Last week a number of compers were celebrating winning tickets to see Rod Stewart in concert at Glasgow’s SECC. Last night (26th July) they should have been singing along with him and thousands of other fans. However, yesterday afternoon winners were emailed to be told there had been a mistake and that they wouldn’t get in to concert. For those who hadn’t left that was fine, but a number of winners were already en-route to the venue and would not know of the problem until arrival at The Box Office.
The competition was run by entertainment site Ents24. Initially they had 5 pairs of tickets on offer, but more than 5 winners were picked. When this was mentioned on their Facebook page Ents24 responded with “We had a few extra tickets to give away to those who entered,so more than five eventually won. I can confirm it’s completely legitimate and those who received a mail will have their name on the guestlist”.
Error In Ticket Allocations
However, also on Facebook, Ents24 report that they “were told very late this afternoon (26th) by the promoters of the competition – AEG Live – that there had been an error in ticket allocations and that they were not going to be able to fulfil the prizes but have instead offered every winner tickets to the London performance”. Whilst it’s right that an alternative prize was offered, in fairness it was far too late in the day to just change the prize and Ents24 and AEG should have accommodated all the winners as best they could. If those that arrived at the venue couldn’t get in then travel refunds and even accommodation should have been offered. Furthermore, tickets for The O2 concert which would involve extra expense and travel for those who wanted Scotland tickets aren’t really an alternative to the disappointment, anger and frustration caused by this issue.
No One Got In
On discussions on Facebook, Loquax and Money Saving Expert there are reports that whilst some winners were turned away, or even herded under a stairwell by Police, others managed to see the concert. One Loquax user commented “There were probably about 150 people there and no one got in. The SECC manager gave car parking passes out and spoke to the crowd but the mistake wasn’t theirs and the concert was a sell out. He said he would be breaching health and safety by letting people in and given what happened at LoveParade wasn’t prepared to do that”. Whilst it appears the fault seems to stem from AEG Live, who are the promoters, the competition was run by Ents24. As they chose the winners the “contract” is between themselves and the winner and therefore it falls down to them to sort out the issue.
Some Guys Have All The Luck
To be fair, Ents24 for their part have been working to try and deal with the situation, but at the moment are limited to saying “unfortunately, until we know what went wrong at AEG, there’s very little we can do other than respond to complaints and say we’re sorry”. There’s so far no public comment from AEG Live, although they will be waking up this morning to a lot of angry complaints. Rod Stewart may have sung “Some Guys Have All The Luck” last night, but he probably didn’t realise that a lot of his fans who’d won tickets weren’t having much luck outside the venue (Thanks to keriku for that line).