Glyndwr’s William Aston Hall hit by ticket scalpers – comedy tickets appear for sale at 440% of face value

Comedy fans have been left angry and frustrated this morning after tickets for an appearance on a UK tour of a popular comedian at the William Aston Hall ended up on third party ticketing website with huge price tags seconds after they went on public sale.

Earlier this week it was announced that comedian Rhod Gilbert would be bringing his first tour in six years, ‘The Book of John’, to the William Aston Hall in February 2019.

‘Presale’ tickets for the event went on Ticketmaster earlier on Wednesday, with general release available from the Wrexham Glyndwr University website from 10am this morning.

However attempts to get tickets at the release date were scuppered for many fans, with tickets for stalls claiming to have been sold seconds after the sales began.

Usually seating plans appear and seats are selectable – however this morning that system did not appear to be in place.

All stalls tickets appeared to be unavailable from the public view via the usual methods, with balcony tickets being the only ones left direct from the university.

Sorry, there are currently no tickets available at 10:01am

— Chris Davies (@s0nic321) July 20, 2018

Hi jumped on these at 10am on the dot is there an issue or have they sold out before I had a chance?

— David price (@dlp2789) July 20, 2018

@GlyndwrWAH waited for Rhod Gilbert tickets to go on sale but as soon as the sale window opened at 10 am it said instantly there were no tickets, at 10 second past 10, sort it out glyndwr, very poor!!

— Nathan Roberts (@NathanRoberts85) July 20, 2018

except there aren't any because you already let Ticketmaster sell them all on Wednesday, well done glyndwr, why say on say Friday 10am yet they have been on Ticketmaster from Wednesday, pathetic

— Nathan Roberts (@NathanRoberts85) July 20, 2018

No stalls tickets 10 seconds past 10am!!! How is this possible?

— Alan Kay (@AlanKay2) July 20, 2018

Aside two nights in from Cardiff’s Motorpoint Arena, Wrexham appears to be the only venue that is ‘sold out’ as of 11:30am out of 53 dates in the tour.

Almost instantly after 10am a number of tickets appeared on resale sites, such as Viagogo, for £131 per ticket with an additional £46 booking fee.

One person who tried to buy stalls tickets told us: “I’ve bought plenty of tickets for the William Aston Hall, including for Alan Carr’s warmup, and I’ve never known tickets to have come up as sold out that fast before.

“I think it’s disgusting that they have appeared on resale sites so fast. It doesn’t give real fans the chance.”

Nathan Roberts, one customer who also attempted to get tickets this morning, told Wrexham.com: “People trying to buy tickets to see Rhod Gilbert at William Aston Hall when they went on sale at 10am this morning were unable to buy any as Glyndwr had let ticket agent sites buy up all the tickets before they went on general sale.

“They are now on Viagogo for £131 per ticket + £46 booking fee, I think this is a joke.”

Another customer, who was lucky enough to get tickets, said: “As soon as I tried to purchase stall tickets at 10am a warning popped up to say they had gone.

“Fortunately I managed to get some balcony tickets. I knew there would be a lot of demand for the gig, but it’s a shame so many fans are going to miss out or having to pay extortionate prices from resale.”

Tickets were allocated to four per person during this morning’s sale, however it appears more were available for purchase during the presale earlier this week.

After the most feedback they have seen for a while, William Aston Hall have since released a short statement on Facebook, saying: “We’ve been made aware that some tickets have found their way on to some secondary ticketing sites.

“We do not support the sale of tickets via any website other than Ticketline, Seetickets and Ticketmaster and cannot guarantee the legitimacy of tickets purchased elsewhere.”

They added about the 1200 capacity venue, “Over 500 tickets went on general sale at 10am on these the listed sites and sold out in five minutes.”

Top pic: A message lots of people did not get to see.