A royal punter has been left “peeved off” after missing out on Coronation Concert tickets, despite being led to believe she had been successful in her ballot application.
Current affairs commentator Stephanie Hayden said she has been let down by Ticketmaster, who informed her that no tickets were remaining, despite “following their procedures”.
She joins thousands who have voiced their anger over the matter after the final tickets from the last of three ballots were issued on a first come first-served basis.
People who fell into the third ballot bracket had been informed they had until 27 April to claim their tickets.
Stephanie Hayden says she is among thousands to have been let down by Ticketmaster
GB News / PA
The initial two rounds offered guaranteed tickets to those applicable, according to Ticketmaster.
Speaking on GB News, Hayden slammed the process, describing it as “nonsense on stilts” after she was left without a ticket for the historic event.
She said: “I’d originally applied for these tickets, like millions of other people, back in February. The email then set out a series of steps that I had to follow to claim my tickets.
“It gave me a deadline to collect my tickets of noon tomorrow, the 27 April. The email finished by saying they were ‘looking forward to seeing me at the concert’.
King Charles is stepping up Coronation preparationsReuters“I clicked through to claim my tickets five minutes later, followed Ticketmaster’s procedures, and was told there was no tickets to collect.
“Feeling a bit peeved off, I had a quick search on Twitter to see if anybody else was in this situation, and it seemed as if everybody who had applied for these tickets who were supposedly winners in the ballot had no tickets to collect.”
The Coronation Concert is taking place on the grounds of Windsor Castle on May 7 with a star-studded line up including Take That, Lionel Richie and Katy Perry.
The event is organised by the BBC, with Ticketmaster allocating the tickets.
Ticketmaster has defended the procedures it put in place, with a spokeswoman telling the BBC: “Everyone who was successful in the two main ballot rounds for the Coronation Concert was offered a guaranteed pair of tickets, provided they claimed them within three weeks.
"Today, any unclaimed tickets were released on a first-come, first-served basis to those who had previously applied to the ballot and were unsuccessful. These inevitably went very quickly."
Hayden says the explanation is not sufficient as it does not explain why the company appeared to inform thousands they had been successful with their applications, only to eventually be let down.
She told Mark Longhurst: “If you send out an email saying ‘congratulations, you have been successful, and you have until noon on April 27 to claim these tickets, there’s a reasonable expectation that those tickets are there with your name on them.
“If it was going to be an opportunity to join a queue, that’s fine, but just be upfront with that.”
It comes as King Charles continues to ramp up his Coronation preparations and the guest list grows, with Sinn Fein’s Vice President Michelle O’Neill being the latest to announce her attendance.
The party’s leader at Stormont said the gesture demonstrated her commitment to building good relations and advancing peace and reconciliation.
The move to attend the Coronation is the latest signal of the vastly improved relations between the republican movement and the monarchy since the outset of the peace process in Northern Ireland.