Kylie Pays Booking Fees

Tickets for Kylie Minogue’s 2011 UK tour won’t be subject to agency booking fees because the artist is paying them, according to London-based Primary Talent’s Dave Chumbley.

The agent says this possibly unique situation came about when he was talking to promoters and venues on where to pitch the price.

“We were talking about a £65 ticket price but I wanted to know the price the fan would actually pay, which can be anything up to £15 higher when the booking fees and whatever have been added,” he explained.

“We settled on making it clear that fans would pay the advertised price of £65, plus a small transaction fee – usually around £2-50 – depending on how the tickets are to be delivered.”

The only proviso is that the tickets must be purchased from approved suppliers, which are listed on the Kylie.com website.

“If – for example – someone wants three £65 tickets, then they know they’ll be paying £195 and perhaps another £2-50 transaction fee to make the total £197-50.

“If the ticket sellers set their own varying booking fees, then someone buying three £65 tickets could end up paying as much as £6-50 or even £9-75 in booking fees and the total comes to more like £220,” Chumbley explained to Pollstar.

“I know there will be people saying it’s just another way of cutting the cake and the booking fee is included in the ticket price and, in a way, it obviously is,” he said. “But in this case it’s in the part of the cake that otherwise would have gone to the artist. I hadn’t built in any costs to cover booking fees when the price was fixed.

“It was a case of going to Kylie and saying this is what it will cost to pay a pre-agreed per-ticket fee to all the genuine ticket sellers. She agreed because she wants her fans to know they can buy her tickets for the advertised price and not have to think about all the fees that get added on.”