Arena apologises after Bruno fans left out in the cold Ticket blunder saw some waiting two hours
BIRMINGHAM’S Barclaycard Arena has apologised to hundreds of pop fans after they were locked out of a concert for hours.
The arena admitted the ticketing chaos at Monday’s Bruno Mars concert had been due to a mistake on its part.
It meant fans with some tickets could not enter the venue until more tann half way through the concert.
Problems arose because fans who had originally paid to stand were reissued tickets a month before the event – but many had turned up with their original tickets.
When they originally went on sale last November, fans could buy tickets for standing. But the venue realised there was the potential for a crush and reallocated tickets into front and rear spaces. These were then reissued in February and March and buyers informed.
But with many fans taking original tickets that could not be read by scanners, a queue of more than two hours built up while staff tried to reissue them from the main box office.
Some concert-goers did not even get into the venue until after 10pm when the show finished at 10.50pm. NEC chief executive Paul Thandi issued an apology after the blunder. He said: “We know there were ticketing issues at last night’s Bruno Mars concert and we apologise to those who were affected – we’re now contacting them directly. “We know that our customer communications were not sufficient and we take full responsibility for this and recognise that it was a mistake on our part. “We’re communicating directly with affected customers and have put plans in place to prevent this happening again.” Fans Ian Arblaster and partner Kayley Aston-Long queued for two hours before they finally managed to get into the venue only to then find themselves in a rear standing area. Mr Arblaster said: “Being delayed for two hours meant we couldn’t even get near the front of the ‘rear standing’ area and as Kayley is not the tallest, we didn’t have anything like as good a view as we had hoped. “It feels like we were put in rear standing at random.” Some other concert goers were also refused admission after turning up with what appeared to be fake tickets.