RTÉ has told dozens of ticket holders for the London edition of The Late Late Show who queued for hours in the cold only to be refused entry, that oversubscribing shows "is standard in UK TV audience management".
The programme broadcast live from central London on Friday last celebrating “the historic ties between the Irish and their nearest neighbours and the contribution of Irish people to Britain”. The station invited London-Irish people to apply on the RTÉ website for tickets, which it said would be allocated by lottery.
However, hundreds of people who applied and won the tickets arrived feeling lucky, only to be left queuing in the cold for hours outside the Westminster studio. They were further disappointed to be told they not going to be let in.
A shambles. Queued for 2.5 hours @RTELateLateShow, constantly told we would get in, hundreds turned away with no apology. @RTEPress staff were rude. Overscribing essential but not like this with elderly & pregnant women. What London Irish community? @ApplauseStoreUK @rtenews pic.twitter.com/ASfdyJBOAW
— Pádraig Prendergast (@prendergast) October 12, 2018
Cúineas he roared! The poor fella in charge of crowd control here -thousands gathered here at Westminster for The Late Late Show London broadcast@RTELateLateShow #FridayFeeling #thecraic pic.twitter.com/VU5Gi4DHB1
— Doireann Gillan (@DoireannGillan) October 12, 2018
In a statement, RTÉ said: "Audience tickets for The Late Late Show in London were allocated and managed by UK-based company Applause Store. Applause Store are ticket specialists for UK TV audiences. Tickets were allocated to applicants stating that it was not a guarantee of entry but seats would be allocated on the night on a first-come first-served basis.
“This is standard in UK TV audience management. However, such was the demand for this one-off show that more people were left disappointed than expected.”
However, those who took to social media were clearly not impressed. Commenting on Twitter, Irish man and producer of ITV's This Morning show Pádraig Prendergast said: "shambles. Queued for 2.5 hours @RTELateLateShow, constantly told we would get in, hundreds turned away with no apology."
Paul Carroll, also on Twitter, said: “If there’s *one thing* that RTE should understand it’s that the Late Late, over 50 years running, is extremely popular and is not the short of show where people who apply for tickets would be inclined to be ambivalent about accepting. This isn’t Top Gear for fecks sake”.
Applause Store audience manager, Mathew First, said: "We have to oversubscribe our tickets to cover any no-shows as all of them are free of charge and sadly not everyone uses them. We have, however, experienced a higher than normal turn-up rate which has meant that regrettably we could not accommodate everyone with a seat in the venue. The demand for Late Late Show tickets is unprecedented."
An RTÉ spokeswoman later added that the tickets which had been allocated had carried a message that ticket holders were not guaranteed a seat and seats would be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
