“ATG TICKETS - AVOID!
We have been happily attending the pantomime at the New Wimbledon Theatre for several years, and have always enjoyed it with no complaints.
However we are due to attend this years show tomorrow afternoon. Earlier today our son was taken ill with a vomiting bug so we are no longer able to go. We didn't think this would be an issue - these things happen, surely we can get an exchange for another date!? Surely!! We had even paid extra for refund protection just incase. The first issue we had is trying to get hold of someone who can help. There is no number for the theatre or box office and you are constantly steered towards an online chat bot and help centre that are both absolutely useless. I finally managed to ascertain that there is some kind of exchange function available on your online ticketing account - however we checked out as a guest (as countless people do, I don't wish to have a ticketing account with every company in the country!) so our tickets were not assigned to any particular account so we couldn't do this. After much googling (they clearly make it as difficult to find as possible as they don't want to speak to anyone) I managed to find a working phone number and after being on hold for about an hour I finally got to speak to a human being. She was perfectly pleasant, but the exchange policy is ridiculous - it must be 48 hours in advance of your booked show date to exchange. Our child is ill as of this morning, we could not have anticipated this. Are we supposed to just say goodbye to £160 worth of tickets? We don't have the money to rebook for another day and claim the refund back later!! Which leads me to my final gripe - the refund protection (we paid £10 extra for this) is provided by a third party insurance company which is again utterly useless with deliberately difficult and restrictive terms and conditions. In order to get a refund for illness, you have to submit a claim with a doctors note as evidence. I've got an 8 year old with a sickness bug. He needs 48 hours in bed, a bit of calpol and some TLC, he does not require a trip to the doctors to get a sicknote! I could send them a picture of my bathroom floor as evidence! This could take weeks to get an appointment anyway, plus the processing time of the claim, even if we did get a refund it would be too late for us to see the show anyway - we can't afford to pay twice! We don't even want a refund, we want to see the show! There's hundreds if not thousands of tickets available for the show, it's hardly a sell out. There are dozens of seats still available on our booked day. A years long Christmas family tradition is threatening to be ruined by ATG's stubborn and inflexible policies. Bring back the days of independent theatres with humans running them that are capable of using discretion, not bloated faceless corporations with customer services departments run by AI and robots. If this is not resolved satisfactorily, ATG will never see a penny from us again and i'll plaster this review on every forum I can - we'll either pay the premium and go to the Palladium next year, or find a small local production instead. ATG you need to do better!”
“This company is a complete joke. Waited on the phone for over 3 hours over 2 days to book tickets and no one answered. I will not be patronizing this company.”
“Saturday 4th May Theatre Royal Brighton Madame Butterfly performed to a full house – My friend and I were sat in the second circle. During the interval Stewards were running around behind us which was very unsettling.
A member of the theatre asked to evacuate the building and said the show was cancelled. The announcement was made from the stage asking everyone to urgently leave the building and she sounded panicky in her address to the audience.
The whole evacuation process was not done well and we were all lucky that no one was hurt in the process.
Outside the theatre, people were just standing around feeling shocked and puzzled by the evacuation process. We were informed once again that the performance was cancelled, and emergency services, including firefighters and an ambulance, arrived at the scene and invited the crowd to leave.
So everyone started to leave allowing them to do their job, except a few curious ones that remained there I don't know how long.
Overall extremely poor communication from the theatre staff during the event because if we knew the show did continue we would have waited.
However, it is even worse and disappointing that there was no communication from the theatre staff and production company afterwards - except for a silly automated email asking for feedback for the show.
We look forward to receiving a refund – though no information as yet.”
“Do not book for shows in advance. We booked a show for 2025 which has now been cancelled, i had to chase twice for a refund (why would anyone want a voucher??!!) and lost the booking fee. This seems like a very underhand practice by ATG.”
“Hi has anyone had this problem I was booking tickets for hairspray in the King's Theatre Glasgow I went to review my order and how much it would cost but when I pressed review order they automatically took payment. And also couldn't use my bluelight card but could have used it for the same show if I lived either in Bristol or Sunderland bit unfair.”
“This has been an education in why not to buy trip/event cancellation insurance. This insurance is not an "all risk" insurance, it is a scam and a time waster. I am giving up.”
“We had tickets for Paloma Faith at Liverpool Empire with a pre theatre meal at the in house pizzeria. My wife had an accident the day before and we couldn’t go. We tried to call the restaurant and the theatre to see if we could change the tickets or get a credit for the restaurant. It took 6 phone calls before we managed to speak with someone who even purported to help. We were told that we had to inform them at least 48hrs before, difficult when the accident was 24 hours before the show. The restaurant was unreal, when speaking with them before the reservation they weren’t able to help and told us to contact the box office. This opens 90mins before the show and doesn’t take phone calls. Totally awful customer service, will certainly NOT take the option of joint ATG again. Complete waste of money. Customer service is dire and once they have your money they do not seem to care.”
“I am surprised at all the negative reviews as my experience was far different. I had to postpone a cruise to the UK due to a family emergency and thought I was out of luck with tickets to a play I had purchased in London to be held a few days before our cruise. I submitted a request to exchange the tickets for a future date, provide a couple of times that would work and within a few days received new tickets. I appreciate their flexibility and responsiveness.”
“Outstanding service by Jake at ATG Tickets today
he helped me with getting access seats for a show very supportive of my needs
great communication throughout by email and then a telephone call to complete my purchase
Jake couldnot have done any better pleasure to help me as I am useless at booking online for shows
sent me emails to confirm bookings while I was on the telephone to him also very helpful
Best Customer Care I've received in a long time
Thankyou Again”
“Terrible company! I am unable to buy tickets online as my daughter is a wheelchair user. I have had to create an account for myself and her and provide lots of medical evidence but they cannot link the two accounts. This company clearly don't give a **** about disabled people, I guess it costs them too much money. A real shame as the theatre is one thing my daughter (who has a life limiting condition) IS able to do. I cannot talk to a real person who could easily sort this out. I'm close to tears.”
“I purchased two sets of tickets one was for Liverpool empire the other Edinburgh playhouse, end Dec and January respectively, the Edinburgh performance was white xmas but our holiday got cancelled very last minute, due to covid, the January tickets where for jersey boys in Liverpool, this also got cancelled last minute same reason. I protected the tickets but you may as well give your money to a homeless person and at least make someone happy, because the protection isn't worth the paper it's written on, chance of getting any of the money back NIL, we lost over £130 between the two bookings and time has run out and the tickets, nobody replied to us, I never leave bad reviews I'm always really fair, but this was a bad experience and I'll never ever book with ATG tickets again.”
“Terrible company to buy tickets from when somthing goes wrong.
No e ticket received and no contact phone numbers for customer service. Five emails and two messages on website later with no reply of any contact the event came and went without me getting to see it”
“I tried to get a ticket exchange for different seats due to a back injury. Contacted ATG for an exchange. It took them 23 days to respond and by then the seats were no longer available. 23 days. I asked for a refund despite having cover and they said I had to speak to someone else and that they’d close the case. Zero accountability. What a waste of time and money. Horrible service.”
“What a horrible experience! I have booked tickets for a show and after umpteen calls and emails , I got 2 calls on weekend mornings and no reply to my emails in a simple attempt to change the tickets to another day. If you call back, you are on endless waiting. It is so frustrating. How can someone have such poor customer service and get such high ratings on Trust pilot ?”
“Took out insurance on theatre tickets. Unable to travel due to Storm Babet. Have so far sent 18 emails to insurance co - Refund Tickets- which are usually bounced back. No phone no. given & co. based in Gibraltar, so not covered by UK consumer rights.
DO NOT BUY TICKET INSURANCE FROM THEM!”
“I'm trying to book a wheelchair ticket with ATG for 2 weeks now. We had to fill in a ridiculously long application, had to send in 3 different letters to proof my son's needs Nimbus Disability sent us a 6 digit number to log in to ATG website to book a ticket. It didn't work. I wrote an email to ATG, the replied that problem solved, still can't book a ticket. As an able-body person I can book without any problems, as a wheelchair user it takes hours to fill in the forms, to send the all the proof and they still can't sort out the booking. If you are a disabled person obviously you don't have the right to go to ATG places.”
