Why does it cost so much to buy tickets to a LOCAL event?

January 15, 2012 by
Filed under: Cost of living 

My family were trying to buy tickets to a Local event – the 2012 Wairarapa Wines Harvest Festival. This is an event held in March to allow wineries outside of Martinborough to try and get some of the kudos (and $$$?) of Toast Martinborough which they are not allowed to be part of. Martinborough Wineries are however represented at the Harvest Festival.

It’s been running for a few years now, and is actually quite good. Instead of Toast where you visit several wineries an buses – at the Harvest festival the Wineries come to you – at a site not far from where we live. Set in a beautiful little park near the Ruamahanga River – it does make quite a lovely day.

Now tickets are only $40 – compared t the $70 of toast – but bear in mind you still need to buy your wine (at not exactly cheap prices) and food on site. In fact over the years the staff running the event have got stupidly draconian about not letting you on the bus from the car park to the site until they have checked your bags for water or food.

I don’t bother going now as I refuse to let someone poke their nose in my bag for no good reason!

Now last year – we bought tickets at the Wairarapa Wines shop in Greytown (again an answer it seems to the Martinborough Wine Center),  and is run as a collective of the wineries. but this year you can only buy tickets through Ticketec.

Which means added fees.

You either have to pay $11.75 or $13.75 depending on where you want the tickets “couriered” to. The extra is for rural delivery – which in our case means it comes via the normal postman anyway. And of course  2%-2.6% for the “credit card fee”.

Plus of course Ticketec will also be taking a commission from Wairarapa Wines for the privilege of having their tickets sold for them.

So on three tickets costing $120, we would have to pay  $16.50 in order to buy them. That’s 13.45% of the price of the tickets.

Which is a bloody rip off – when postage actually costs 60c and would be free if we were allowed to buy them form the outlet bloody well organising the damn thing.

When asked about this – the  Wairarapa Wines Center in Greytown basically couldn’t give a stuff on the basis that they will sell the tickets. So why should they care? Only this is local event. Why wouldn’t you allow locals to buy tickets locally? Why would you force them to pay over the odds for the tickets – especially when Ticketec is taking a cut from them as well as from us?

Then they got really snotty and proceeded to tell my mum all about how expensive it is to run a stand at the event. This did not go down well – on account of my parents having run stands at several large UK events a year – with fees that would make the eyes of the wineries here water.

They have a snotty attitude – and for the first time – my family is not going to the Harvest Festival.

Instead, they will take the $120, buy some nice wine (which may or may not be Waiararapa Wine, and enjoy it in the garden, where they wont be overcharged for the wine or the food (and wont have to use portaloos). And can rest easy that they arent subsidising some very snooty people.  All they will miss really is the entertainment.

Related posts:

  1. Do you want Fry buys with your combine harvester?
  2. Toast Martinborough 2009 – the aftermath.
  3. The Martinborough Fair.
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Comments

3 Comments on Why does it cost so much to buy tickets to a LOCAL event?

  1. Domestic Executive on Sun, 15th Jan 2012 7:37 pm

    2. It really cheeses me off too to be paying pointless rip off fees. I think the Wine Centre peeps missed the point. I have to admit we avoid all the big Martinborough gigs for the very reason – I’d rather spend the money away from the big events and not feel ripped off or mobbed!

  2. Avalon on Wed, 18th Jan 2012 10:08 am

    3. They did indeed miss the point. The sad thing is that I don’t think they will ever understand it. So many “local” companies seem to have the attitude that they don’t really need to be nice, pleasant, professional or indeed reasonable on price – we should just shop there because they are local and we should support them.

    Screw that :)

    And so – we spend more and more of our money overseas where we dont have to deal with it.

    Sad – but there it is.

  3. Deborah on Wed, 18th Jan 2012 3:56 pm

    4. I just don’t get it, that they don’t get it. When the event folds due to lack of enthusiasm (or bankrupts itself) the wineries will be moaning then.

    I’m happy to pay a small charge for the cost of a stamp and an envelope for something to be sent out, but I don’t want to be ripped of for a courier charge either. I’m sure they do a deal with the courier company, so it’s not like they’ll be paying the full price that they’re charging us.

    I’m also fine with a small charge for an eticket, after all it costs to set up a website, data base, blah de blah.

    Reminds me of the time I was phoning round trying to get people to come and quote for a new log burner and chimney. One local company wanted $150 just to come and quote. The icing on the cake was that it was a non refundable charge if we decided to have them install the thing. Sheesh…

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