Hundreds of Ricky Gervais fans were left angry and frustrated after being turned away from his York gig last night (Wednesday).
Huge queues formed outside the York Barbican as every ticket was scrutinised by the management of the venue.
And anyone who had bought tickets via the Viagogo website was refused entry.
Some had travelled hours to be at the gig, the second of his two nights at the Barbican, and they vented their anger on the comedian’s Twitter feed.
Gervais replied: “The promoter, Live Nation, is investigating what happened. So frustrating, I know.”
One of those left out in the cold was James Williams. He had made the four-hour trip from Grimsby to see Gervais’s Armageddon show.
A “huge fan” of the star, James bought his ticket on Viagogo, which resells tickets, on Monday after missing out when they first went on sale via Ticketmaster.
“I actually rang Viagogo yesterday afternoon after hearing of a couple of issues at the same event the night before which one of my friends attended,” he said.
Those issues saw people with Viagogo tickets finding their seats had already been sold via the official Ticketmaster platform.
“I rang to make sure there would be no issues as it was a four-hour round trip for me, and they said they could ‘guarantee’ me that everything would be fine and there was nothing to worry about.
“Upon arriving at the Barbican, the staff at the venue were going up and down the lines saying that only tickets shown live on the Ticketmaster app would be accepted and if you had tickets from Viagogo you needed to join the box office queue.”
He was refused entry, as were ‘hundreds’ of others. “Personally, I’ve never heard of anything like this happening and the venue must have been at half capacity.”
James told YorkMix: “People were just disappointed and angry that this had happened – especially when people had been bought the tickets as gifts.
“Awful communication from the venue (ie none) and not dealt with well at all.”
He has gone back to Viagogo, asking for an explanation.
Before being told about the ticketing problems, Ricky Gervais had Tweeted how much he’d enjoyed the night – and York itself.
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