BBC America Botch Their Doctor Who Ticket Sales (Again)


As many know, the Doctor Who World Tour is in full swing. Along with an early showing of the premiere episode “Deep Breath”, fans get to meet and greet the current TARDIS crew, + Steven Moffat (although I’m gonna admit I consider SteMo part of that “crew”). After successful(?) events in Cardiff, London, and Seoul, it’s New York’s turn, and who was tasked to manage ticket sales? BBC America. Of course, nobody knew exactly where they were supposed to buy their tickets until two days before, and even then the venue wasn’t officially announced. Most fans were led to believe that by providing their email to DoctorWho.tv/worldtour they would at least be notified. Those fans were mistaken.

A brief update to BBCA’s Anglophenia site, two days before the tickets went on sale, mentioned that the tickets would become available on Eventbrite @ 12:00 PM on Monday, that the tickets would be $12 plus surcharge, and that the “venue [is] to be announced.” Turns out that by “announced” they meant in a Tumblr post. In fact the listing wasn’t even available on Eventbrite until 12:05, wherein the tickets had already sold out. Or at least it mentioned that “no tickets are available” and that we should continue refreshing just in case more would become available. And then, odd enough the event vanished from the listing a short while later. But you can still find the hidden listing here. Turns out that at the last minute BBCA announced the venue to be the Ziegfeld Theater – a movie theater. And not one likely to accommodate many fans to begin with.

Turns out that some of those lucky few who got the tickets on time were actually ticket sharks, not fans of the show, hoping to make a swift and tremendous profit. Here’s a picture posted on twitter showing how quickly those $12 tickets appreciated in value.IMG_1876.JPG
Of course, I can’t possibly hold BBC America accountable for ticket farmers trying to sell the event out, but really? Ziegfeld Theater?? I can name off ten locations in a three mile radius better suited to the task of entertaining a “World Tour.”

BBCA then updated their original post from two days ago, stating:

Thank you all for your support. Doctor Who: The World Tour in New York is now sold out. We look forward to seeing those of you who got tickets this Thursday. For those who didn’t, we’re sorry we couldn’t accommodate you this time around. We hope you’ll be tuning in on Saturday, August 23 @ 8/7c for the new season.

Yeah. We’ll all be tuning in. Thanks for the reminder. Read the comments that follow the update at the bottom for some seriously irritated fans.

This isn’t the first time BBC America has tried to coordinate events for the program (and botched it). Last year, when tickets for the 50th anniversary special “The Day of the Doctor” went on sale in America, BBCA went through Ticketmaster. And the best bit? Their tickets didn’t go on sale at the specified time. They procrastinated nearly two and a half hours until they finally chose to put the listing up on the site. Naturally that got many fans upset. But really? Twice in a row guys?

Well for those of us that weren’t/aren’t able to make it, at least we can die laughing at this painting presented to the cast in Seoul on stage. Seriously, who thought bringing this on stage was a good idea? ;D

7 thoughts on “BBC America Botch Their Doctor Who Ticket Sales (Again)

  1. They aren’t the only victims, ticket sharks are everywhere…
    For the last five years (2010-2013) I attended a festival (Wacken) and the re-sellers go after those tickets like moths to the flame.
    For this year they tried ticket personalisation (your name on the ticket), but as it didn’t help getting rid of the black market sales, they dropped it again. The tickets (75 000 btw) for next year were sold out after 12 hours and now you can buy them for twice the usual value on ebay.

    In short: Things like this are utterly ridiculous and absolutely inconvenient for the people who genuinely want to buy a ticket, but so far no one has really come up with a proper solution…

    Like

      1. I really appreciate it. Thanks so much. It makes me happy to know people read and enjoy my blog. I don’t unfortunately participate in the Liebsters or anything though. (I don’t think I qualify either actually. Think it’s for new blogs with less than a certain amount of followers)

        Like

      2. It usually is for less than a certain amount of followers, but I took it more from the words literal meaning so that I could present something that I like/is my favourite instead of something that is unknown.
        Don’t worry about not participating though, just wanted to let you know.

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