Three little girls were left "absolutely heartbroken" after being refused entry to a George Ezra concert because they were too young to be in the standing area.
Paul Farnworth, 31, from Wigan, says he travelled to the M&S Bank Arena in the city centre on Tuesday, September 13 to see the popstar with his daughter Mollie, six, and son Davis, nine. They had travelled within a group of other adults and children, who were between the ages of six and 10 reports The Liverpool Echo. He says they had purchased eight tickets from Ticketmaster for the standing area in the arena.
Paul says they stood in a queue for a full hour where stewards in the arena checked the children's bags. However, as they got to the front, he says they were refused entry by the same steward who checked the bags. The reason given was that the children were under 14 and not allowed in the standing area.
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The dad-of-two claimed tickets and emails from Ticketmaster never stipulated this rule and all the children were accompanied by adults. He added the stewards also didn't tell them rule when they checked the bags.
Paul said: “We queued up for an hour at first. The stewards were walking up and down at the entrance. They checked the little girls bags and my friend's little girls bags that they had on them.
“They waited until we got round to the front of the queue and said no you’re not coming in and we queued for an hour already. If they had said to us an hour before, we could have gone to the box or ticket office there, we would have been able to upgrade our seats to go somewhere the kids were allowed but obviously they hadn’t done.
“By the time we got there, because it had happened to so many people, all the extra tickets the box office had left over and stuff had already gone.”
He added: “On the tickets from Ticketmaster, it said absolutely nothing about it at all. My friend had been to a Little Mix concert, not long before at the [M&S Bank Arena Liverpool], with the same two little girls and they were allowed in.
“We presumed as long as the child was going with an adult we would get in.
“We didn’t give it a second thought to be fair because if it said on the tickets no under 14s in that area, we wouldn’t have booked the tickets.”
Paul said the his daughter and her friends were devastated when they were told they couldn't get into the concert. He said: “They were absolutely heartbroken and crying their eyes out.
“We were shocked and lost for words and it’s not nice seeing your kids crying like that. The lads took it better than the little girls, they were gutted, but the girls had George Ezra hats on and George Ezra t-shirts on.
“They couldn’t wait, they were telling their teachers all day in school. We had to rush them to get them home from school to get them to Liverpool and get them in there on time.”
Paul said a woman in front of the group, with her 13 and 14-year-old children, were also turned away. The dad said he wanted to share his story to warn other families.
Ben Williams, commercial director for The ACC Liverpool Group said: "We are very sorry to hear that this customer had an unsatisfactory experience at one of our events. Our number one priority is keeping our audiences safe, therefore we don’t allow children under 14 to watch concerts from the floor while standing.
"Ordinarily, tickets for under 14s are not available to buy on the floor, but unfortunately on this occasion a ticketing agency incorrectly made these tickets available for purchase. On the night, when we were made aware of the situation, we did our utmost to help customers including re-seating most of those affected, but as the event was sold out this was not possible in all cases. We are working with the ticketing agency to ensure this never happens again."
A spokesperson for Ticketmaster also said: "This was a policy implemented by the event organiser. It was communicated to the buyer of the tickets, who unfortunately did not pass along to Paul when they transferred the tickets over to him."
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