Same day box-office ticket pick-up worries

[solitude]

Hi, I have a question about box office ticket collection.

I have one arena standing ticket for each night at RAH, one from Gigs&Tours and one from SeeTickets.

Because I live in Canada, they would not post me the tickets but would only allow same-day box office ticket pick-up. That’s all fine and good - I imagined leaving the queue for a few minutes during the day to make the pick-up. But, I later got e-mails informing me that tickets are only available at the box office from 18:45 on the day of the event. Doors open at 18:45. I’m travelling all the way from Canada for these two gigs so of course I planned to queue for the day. I do not want to be queued at the box office when everyone else is rushing onto the floor. I tried to contact both companies about this issue multiple times but only got form replies and their customer service numbers don’t seem to be reachable from overseas. So I don’t know how firm this ‘after 6:45 only’ rule is.

Surely, SURELY there are thousands and thousands of tickets sold annually for RAH events to non-British residents, same for SeeTickets and Gigs&Tours. Does any outside-UK person have experience with this with these companies? Will I be able to get my ticket before doors open?

A couple people on Tumblr have told me that it will probably be fine but I am really anxious anyway. I am going to be genuinely distraught if I can’t even get my tickets until doors have opened…

[rpmacmurphy]

Im suprised that the box office collection times are same as doors open but i had similar probs a few tours back at Kentish Town Forum

If you want to queue from early but still need to collect your tickets then perhaps just queue as planned but let those around you know what your situation is in case you can pick up earlier and need to duck away ??-if you can get your hands on your tix before doors all so well and good.

Trust me - the majority of your fellow queue buddies are utter sweeties and will understand

Good luck anyways

[UEF]

There is simply no need to queue. Ignore the bollocks you read on here, it's always the same 4 people stood there from 7am and everyone else turns up
12 hours later.

You'll pick up your tickets and walk straight to the front. Enjoy yourself.

[Abstract Unknown Girl]

Whilst there's not usually droves of people doing early queuing these days, it is a lot more than 4 people, trust me For a venue like the RAH (not the hugest standing area/barrier), I'd be surprised if you could get barrier without any queuing; second/third row would be quite easy I imagine though.

If it's anything like when I saw The Killers there in 2009, we could collect our tickets prior to doors opening (think the box office was open from around lunch time), but then everyone with standing tickets did, as they didn't send any out by post prior to the gigs and we had to collect wristbands too, but obviously it's a bit different for these gigs as they have been sending tickets out to UK residents, so not sure about box office collection this time.

Have you tried tweeting the RAH? They replied to me a while back about standing capacity for these gigs, so it might be worth a try.

[Routine Builder]

I had to do something similar a few years ago, everyone in the queue was fine about it.

But as above, try tweeting them, as an independent venue they are more likely to be more responsive and helpful if you're stuck. I would check the website and find out when the box office is really open. If you went through a third party like ticket master, they probably put down the opening time as a matter of practice. The RAH has more than one venue and does stuff during the day so I'd reckon it's open during the day like similar venues.

It's easy to feel like you don't have to queue if you're normal or above male height. The 5ft6" or below play back of head lottery every gig.

[Routine Builder]

Physical office opens at 12:00 daily. What would we do without Google (start a new thread obviously )

http://www.royalalberthall.com/your-visit/contact-us/

[solitude]

Thanks everyone for your time and your thoughts!

I'm still a bit worried about how this will play out. I'm only 5'5" and I don't wish to fly across the ocean to watch gigs through dozens of phone screens... I will try asking RAH directly instead of the ticket companies, maybe by e-mail. I'm getting to London on the 15th so if I have to go to the box office to talk to someone, I can do it the night before (maybe after Carreras has starting singing!). I've queued for other bands as early as 3:30am so to arrive in daylight hours is no biggie.

Heading to the airport in a few minutes, then I'm going to kill a few days in Bristol and Cardiff before going into London.

[solitude]

Follow up! As suggested, I gave up on the ticket companies and contacted RAH customer service instead.

Answer: "We estimate tickets from the agencies to be at the hall from 6.00."

So I should be okay to leave the queue late-ish to get my tix both days... I really hope so.

Thanks, maybe I'll meet some of you there?