Before The Dawn...

OMG! Kate Bush has announced some gigs. Called Before The Dawn they will take place at the Hammersmith Apollo Eventim in August and September.

Before the Dawn

I am delighted to announce that we will be performing some live shows this coming August and September.
       I hope you will be able to join us and I look forward to seeing you there.
          We'll keep you updated with further news on the web site.
                  Meanwhile, all details of concert dates and tickets are in the note below.
                    Very best wishes,
                             Kate


Before The Dawn at London's Eventim Apollo, Hammersmith 

AUGUST

Tuesday, 26th August
Wednesday, 27th August
Friday, 29th August
Saturday, 30th August

SEPTEMBER 

Tuesday, 2nd September
Wednesday, 3rd September
Friday, 5th September
Saturday, 6th September
Tuesday, 9th September
Wednesday, 10th September
Friday, 12th September
Saturday, 13th September
Tuesday, 16th September
Wednesday, 17th September
Friday, 19th September

Tickets

Tickets will go on sale at 9.30 am (GMT) on the 28th March 2014 and will be available exclusively from the following agents:

www.eventim.co.uk
www.gigsandtours.com
www.ticketmaster.co.uk

Please note that tickets are not available directly from the venue Box Office.  Additional order enquiries should be directed to the Eventim customer service department at: 
customerservice@eventim.co.uk or 08443760021

Ticket purchases are limited to a maximum of 4 per order.  For example, you can try to purchase up to 4 tickets for just one of the 15 concerts, or 4 tickets for 4 separate shows.

The name of the lead booker will be printed on the first ticket.  As the number of tickets is limited they will be allocated on a first-come first-served basis.

Tickets cannot be resold or transferred under any circumstances. If the promoter reasonably believes this to be the case the barcode on the ticket will be voided, prohibiting entry to the concert.

We hope to see you there.

A Chorus Line Cancelled...

What the hell is going on? We went into London last night to go the London Palladium to see A Chorus Line but the theatre was all shut up. The performance had been cancelled.

Luckily the Palladium Box Office was open and they said the show had been cancelled. They also said that See Tickets had told them that they had contacted everyone who had bought tickets and told of the cancellation. THIS WAS NOT TRUE. I was not called or got any email about the cancellation - and no, there isn't anything in my junk mail folder about it either.

I am very angry and frankly disgusted at See Tickets. They have my email address. They have my telephone number. They should have contacted me. The Palladium have asked me to keep them informed about what See Tickets now do. Rest assured I will. What dreadful customer service!

UPDATE: I got a very sniffy reply from See Tickets Customer 'Care'. The show was actually cancelled back on 22nd Nov! and See Tickets issued a refund. They did not however inform me. No email, no telephone call. A completely wasted trip into town. Not happy.

Olympics Tickets...

I'm a big fan of the Olympics coming to London. I don't care about the cost (we can afford it), the sponsors (it keeps what costs there are down) or the disruption (I go to the footie and experience every fortnight first hand 60,000 people descending on a stadium - it's no biggy.)

I was excited when London applied. Excited when London got it. And have grown more excited as the time approaches.

Now all I needed to do was try for some tickets.

So I registered my interest last year and applied in the first round of ticket sales. I'd chanced an arm and applied for a dozen different sessions, all the sports I wanted to see, and came away with just one - Beach Volleyball. Worse still, winning those tickets made me ineligible to apply again in the second round. I did log on for that second round but on my parents behalf to get them some tickets (they had missed out completely in the first round and didn't fancy getting up at 6am to try again) and was marginally more successful for them.

However I had to wait another 10 months until last week for the chance of applying again on my own behalf and after missing various other rounds of sales wasn't expecting much luck. I logged on at the appropriate time at 11am on Wednesday 23rd May (oh, I'd had that date in my diary for weeks) and imagine my surprise when I discovered that there were loads of tickets still available. Almost every event and venue I wanted to go to from last year still had tickets to buy. So I selected all the original events that I might have possibly wanted waited. And waited. And waited. The London 2012 ticket web site was working but had a really annoying queueing system that counted down from 15 minutes before it could confirm whether you'd been successfully or not. The first few came back with the frustrating message, "No tickets found." Grrr.

But I persevered. Trying again and again. Like those Olympic athletes I wasn't going to give up. For some events I applied 8 or 9 times in a row - getting slightly more disheartened with each failure. But after an hour or so I got my first event. A diving event. Yay! So I tried again with another event - this time Artistic Gymnastics - and sure enough that came back too. I was on a roll. I repeated again and again often getting the "No tickets found" message but I had the bit between my teeth.

Eventually they all started coming back as winners. In fact after almost three hours of trying I had secured tickets for all but one of the original sessions I wanted to go to!

Success!

So now I'm going to watch 11 different sports in 13 different sessions at numerous Olympic venues - two being diving finals, one being the Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony and a few trips up the Orbit to boot.

Can't wait.

PS: As of today there are still Olympics tickets available! Check out.

100 Days To Go To the Olympics...

The great irony of course, is that if all those who have said they will disappear for the Olympic fortnight actually did so, it would spare the rest of us the chaos they so fear. But inevitably, they won’t. So when it does all go wrong, blame the moaners.

It's frustrating not getting tickets for what you want to see. As a footie fan I'm used to not getting tickets to watch my team play. Sure I get frustrated. But doesn't mean I think football should be not played! Yes, they could have allocated Olympics tickets better - given more to different people rather than a straight ballot but I guess the real problem was that they were oversubscribed by a factor of 10:1! Although more tickets on sale in a week or two I think. 1.5m football ones but 1m other ones too apparently. If you didn't get any in the first rounds - have another go!

And if you're not successful don't stay in watching telly - come down to Trafalgar Square with me!

Olympics Tickets...

Good News / Bad News. We got some Olympic tickets! But only £86 worth :-( So we won't be able to apply in the 2nd ballot as that only for people who got nothing. D'oh!

Olympic ticket requests we put in for:

Athletics Maximum cost: £590
Beach Volleyball Maximum cost: £190
Cycling - Track Maximum cost: £300
Gymnastics - Artistic 1 Maximum cost: £370
Gymnastics - Artistic 2 Maximum cost: £370
Swimming Maximum cost: £370
Opening Ceremony Maximum cost: £4,024

Maximum ticket total: £6,214

£6 charge for fulfilment and secure delivery to an address in the UK

Maximum cost of application: £6,220

What we actually got charged? £86
For what event? Haven't been told yet