West End rip-off

Ticket agencies came under fire yesterday for ripping off theatregoers and breaching industry codes.

They add up to 28 per cent to the price of seats for top West End shows such as We Will Rock You and Bombay Dreams, consumer watchdogs found.

The price of a pair of tickets with identical face values varied by almost £20 between agancies.

Two seats for We Will Rock You, bought through Wayahead, cost £108.45. The same tickets from Uktickets.co.uk cost £127.40, Which? magazine found.

There is no limit on the commission agents can charge. Each year, people spend more than £3billion going to the theatre and concerts. But agents take a large slice of this by negotiating an allocation of tickets and selling them at a profit, said the Consumers' Association.

For some events, particularly largescale national concerts, tickets can be bought only through agents

Many agencies flout their own rules by failing to make clear charges and conditions, researchers claimed. In calls to five agents, only Ticketmaster complied with the industry code each time.

Editor Helen Parker said: 'Paying a 28 per cent fee is equivalent to a family of four taking one of the agency staff along for free and buying them a drink at the interval. It pays to shop around.'