadium?
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Hmm. I should look into Ticketmaster stock. Bet they pay out huge dividends...
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Last week a friend from Australia visited, and she was shocked both by our taxes and the whole restaurant tipping thing. Apparently down there it's illegal to advertise prices that don't include the tax, and waiters are paid actual wages. Sounds like a good system to me.
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