The big booking fee scam

Booking fee. Two simple little words that make my blood boil when buying tickets for an event. What is a booking fee really paying for? Booking is a compulsory part of the process that can't be avoided and isn't a special extra service so why should you be charged an additional fee for it? Any genuine extra costs involved in the booking process are marginal so basically these fees give the event organisers a legal way to make their customers pay more than the advertised price and maximise their profits from ticket sales, which seems highly unethical to me. 


As a recent example, a car show advertised its adult ticket price as £5, but the total cost to actually buy one including the booking fee was £5.50. Hang on a minute: if it isn't possible to buy a ticket for £5 as advertised, that means admission doesn't really cost £5 at all but a full 10% more than the advertised price. Isn't that a con and why should it be acceptable? Just to twist the knife even further, there are some places that not only charge a booking fee per ticket but also an additional admin fee on the whole order, which is frankly taking the mickey.

Those responsible will no doubt claim the booking fee is to cover the administrative costs of the process, but selling tickets is an inevitable and unavoidable part of organising an event and its administrative costs can be foreseen, so an allowance for the cost of this should be factored into the ticket price. Nowadays, most bookings are handled by computerised systems anyway with very little human involvement, so the actual cost must be very low and the booking fee is basically money for nothing. Even if ticket sales are being handled by an agency who take a percentage of the income, there is no reason why this can't be built into the ticket price rather than added on as an extra fee.

The principle of charging a booking fee is akin to a conversation like this:
Buyer: "Here's your asking price."
Seller: "No, that's not enough. I want more."
Buyer: "Why?"
Seller: "It's my fee."
Buyer: "What for?"
Seller: "Nothing."
Buyer: "Why should I pay it then?"
Seller: "Because I said so."
That sort of behaviour by sellers is clearly inappropriate in any other scenario, yet the same principle is deemed acceptable when it comes to buying tickets. Why should that be?

This underhanded practice of charging compulsory booking fees is very misleading for customers and cons them into paying significantly more than they expected, which is verging on extortion yet everyone seems to accept it as a fact of life. I feel it should be outlawed so the ticket price is the actual price you pay and any additional charges should be for extra optional services over and above those offered by the basic ticket. For instance, it is acceptable to charge more to guarantee better seats at a theatre as this is an extra service that isn't included in the basic price, but it isn't acceptable to charge everyone an extra fee on top of the basic price that is non-optional and gives nothing extra in return.

Who else wants to see an end to the booking fee scam? Please let me know your thoughts on the matter below.