London koen- October 2025

[Gurowake 4,099]

20 hours ago, John Gunning said:

since the pandemic began.

How much of this might be due to the fact that Sumo was basically the only sport available to follow in March 2020, which caused a lot of people to actually watch it and noticed it was more interesting than pop culture would have led them to believe?

[Yarimotsu 588]

4 hours ago, Gurowake said:

How much of this might be due to the fact that Sumo was basically the only sport available to follow in March 2020, which caused a lot of people to actually watch it and noticed it was more interesting than pop culture would have led them to believe?

That's my story, and I think I've helped create 5 or so casual sumo fans since as well. Based on what most sumo fans online say, I think it was a bigger influence than most will ever consider.

[I am the Yokozuna 194]

Well, that was a bummer. I would not be surprised to see many seats going empty during the actual events judging by the high numbers of tickets available at scalper sites. Dynamic pricing and not banning bots could be contributing factors. 

I had two tickets selected and when I proceeded to the payment those were gone. So bad UX also could be a factor. How those seats were not "reserved" for a minute or so? 

[TheGunbaiHolder 32]

It's official, Santa does not exist I had busy day at work and with kid and didn't manage to get nothing. I am so bummed that I can keep editing this message to avoid screaming in real life. Aaaaargh!

Edited March 10 by TheGunbaiHolder

[Ryoshishokunin 320]

On 09/03/2025 at 08:10, I am the Yokozuna said:

Well, that was a bummer. I would not be surprised to see many seats going empty during the actual events judging by the high numbers of tickets available at scalper sites. Dynamic pricing and not banning bots could be contributing factors. 

I had two tickets selected and when I proceeded to the payment those were gone. So bad UX also could be a factor. How those seats were not "reserved" for a minute or so? 

Then they will dynamic down closer to the day.  This is the point of the whole exercise.  If you think the scalpers will be unable to unload, check for last minute tickets.

[RabidJohn 1,850]

The 1991 koen was a proper sold-out event with ridiculous sums changing hands on the steps on the last day. Yet I don't recall any delay getting through to the RAH box office landline, ordering my tickets and paying a deposit on my credit card.

The confirmation arrived in the post a few days later, and the tickets arrived in the post shortly after I paid the balance. No problems.

Internet ticket selling is wide open to abuse. It has never been and will never be an improvement on real people answering the phone.

[Insert Abe Simpson shouting at clouds meme]

[Koorifuu 1,019]

On 09/03/2025 at 08:10, I am the Yokozuna said:

So bad UX also could be a factor. How those seats were not "reserved" for a minute or so? 

Absolutely. I've bought tickets online for UK events through more systems and platforms than I can remember, and Royal Albert Hall's by far the least functional I've used. There's a whole list of issues I could write down based on my experience. But hey, at least I got a single ticket, even if it wasn't the one I was trying to buy - the website kept giving me a slot in a different tier to the one I picked, I just gave up at some point and rolled with the punches.

Edited March 10 by Koorifuu

[Hidenotora 82]

I don't understand how the tickets are appearing on scalper sites because the tickets are attached to the name on the card that was used to purchase them and they're checking photo ID on entry. There was mention of an official reselling service but they seem to have taken all reference to that off the page now. (Just found it, it was Twickets.live, but no sumo tickets available there yet.)

I also didn't think it was THAT bad, I managed to get an arena seat ("ringside" but not right in front of the dohyo) for Thursday and a seat in the upper circle for Friday. Once my place in the queue came up, I was able to just refresh the page and as I did, tickets appeared or disappeared depending on when they got released from people's baskets or whatever. I waited until stuff I wanted appeared and then added it to my basket and that was that. Then once I'd bought for Thursday I just started the whole process from the beginning and I was still at the front of the queue or whatever because of cookies, so I bought one for Friday as well. 

[Yarimotsu 588]

6 hours ago, Hidenotora said:

I don't understand how the tickets are appearing on scalper sites because the tickets are attached to the name on the card that was used to purchase them and they're checking photo ID on entry.

The scalpers will still find some money off desperate people who didn't read the T&Cs. Also, I strongly suspect that most scalping is at least partially automated due to how prevalent it is.

[Koorifuu 1,019]

6 hours ago, Hidenotora said:

I also didn't think it was THAT bad,[...]

And yet your description was still more than enough to make it by far the worst I've experienced in the UK. 

So... it started out with only allowing me to buy tickets for one day. Spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how to buy individual tickets for two different days, as these platforms always allow for, and it ended up with my clearing the basket... and as soon as I did that, I was kicked out to Royal Albert Hall's main webpage! So I panicked for a bit, thinking I'd lost my place in the queue. But alas, incredibly, pressing Back on the browser gave me a whole new 20 minute slot to do my business with them! That's incredibly unsafe; I suspect this makes the queue easy to manipulate.

From here, I kept trying to go for the £120 inner circle option. The website kept allocating an £100 outer circle seat for me regardless. Tried that four times, you guessed it, by pressing Back on my browser and restarting the whole process because somehow there just wasn't any legitimate way to take a step back and remain on my slot whilst making changes. So I sighed, gave in and just bought the cheaper ticket. I guess whatever cookie locked that page into 'give new slot' mode, also locked me into that option. That might've been the one I had picked earlier when I had multiple days in mind - genuinely don't remember.

Went back to the queue in order to get another one for a different day, in a different device, but weekend was pretty much sold out and ultimately decided against buying a Friday. I guess Wednesday will have to suffice and the rest goes into my Japan pot instead.

Edited March 11 by Koorifuu

[Morning 85]

People will probably bank on them not checking ID or even give passing glance at the names on entrance.

Does the Royal Albert Hall usually check ID?

[Hidenotora 82]

6 hours ago, Koorifuu said:

And yet your description was still more than enough to make it by far the worst I've experienced in the UK. 

So... it started out with only allowing me to buy tickets for one day. Spent 5 minutes trying to figure out how to buy individual tickets for two different days, as these platforms always allow for, and it ended up with my clearing the basket... and as soon as I did that, I was kicked out to Royal Albert Hall's main webpage! So I panicked for a bit, thinking I'd lost my place in the queue. But alas, incredibly, pressing Back on the browser gave me a whole new 20 minute slot to do my business with them! That's incredibly unsafe; I suspect this makes the queue easy to manipulate.

From here, I kept trying to go for the £120 inner circle option. The website kept allocating an £100 outer circle seat for me regardless. Tried that four times, you guessed it, by pressing Back on my browser and restarting the whole process because somehow there just wasn't any legitimate way to take a step back and remain on my slot whilst making changes. So I sighed, gave in and just bought the cheaper ticket. I guess whatever cookie locked that page into 'give new slot' mode, also locked me into that option. That might've been the one I had picked earlier when I had multiple days in mind - genuinely don't remember.

Went back to the queue in order to get another one for a different day, in a different device, but weekend was pretty much sold out and ultimately decided against buying a Friday. I guess Wednesday will have to suffice and the rest goes into my Japan pot instead.

Hah fair enough then, honestly I've never bought a ticket to something as big as this before outside of music festivals. And I've been to thousands of gigs but they were before buying tickets just became about being in a queue for eleven years to see some generic pop star.

6 hours ago, Morning said:

People will probably bank on them not checking ID or even give passing glance at the names on entrance.

Does the Royal Albert Hall usually check ID?

I'm not sure, but the T&Cs on the email confirmation ticket say:
"The name of the lead booker will be printed on each ticket. 
The lead booker must attend the concert and photo ID in its original format (no photocopies) will be required to gain entry to the venue. There will be no exceptions to this rule. Photo ID can be any formal, recognisable form of ID such as a passport, driving licence, bus pass, work pass etc.
The name cannot be changed once the booking has been made. 
If you are booking more than one ticket your guests must enter the venue at the same time as you. Failure to do so will result in the guests being turned away. Only the lead booker can collect tickets from the box office; you cannot leave tickets to be collected by your guests."

So sounds like they're going to be taking it seriously.

The only way to get in with a scalper's ticket would be to have the same name as them in that case.

[Akinomaki 40,744]

1 hour ago, Hidenotora said:

The only way to get in with a scalper's ticket would be to have the same name as them in that case.

The scalper could lead in the group of his "guests"

[Hidenotora 82]

59 minutes ago, Akinomaki said:

The scalper could lead in the group of his "guests"

And then what, you all sit down with the scalper and watch sumo with the guy who just ripped you off for a ticket?
Or the guy goes home? A scalper would really had to have made some serious money to go all the way to the Royal Albert Hall with his photo ID to let people in. It hardly seems worth the trouble unless someone has paid an astronomical sum for the tickets, and they weren't cheap to begin with; seems like too risky a gamble to hope you'll make a big profit off £350 tickets, which is what the venue want of course. I doubt the average ticket tout knows how popular sumo is and would take that gamble.

But I suppose you never know and people will do anything for money these days.

[Gurowake 4,099]

The workaround seems obvious to me: scalpers provide fake IDs to the purchasers.  They seem to be very permissible about the kinds of ID that will work.

[Koorifuu 1,019]

27 minutes ago, Gurowake said:

The workaround seems obvious to me: scalpers provide fake IDs to the purchasers.  They seem to be very permissible about the kinds of ID that will work.

That's what happens when there's no global citizen ID card that you're required to carry at all times and that got all your info on an encrypted chip. From what I heard, the same applies to the US.

I'm pretty sure it's standard across most EU member states, though.

[Bunbukuchagama 770]

Just now, Koorifuu said:

global citizen ID

We would need to install World Government first. 

[Koorifuu 1,019]

19 minutes ago, Bunbukuchagama said:

We would need to install World Government first. 

I won't veer further offtopic from here, but I thought it was clear I didn't mean 'global' literally, but that it's all-encompassing in regards to someone's identification. Citizen ID, tax & revenue, national healthcare, electorate, residence, marital status, close family info, and more.

[Yamanashi 3,903]

1 hour ago, Koorifuu said:

I won't veer further offtopic from here, but I thought it was clear I didn't mean 'global' literally, but that it's all-encompassing in regards to someone's identification. Citizen ID, tax & revenue, national healthcare, electorate, residence, marital status, close family info, and more.

Well, this is a rarity: I am unsure whether to react with a or a .