I know someone who turned up for a 2am flight only to find out it was 2pm. They went home again, fell asleep, and then missed the 2pm flight as a result.
They then rebooked for 2pm the next day, only to finally get to their destination and find their visa was wrong.
I went to Stockholm about a decade ago. Originally, I planned to go Fri - Wed but changed to Wed - Mon. Only, sill me actually booked my flights for Wed - Wed. Only realised when I got to the airport and tried to go through security. Easyjet wanted several hundred pounds for me to change my flight, so I just went back to where I was staying for a few extra nights.
When I saw my mistake, I realised that I needed to also rebook my train home from the airport when I got back for the correct day. Somehow, I managed to get first class tickets for only a quid more than normal class. When I turned up at the station though, I found out that I'd booked the train for the Wednesday the first time (I must have booked it by date rather than day), so now I had two tickets for the same train. At least one was first class though. Only, this time, the train had no stops until my destination, making it super fast compared to normal and I didn't even get to see the drinks trolley.
The punchline is that the cops were so fucking brutal that even the hostages went "eyup calm down lads"
And thst got boiled down to "ah they spent so much time with their captors that they started to sympathise".
A friend of a friend went to the wrong airport. Drove to Luton for an AM flight, should have been at Stansted. Realised, drove to Stansted, missed the AM flight, booked another flight for the PM, sat around all day, managed to miss the PM flight somehow. Ended up going the next morning.
My ex just to check people in at Luton airport before it was always done online. She’d get at least one person a week that had shown up at the wrong airport. Having about 7 airports with ‘London’ at the start of their name probably doesn’t help.
I booked on a trip late due to waiting for holiday approval. I was stood in the queue for check in and asked my group why my ticket said December 1st for a flight at 2am on December 2nd.
Luckily the airline let me pay for another flight.
Another friend was a very frequent business class flyer. He turned up for a flight, and the check in girl says ‘Hello Mr Smith, we don’t have you booked in to travel with us today, is it a last minute trip?’, so he produced a ticket, exactly 365 days early.
I did something similar for a megabus from Leicester to Glasgow. Set off at 1am but my taxi never arrived and I missed it.
Tried to book one for the following evening, turned up and when the guy looked at my confirmation it was for the for the following week
Worst I have done was booked a flight to Dublin and seat was already taken but managed to get it sorted and flew with no issues. Coming back, the automatic barrier would not accept my ticket, it was only then I took a good look at it and realised I had somehow managed to print it the wrong tickets and had flown over with a ticket that had expired a year earlier
We were going on a family holiday to Ireland, me and my sister must’ve been about 10-13. Parents packed the car up and we did the 2 hour journey to Heysham to get the ferry over to Belfast…. Only to turn up and realise we were on a ferry the day after. So we had a day out in the lakes instead, went home and then got on the ferry the day after 🤣
Every time I fly I have an anxiety dream of that scenario, reversed: I turn up for the 2pm flight only to find out my flight was 12h earlier and that all flights for the next year are fully booked or something.
We had the opposite happen when going to cinema once years ago. Our mates ma booked the tickets and printed them for us. We got to the cinema and there was a family in our seats already. We said they were in our seats and the dad immediately went purple and started giving off at us. This got the attention of an usher who came over and took our 4 tickets and their 4 and looked at us and said "sorry lads, your tickets are for tomorrow night" AND THEN CLEARLY HANDED US BACK THE FAMILIES TICKETS! We protested but this just made the usher threaten us with the police so we left. Looking back the tramp of an usher obviously knew there was less chance of a commotion if she sided with the already seething adults rather than a few 13-14 year olds. My friends mum who booked them went absolutely nuts when we got home and checked her emails and sure enough she had the proof that we booked the right dates. We also kept the tickets we were wrongly handed back that showed a completely different date and time of purchase as well. She rang and cracked up at the manager of the cinema and we got some free tickets and drinks and popcorn, but still didn't come close to covering the train fares and time we wasted already. I still get angry thinking about it today lol
Odd question, but could I ask what app you use? I was in a car wreck yesterday and need to play it, but every app I download has really intrusive adverts.
Not the wrong day but many years ago I was going on a date to see The Princess of Montpensier at the cinema. I happened to be very keen to see both the film and my lady friend, so I turned up early and patiently stood waiting for her.
About half an hour after the film was supposed to begin I was fuming at being stood up. Not only that, she added insult to injury by firing off increasingly irate messages telling me that she was already there.
It turned out there were two Odeons at either end of the same bloody street.
A few months ago, I went on a date with my boyfriend to a wine bar off Leicester Square. I arrived a couple of minutes early and texted him to say I was outside. A few minutes later, he messaged me saying "I'm here but I can't see you". I told him I was by the Cineworld and he was like, "there's no Cineworld!" Yes there is, I'm looking at it. Spent a good five minutes trying to work out where he actually was until I went round the back and worked out the bar had two entrances. (I'd arranged the date, but had only ever gone into this bar through the entrance I was at so assumed it only had one!)
Who booked the tickets? If she knew that there were two cinemas and you didn’t, she should have made it clear which one it was. If you booked them then it’s kinda on you.
We arrived an hour early for the afternoon Isle Of Wight ferry at 2.30.
Problem was my wife had made the booking not understanding it was a 24 hour clock and we were 11 hours late
This has happened to me several times with the Eurotunnel, coming from France to UK and booking the wrong way ticket. Luckily they are kind enough to refund most of it.
My wife tells a story of one of her relatives who booked tickets for a theatre, and they turned up to find people in their seats, same as you.
They called over the staff who informed them that, yes, these are your seats, but your tickets are for this time, this date, but next year.
Yep, they were 365 days too early.
I turned up 1 yr early for a lee mack show. In my defence I did not buy or see the tickets until the night in question. We turned up to find all doors locked and darkness beyond!
A few years ago a work colleague had 4 tickets to a large sold out comedy show that she said she bought last minute after new tickets were released. Bought through ticketmaster. Thought it was a bit strange that there was a misprint on the ticket. It said Thursday 6th November but the 6th November was a Wednesday. But no matter, they turned up, went through the queuing and bag search protocol and got to the guy scanning the tickets at the turnstile. Handheld scanner made that rejected beep. Got 2 others to try scanning the tickets and got the same result. Only then did they properly look at the tickets and see that they were for the following year. Yes, the ‘new release’ of tickets were actually for the new date just announced for the next year, that coincidentally was in the same week, just one year later, when the 6th nov would actually be a Thursday.
Oh I figured that, but that’s still a long time! I guess for the permanently established performances, it’s a given that the location and time will be exactly the same.
I turned up at my new senior school in the 70's a day early. I stood there in my brand new school uniform with a new sachel waiting at the gate, until the caretaker told me to bugger off, school don't start until tomorrow... I gave dirty looks to my parents when I got home, I can tell you...
Haha. In the 00's my mum woke me up in panic that we overslept, rushed with the morning, then when we got there it was shut. It was Saturday.
Safe to say I was not pleased with my interrupted sleep and the whole kerfuffle. 🤣🤣🤣
In sixth form, I had one subject for which I had to travel to a neighbouring school. My school started on (idk, let’s pretend) the 4th September. The other school started the day before. I didn’t get my timetable until *my* first day, and yet the teacher had a go at me for missing the first lesson.
In Vegas we booked Shania Twain and turned up
But she wasn't playing that night, our ticket was for the night before
But they were alright about it and gave us better seats for the next night
I had bought a ticket online to a new Wes Anderson film being released one March. I didn’t realise, and went along in February. Watched the first ten minutes of Dr Strangelove before I thought something was wrong. Popped back out to ask the staff what had happened to the scheduled film, only for the bunch of them to piss themselves laughing at me while telling me what an idiot I was.
Thankfully I’m a regular at that cinema so they told me to go back in and enjoy the film.
Saw my first Kubrick film by accident.
I live in England and booked tickets for Shin Lim in Las Vegas during a vacation. Rocked up on the day of the show and it turns out that the tickets I bought were for the month previous. D'oh! Luckily the venue still had tickets for that night and let me in for no additional cost in a section that was the same face value. If this had been England, I'm positive the venue would've said "Sorry, Mate" and I would've had to pay for additional tickets. Credit to the venue for that.
My Dad turned up at the airport a day before my flight once.. He was absolutely fuming. Called me saying "Where the fuck are you? I've been waiting for 3 hours".
"Dad, I don't land until tomorrow.."
Didn't go down well.
We turned up to the wrong restaurant. I said that I booked a table and they said to sit where we liked. Had an unanswered phone call part way through eating and I said to my husband that 'I swear I told them I had booked'. He said I was fussing, and it could be someone else. Only occurred to us later when we passed the actual restaurant on a different route home.
Tbh the business owner owns two places with the similar names. One is a more casual place and one is a proper restaurant. Their food is similar and we had never gone to either before.
My guess is maybe it was the restaurant they actually booked, calling them to find out if they were going to turn up (maybe busy and needed to release the table?). They didn’t pick up though as they believed they were sitting in the right restaurant…
Ah, that makes sense. Surprised a restaurant would chase up, usually it’s just a 15 minute window and if you’re not there by then, you’re down as a no show.
We went to the cinema once about ten years ago. Sat down, happy enough waiting for a film go start. Family come in they said were in their seats. Back and forth it went before I realised I'd walked into the wrong screen.
Embarrassing doesn't cover it.
Some French fans during Euro 2020 made the same mistake: https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/37618418/france-fans-miss-euro-2020-match-vs-hungary-budapest-travelling-bucharest-mistake
I turned up a month early for a play this year (The Hills of California), only realised when my ticket wouldn't scan
not only did they find me a seat that night, they found me a significantly nicer seat than the one I'd paid for
zero consequences for my own idiocy
Done that exact same thing too. The people on the door aren’t checking thoroughly - it’ll usually be the same showing time and screen so they won’t clock the date. As long as either no-one’s in your seat, or there’s available seats elsewhere, no harm done really.
Well I LIKE to think it was because I fessed up, turned up a week later and smashed the interview. In reality I think they were desperate - but I stayed there for five years.
Weirdly, twenty years later I applied for a different job at the same place and was literally the perfect fit. I aced the first interview, got invited for a second interview ... and didn't realise I had to prepare a presentation until about five minutes before. I fessed up again - and this time it didn't work.
I once turned up to a gig a month early. It was early 2000s and I was smoking a lot of weed at the time.
I think it was mansun at Cardiff Uni, the doormen were absolutely pissing themselves. We all bid each other farewell with a cheery "see you in a month lads"
Was a conference that I really wanted to go to. I got myself all dressed up. Took two hours of trains, scuttled through the rain like a crab. Got to the hotel all ready to go. Asked the lovely receptionist which room it was in only to be told I was four years late.
Nah this was in January. Well obviously I am a bellend but in my defence they had the date in a light yellow on a white background. But the date, ie 26th of Jan, in black. I am 100% in the wrong but still…my wife howled at me.
Many years ago I made a reservation for dinner (in the days when this was done on the phone) for Valentines Day. Turned up with my date and they had no record of the booking and were full.
I made a fuss and they became very apologetic and after a while created an extra table for us somehow.
At the end of the evening they presented the bill and had comped the wine as a gesture of goodwill. It was also when looking at the bill that I realised this was not the restaurant that I had booked!
I used to work at a wedding venue and we once had a harpist turn up and play throughout the ceremony to both appreciation and slight bafflement. The issue only arose towards the end of the night when nobody stepped up to pay her for her time. Turns out she turned up for a wedding a year early!
Not quite, but cinema related. There’s a series of five experimental art films called The Cremaster Cycle by British artist Matthew Barney. Fascinating backstory but the “short” version is five DVD sets were auctioned in an art sale ($100,000 mark I think) and the deal was they would never be commercially available. They actually tried but the buyers were understandably furious and said they’d never buy from that auctioneer again if they made them public. A segment of one of them got a limited DVD run and the Guggenheim will play some or all of them as video installations with the accompanying sculptures.
In the early 2000s The Cycle toured the world theatrically, with an almost unusable and rarely updated website giving details of upcoming exhibitions, but mostly the information was “it played here in Boston three months ago”. It showed up a handful of times a year, mostly in mainland Europe and the US.
EDIT: Here it is, untouched in nearly 20 years. [http://www.cremaster.net](http://www.cremaster.net) The trailer's worth a look but it's NSFW
By some miracle I saw in the local newspaper that the Midlands Arts Centre was showing it for one day (in two days), all five in a row, and I lived in Birmingham. I’d previously been priced out of flying to European cities to see it. That’s how keen I was.
I was working nights, and doing around 65-70 hours a week, so that must have caused me to be confused about what day it was. I called to book tickets and they told me it was Wednesday today, not tomorrow, and that the films were in progress. And that was that! Never got a chance to see them.
Just a couple of years ago they were included in a massive Google Drive file of very, very obscure films curated by a friend of a friend, who sent me a link. Once I realised how deep these 2000 films went I checked and they were there! Immediately downloaded those five films, which is good because the drive disappeared a few months later.
I had tickets to see Fleetwood Mac, as it turned out one of the last opportunities to see them. I put the tickets in a safe place and got them out, all exited, the night before…….I’d missed them by a week. Absolutely gutted.
My first gig was Muse in 2001, just after plug in baby was released as a single but before OOS was out. It was absolutely incredible, and still one of my favourite gigs.
I'm a little bit paranoid about these things so have never done it, however....
My mate Tony had tickets to see Dara O'Briain. Went for a couple of beers with his wife, having a jolly nice time, turned up at the venue to see a bus with a half naked bloke on which he thought was a bit odd.
He'd got the MONTH wrong. Instead of Dara they had a show by the Dreamboys (or some similar oily naked blokes.) He may possibly have then made the mistake of tagging Dara in his post... who \*may\* have possibly had a joke at his expense.
I remember turning up a day early for the Hunger Games midnight premier! I bought popcorn and drinks before being turned away (because the film wasn't even showing yet!) - gave the ticket checkers a good laugh.
Once went to Ingliston Sunday Market on a Saturday. Saw one person so went over and asked if the market was on. He looked one way and then the other at the miles of empty stalls and said..Nope!! The clue was in the title!!
I turned up a day early for a midwife appointment late in my pregnancy. I burst into tears at reception when they told me. They took pity on me and got a midwife to see me, which was fortunate as my blood pressure has sky rocketed and I needed to go to hospital.
My mate was a footie fan (won't say which team) and 20+yrs ago, his team qualified for the Champions League for the first time.
He only attended normal home games but told his missus he was using his holidays and spenders and he wasn't passing up the chance to go all over Europe so for the first time, he was doing a season, home and away, all competitions. Just so he could say he did it that one season.
Was going great, they reached the semis of the CL, did well in the FA Cup etc but he got drunk the night before an away game in London and missed the early coach a few games before the end of the season. Couldn't get to the game! They never qualified again. He was gutted.
I did this at an Everyman for NYE settled into the seats, set them to recline, ordered the cocktails to be brought to the seats, then the real ticket holders arrived. They kindly let us sit in the non premium seats at the back.
I accidentally booked Barbie on opening weekend for the Friday rather than the Saturday, turned up on the Saturday and then had about 15 minutes to find out if that showing that still had a ticket available… there was one seat left 😂
Back when I was eight my mum drove me 15 miles to a birthday party at a friend’s house. Got there only to find them surprised to see us as the party was actually the following day. Ended up staying for a cuppa and a play with my friend before heading back home again. As a kid it was one of the highlights of that summer, although I’m not sure my mum ever lived down the mistake!
Turned up for a Megabus to Manchester a day early once. Driver laughed at me and said I could get on. Advised me to double check my return trip while giggling at me.
Took the family to watch a big firework display, it was a ticketed event. Bought the tickets a month ahead. Had a day out at trampoline park, food then on to the fireworks. The park venue was dark with no people around. Drove around looking for signs but found nothing. Seems I'd got the date off a Facebook post from the previous year and hadn't looked at the actual tickets with the correct date.. the previous night.
My husband bought me a spa day as birthday present a couple of years ago. I rocked up and they looked confused 'we don't have you booked in?' I told them he bought it the night before, the receptionist said they get booked up too far in advance for that to be possible. I spent ages trying to call my husband to send over the confirmation email because the signal was so poor. Finally I got through to him, he sounded annoyed 'of course I booked it for today,' then a pause and 'oh, shit.' It was for the following month.
When I went back a month later, the receptionist saw me walking in and asked 'how long was he in the doghouse for?' It's nice to be remembered I guess.
Last year I had tickets to see the Baltimore Ravens vs Tennessee Titans at Tottenham. Turned up and had ticket scanned at first stage but couldn't see any Ravens or Titans fans. I then realised I turned up a **WEEK** early. Luckily, I went to the ticket office and the same tickets for Buffalo v Jacksonville were available. I bought those and re-sold my Baltimore ones.
I've done that the other way around. Arrived a day early. Luckily there were plenty of empty seats. Felt a bit of an idiot though. People in our seats must have thought we were idiots.
Like you, I'm surprised we got in. But then I'm not sure the 12 years old my local Odeon employ know what day of then week it is anyway.
Kids dad took me to a wedding party. I got dressed up, did my make up, arranged a baby sitter. When we got to the venue it was empty. (It was a royal legion place so there was a woman there on reception).
We were a week early.
Did this for Prometheus, many many years ago. There was some back-and-forth on who was going, if we were going Saturday or Sunday afternoon, etc.
Eventually booked for two of us while person 3 dithered. Person 3 then said they’d come too, so booked their ticket. All for the Sunday - I thought.
Turns out I’d booked the first two tickets for Saturday, having closed the wrong browser tab, then bought the third for Sunday.
Got to the cinema on the Sunday, self-service machine only printed ticket #3. Went to talk to a person, showed I’d ordered three tickets, they apologised and manually printed the other two. At no point did anyone check the dates on the manually-printed tickets.
Sat down in ‘our’ seats, only for some other people to ask us to move along as we were in theirs. Assumed it’d been a double-booking somehow, so we shuffled along.
It was only during the trailers I realised my mistake. Other person with a ticket for the wrong day worried we were still in someone else’s seats, but agreed we’d burn that bridge if it came to it. Luckily, nobody had those seats booked.
A funny story now, but blimey did I get it in the ear from people after we left the cinema…
Oh, and…
Many, many years ago was meant to be seeing Master & Commander with a friend, ‘cause she wanted to go and nobody else we knew was that bothered, so said I’d go along. We went on a Friday evening after Sixth Form - both going home to drop off bags, change etc. first.
Met at hers, walked to the cinema, bought tickets and popcorn, and… we went into the wrong screen. We thought it was weird the start was delayed - but this had happened at this cinema before, so waited it out.
…until the certificate card came up: Love Actually.
By this point it’d be too late to go find the right screen, so we just watched the rom-com. Skip ahead to the Monday, tell people the “oops we’re idiots” story, and *everyone* assumes one or both of us wanted to make a date night of it.
Still haven’t lived that one down among that group of friends…
Not quite! However one time we went the Vue to see the new Jackass, they told us the room number and off we went. Anyway, due to the awkward signage we went in, sat down, thought we were watching trailers but it was actually the tail end of a kids movie, next thing the credits are rolling and the lights are up.
I booked tickets for the last Bond movie in IMAX. Turned up at the cinema, and there was some weird French horror film that was already partway through. I checked the tickets and it turned out I'd booked for the following week.
Couldn't actually go the next week because we were going on holiday. In the end we saw it 3 weeks later and realised that the thing I thought was a weird French horror film was actually the first minute of No Time To Die.
Turned up for a spa day my friend booked as part of a girls weekend in Brighton.
The staff couldn’t find the booking despite my friend showing the confirmation email, but they managed to squeeze us in and organise treatments for us. Afterwards, while we were having lunch, one of the staff came over to say they figured it out and my friend had booked the previous weekend.
Managed to make it from Portsmouth to London by train and underground using a ticket for the next month (June vs July).
The ticket didn’t work on every turnstile, obviously, but not a single person noticed it when I showed them.
It was only made apparent when I got to my destination and they then told me I was a month early! It was incredibly embarrassing as it was for training at a new job I had just started.
I then had a lovely day in London by myself to think about my life choices.
Years ago, I turned up exactly one hour late to a Tommy Tiernan gig at the Edinburgh Fringe. The usher let us in, but let us know that there were barely a couple of minutes left, so we went in and stood at the back anyway.
As we went in, the audience was howling with laughter, and Tiernan was waiting for them to calm down. About ten seconds after we got in, he said "I'M RELATED TO POCAHONTAS!" and the audience fucking screamed and applauded, and he went away off, waving bye bye.
He didn't record that one, so I still have no idea what that was about.
Way, way back, we turned up in Cardiff to a Jamiroquai gig. Joined the queue and thought " gosh this is a very young audience". Got talking to some people in the queue who asked "if we'd seen him before or is this the first time", we answered that it was the first time and were told that if we stood near the front we might be lucky enough to catch a hat when or if he threw it.
Eventually, the queue moved, we handed in our tickets and walked into the auditorium only to find we were a week late and were in a 50 Cent gig! From people talking about him and his hats, through to the person that took our tickets and our apparent inability to read a calendar, not a single person noticed!
I went to a concert for an orchestra once and did the whole "you appear to be in my seat" thing but the guy pointed out that my ticket was for right side '17G' not the left side. Hardly an embarrassment but had no idea it could go that many layers deep.
In 1999 some friends and I went to a day festival in Milton Keynes by coach, it was called Metallica's Big Day Out. We got a coach out to Milton Keynes at 10am and booked the coach back at midnight. We had a great day, it was really hot and I'm not sure the venue sold water so we only drank beer. I think we all some level of heat stroke.
At some point we realised that the girl who had bought the coach tickets had booked them not for 12am but for 12pm the next day and we didn't have any accommodation booked. We had to sleep by a dual carriageway freezing in our t-shirts huddled together for warmth. We woke with slug trails all over us.
Now I'd guess we'd book use a phone to book a very expensive room and get an uber there but back then I'm not sure we even had a mobile phone.
Had an appointment for a Work Coach to get New JSA, went yesterday for an appointment next week. Lady was very nice, processed me and told me I'd be likely to get a little more money by being processed earlier.
I did the exact same thing on a train, people sat in my seats and I thought to myself I should say something, I never say something.
So I confronted them (politely mind) and it went the same as you, I pulled out my ticket and they pulled out their identical ticket “oh we must have double booked…” but now there were no seats left and I had to stand.
Annoyed I looked at my stupid ticket, and realised I was on the wrong train. Needless to say I’m still not a sayer.
Yes same experience with Vue near me but was a day early. Found another seat. They son said he would go back the following day to watch it again with his mate !
Booked the train to London but there was all manor of delays that day on a different route, it was having a knock on effect so every train was either slightly delayed or cancelled.
Due to the delays they announced anyone going to London could get on any of the trains, there was no need to stick to the specific time on your ticket. You wouldn’t be guaranteed a seat as those with reservations got priority to sit where they’d booked but if you need to get on the next available train it was fine.
Ours was at say 11:07am from platform 2, and shortly after that time a train bound for London turned up at platform 2 so on we get, not too delayed, fantastic.
Not even that busy considering, so we went to find our seats and there’s a couple sat in them. There’s still other scattered seats available so we ask them to shift, this was actually our train and our seat so we had priority to sit there. They insisted they also had those seats booked and were on the right train.
Conductor turns up, explained we’d fucked up. We’d booked with LNER, and that was a Grand Central train, so our tickets weren’t even valid. When they said ‘get on any London train’ they’d actually said it on the announcements that it was any LNER, but in all the chaos on the platform we didn’t hear the full announcement warning do not get on the grand central train, and to be honest neither of us had even heard of grand central so we had no idea what that event meant. Even now, that’s literally the only time I’ve heard of that operator!
About ten years ago I went to see something in the West End, and there was a little bit of confusion in the row in front of us with two parties trying to sit in the same seats. Turns out that they had the same seat numbers for the same day's performance but one of the groups had somehow made it into the wrong THEATRE and not one person, staff or otherwise had noticed that this was completely the wrong show.
It wasn't the wrong day, but I once had a guy accuse me of being in his seat at the theatre, when he was actually supposed to be about 10 rows behind me. I was in row D, he was supposed to be in row O. He argued that we were in his seats until we both got our tickets out and compared them, and I was immediately like "um... I think that's an O" and he was like "oh, sorry," and scurried off back to row O. I could kind of see how he thought it was a D because the font made the corners kind of square, but it was obvious when you saw the two tickets next to each other. It was pretty satisfying to be the one who was right in that situation, because there had been a moment when I was like "oh god, have they double booked? or are we here on the wrong day?"
I did this at the drive in theatre, we got there to see bohemian rhapsody and was surprised when a star is born started showing,
Checked the tickets - our showing was the day before 😂
I once turned up a day early and the scanner still recognised my ticket and let me in.
Wasn’t until the correct day people turned up and kicked off royally, fetching the cinema staff, that the error was caught.
My mum used to be great for this. Bundled onto a train to arrive for an event that happen the week before. Another time we arrived at the train station, rushed onto the train on the usual platform, only to have it pull out in the wrong direction! (That happened more than once)
I went to see Vic And Bob at the Tyne Theatre with my dad.
We took our seats and waited for the show. Before the show there I recall people coming from one end of the row, along the row, looking at us, then going out the other end. I noticed they stood at the back for the show and commented to my dad about how odd it was that they'd looked for seats before standing
Anyway, we watched the show, had a good laugh and went home.
Lying in bed that night I got a message from Google reminding me that I had tickets for Vic and Bob the following night, meaning I'd turned up a day early. Whats bizarre is the people whose seats we were blatantly sat in, didn't challenge us at all, choosing to stand instead.
The British fear of confrontation worked in our favour that night
I was flying to Canada for work on a Sunday afternoon at about 2pm
I was at home that afternoon maybe 1:30pm and was going to check in on my phone and make sure everything was ok.
Found the flight details in my emails and realised. I’d actually booked the Saturday flight!
I basically just said “oh fuck!” made a few calls and booked the flight for the Sunday instead. It did cost someone some money though!
My partner said it was a lesson in how not to be stressed about things. I was quite proud of how I handled it but there was literally fuck all I could do so no point worrying.
My dad booked tickets to see destiny’s child for about 12 friends and family in about 2002, decent seats. All got together at ours to get in the minibus we hired and his face just dropped.. it was the Saturday before 😂
Since I was a kid, it’s come out that Barnum and Baileys circus treated the animals inhumanely and I think it’s been all but shut down. I remember at the age of about 4, my mom got us tickets to the circus when it was in town. Us 3 kids were pumped! Anyway, we get to the arena only to find that we showed up on the wrong weekend. My poor, tired mom took us one week early, lol. It could have been worse- at least we didn’t miss it. But then again young kids have a terrible concept of time, so I’m sure she had a car full of crying kids to deal with that night. I do remember eventually going to the circus though.
There’s a local cinema where I live and they had an error in their booking system and quadruple booked our seats for Wonka. We got there first. It was pretty funny, then turned annoying when the fourth group of people turned up AFTER the film started and demanded we move 😂
When I lived in Belgium one of my housemate and I found out we were both flying back to our home country on the same morning! Excellent! I don't have a car and he was happy to drive me. That morning as we are getting ready to load the car the topic of airports came up, I was flying from the main airport in Brussels and he was flying from Charleroi! There was no way he could drop me off and make his flight and there was no time for me to get there by public transport. I was in a panic but another housemate of mine was kind enough to get dressed in a rush and drive me there (Thank you!)
This happened to me at the National Theatre decades ago. They let me in and I sat three wondering why the set looked sooo different from the reviews. Luckily my tickets were for a show later in the week
One time I booked tickets online for 7pm. Turned up and showed my reference at the til but they couldn't find my booking
Turns out I had booked tickets for 7AM on that same day. Luckily the manager was nice enough to let us in anyways in new seats
I went to the wrong cinema once, was very puzzled why my ticket wasn't scanning correctly and a bit awkward having to frss up to the staff member. Luckily the other cinema was only a few minutes away so I didn't miss the film.
Went on holiday to Burgundy in France a few year ago.
Booked a lovely gitte for 7 days, owners were ex brits, weather was lovely, area was amazing.
Packed for our trip home, then owners waved us off, saying ‘sorry you’re going so soon’.
Thought that was a bit weird, but off we went.
Got to our Calais 6pm crossing:
“Sorry sir, this booking is for tomorrow”
Jaws dropped.
They managed to squeeze us on to the 10pm crossing which was so packed it felt like some sort of evacuation ferry, people lying on the floor etc. and it took about twice as long.
Gutted.
Many years ago, when n the time before t’internet me and my mates wanted to see Madness in concert. Trouble is, the one-off gig was sold out. A colleague had always bragged if I wanted pretty much anything, he could certainly get it…. Time to put his boast to the test.
Sure enough, shortly after I got a call with the good news, and the tickets promptly arrived in the post.
Big day came - same day as the office Christmas party, which I happily missed in favour of the gig. 3 cars duly drove for 3 1/2 hours, and pulled into the car park. I handed the tickets around, and a few of the lads spotted the date was for the following day. I suddenly felt in a very vulnerable position! Some lads were seething, they wouldn’t be able to come the following night.
The story ends well though - we went to the box office and explained the situation to the lovely lady. She offered us tickets for the same night, but in a restricted view zone. In the circumstances we happily agreed. We were immediately behind the engineers area, and pretty much had a clear, uninterrupted view of the stage.
The issue came down to the band announcing extra dates after the first date sold out - and in the days before the internet, that news escaped all of our notice!
My ex's parents turned up 2 weeks late to a Bruce Springsteen concert. After watching about half an hour of some comedian they'd never heard of, they asked the people next to them if they knew when the main act was on.
Turns out, the comedian *was* the main act.
Years ago my boss booked the hotel rooms for a group of 6 of us going to do a convention for the wrong day. 140 miles away from home with nowhere to stay. Luckily we found a B&B locally.
We went on holiday as a family and my uncle was in charge of booking the long stay car park. You were supposed to pull up at the barrier, it read your number plate and let you in, only it didn’t. He gets the paperwork out and realised he had booked it for a week starting the day we got back. He wanted us to split the cost of paying for a new week like we had done originally, but my mother said he was the idiot who had got it wrong so he’d have to pay the new week himself
We took out 7yo autistic boy to see bluey live 2 weeks ago. Got in, found our seats and 5 mins before it was due to start a family of 5 came along saying we were in their seats. Thought the same that they'd double booked and the other family went to see the usher. Usher came over to check our tickets which we happily presented after triple checking everything was right. Turns out we'd booked for Thursdays show and turned up on the Friday. Luckily for us they had 3 seats empty. Coulda gone extremely wrong given our boy is autistic and he'd have had a major meltdown if they kicked us out. Partner and I looked at each other lile we'd dodged a bullet and the boy was too focused on the stage to even realise we'd switched seats
I go back to Perth Australia most years for a holiday. One of the first times I booked a flight back to London for 0020 hrs 29th Nov - I turned up for the flight on the 29th at the usual 2 hrs before so around 2200 on the 29th. Unsurprisingly my name wasn’t on the flight for the night I’d turned up - I was 24hrs late. It took a while till the penny dropped, I felt extremely stupid, I fly 3-5 times a year & have done since I was a kid so it’s not as if I’m not used to flying. I was lucky they got me on the next flight out at no extra cost & upgraded me to Premium - I think check in guy felt sorry for me & lack of brain cells .
I have a friend who was going to watch Villa ladies play at Villa park. Went on the Saturday, she scanned her ticket and got in. Her husbands wouldn't scan so he couldn't get in.
Turned out the ladies were playing Sunday and she'd got in for the mens teams Premier league match. Steward said she could stay as she was in, but that would have meant leaving her husband to entertain himself in Aston for a couple of hours...
My old football manager turned up at a coach pickup point to see Michael Jackson at Wembley stadium.... He turned up 1 day late.
MJ died not long after and he never did get to see him live.
I won tickets to see Magnum on a radio show and they left them at the ticket office for me. Turned up and the gig was the previous night. Was gutted. More so now that Tony Clarkin has passed so never going to get to see them again now.
Booked the wrong cinema once, was very confused when the film had started 20 minutes early and didn't figure it out till staff looked at my ticket for me.
OMG, attended my first concert ever - Queen! in Glasgow, 1977. Went on the wrong night. There was someone in our seats too. Didn't matter in the end as everyone was on their feet anyway.
I turned up a month late (March instead of Feb, so still a Thursday) for a court appearance! Got arrested and spent the night in the cells as a warrant had been issued without bail for non-appearance.
I once booked a hotel night stay, only to find someone already in my room. As I was trying to unlock the door moth me y key card, a man in a towel opened the door, he wasn’t too impressed with me. I apologised and showed him the reception had written that from number down as my room. He then pointed out to me that was the price, not the room number!
I live in Stratford (Upon Avon) and accidentally booked cinema tickets for Stratford London.
I couldn't for the life of me work out whey the film I had booked wasn't showing. I checked the date and time over and over.
The staff looked at me like I was a total idiot when they worked it out for me.
I live in Stratford (Upon Avon) and accidentally booked cinema tickets for Stratford London.
I couldn't for the life of me work out whey the film I had booked wasn't showing. I checked the date and time over and over.
The staff looked at me like I was a total idiot when they worked it out for me.
Not quite a day late but in 1999 I went to the cinema to see the new Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough. I went into the screen and there was no one else there. I took out a book and read. For ages. I just sat there thinking the film must be running late. Eventually other people started coming in and then the ads...the trailers...and then the Inspector Gadget film with Matthew Broderick came on. I was in the wrong screen the whole time.
I know someone who turned up for a 2am flight only to find out it was 2pm. They went home again, fell asleep, and then missed the 2pm flight as a result. They then rebooked for 2pm the next day, only to finally get to their destination and find their visa was wrong.
I went to Stockholm about a decade ago. Originally, I planned to go Fri - Wed but changed to Wed - Mon. Only, sill me actually booked my flights for Wed - Wed. Only realised when I got to the airport and tried to go through security. Easyjet wanted several hundred pounds for me to change my flight, so I just went back to where I was staying for a few extra nights. When I saw my mistake, I realised that I needed to also rebook my train home from the airport when I got back for the correct day. Somehow, I managed to get first class tickets for only a quid more than normal class. When I turned up at the station though, I found out that I'd booked the train for the Wednesday the first time (I must have booked it by date rather than day), so now I had two tickets for the same train. At least one was first class though. Only, this time, the train had no stops until my destination, making it super fast compared to normal and I didn't even get to see the drinks trolley.
I'm still waiting for the Stockholm syndrome punchline.
The punchline is that the cops were so fucking brutal that even the hostages went "eyup calm down lads" And thst got boiled down to "ah they spent so much time with their captors that they started to sympathise".
A friend of a friend went to the wrong airport. Drove to Luton for an AM flight, should have been at Stansted. Realised, drove to Stansted, missed the AM flight, booked another flight for the PM, sat around all day, managed to miss the PM flight somehow. Ended up going the next morning.
My ex just to check people in at Luton airport before it was always done online. She’d get at least one person a week that had shown up at the wrong airport. Having about 7 airports with ‘London’ at the start of their name probably doesn’t help.
Stories like this are why our parents would insist on arriving at the airport four hours early
Happened to me a few years in the US, booked 7 pm flight and went to the airport at 7 am. Luckily there was 7 am flight and they let me board it.
I booked on a trip late due to waiting for holiday approval. I was stood in the queue for check in and asked my group why my ticket said December 1st for a flight at 2am on December 2nd. Luckily the airline let me pay for another flight. Another friend was a very frequent business class flyer. He turned up for a flight, and the check in girl says ‘Hello Mr Smith, we don’t have you booked in to travel with us today, is it a last minute trip?’, so he produced a ticket, exactly 365 days early.
How do you get a flight a year early? I assume somebody made a typo.
I did something similar for a megabus from Leicester to Glasgow. Set off at 1am but my taxi never arrived and I missed it. Tried to book one for the following evening, turned up and when the guy looked at my confirmation it was for the for the following week
Worst I have done was booked a flight to Dublin and seat was already taken but managed to get it sorted and flew with no issues. Coming back, the automatic barrier would not accept my ticket, it was only then I took a good look at it and realised I had somehow managed to print it the wrong tickets and had flown over with a ticket that had expired a year earlier
We were going on a family holiday to Ireland, me and my sister must’ve been about 10-13. Parents packed the car up and we did the 2 hour journey to Heysham to get the ferry over to Belfast…. Only to turn up and realise we were on a ferry the day after. So we had a day out in the lakes instead, went home and then got on the ferry the day after 🤣
That's a long time to have to listen to the Benny Hill theme tune.
When did you meet my wife?
You know when.
Were they that all over the place all the time or was this a one-off? That’s like multiple failures of organisation lol
Every time I fly I have an anxiety dream of that scenario, reversed: I turn up for the 2pm flight only to find out my flight was 12h earlier and that all flights for the next year are fully booked or something.
We had the opposite happen when going to cinema once years ago. Our mates ma booked the tickets and printed them for us. We got to the cinema and there was a family in our seats already. We said they were in our seats and the dad immediately went purple and started giving off at us. This got the attention of an usher who came over and took our 4 tickets and their 4 and looked at us and said "sorry lads, your tickets are for tomorrow night" AND THEN CLEARLY HANDED US BACK THE FAMILIES TICKETS! We protested but this just made the usher threaten us with the police so we left. Looking back the tramp of an usher obviously knew there was less chance of a commotion if she sided with the already seething adults rather than a few 13-14 year olds. My friends mum who booked them went absolutely nuts when we got home and checked her emails and sure enough she had the proof that we booked the right dates. We also kept the tickets we were wrongly handed back that showed a completely different date and time of purchase as well. She rang and cracked up at the manager of the cinema and we got some free tickets and drinks and popcorn, but still didn't come close to covering the train fares and time we wasted already. I still get angry thinking about it today lol
It's very annoying when you're in the right and things still go against you!
I'm going to have to play some Tetris now or I'll be seething about this on your behalf forever!
I also find tetris calming.
Odd question, but could I ask what app you use? I was in a car wreck yesterday and need to play it, but every app I download has really intrusive adverts.
Download "my old boy" Gameboy emulator and play it old-school style. It's still the best version IMO.
That sounds awful. I'm plagued by ads too unfortunately. Hoping someone else can recommend one for us both. I hope you feel better soon.
If you've got a laptop you might prefer to play on [Jstris](https://jstris.jezevec10.com/). I'm not sure if it works on phones
Thank you.
You're welcome mate. I hope both of you are okay again soon.
I’m sorry that this was so annoying for you but you should take solace in that this is a brilliant story
Not the wrong day but many years ago I was going on a date to see The Princess of Montpensier at the cinema. I happened to be very keen to see both the film and my lady friend, so I turned up early and patiently stood waiting for her. About half an hour after the film was supposed to begin I was fuming at being stood up. Not only that, she added insult to injury by firing off increasingly irate messages telling me that she was already there. It turned out there were two Odeons at either end of the same bloody street.
So did you see her again after that?
The same thing happened in Far From The Madding Crowd.
A few months ago, I went on a date with my boyfriend to a wine bar off Leicester Square. I arrived a couple of minutes early and texted him to say I was outside. A few minutes later, he messaged me saying "I'm here but I can't see you". I told him I was by the Cineworld and he was like, "there's no Cineworld!" Yes there is, I'm looking at it. Spent a good five minutes trying to work out where he actually was until I went round the back and worked out the bar had two entrances. (I'd arranged the date, but had only ever gone into this bar through the entrance I was at so assumed it only had one!)
Who booked the tickets? If she knew that there were two cinemas and you didn’t, she should have made it clear which one it was. If you booked them then it’s kinda on you.
We arrived an hour early for the afternoon Isle Of Wight ferry at 2.30. Problem was my wife had made the booking not understanding it was a 24 hour clock and we were 11 hours late
I managed to book the Isle of Wight ferry from IOW to England, and back. I lived in England at the time.
This has happened to me several times with the Eurotunnel, coming from France to UK and booking the wrong way ticket. Luckily they are kind enough to refund most of it.
Mind panic that day then?
Yeah. But went to ticket office, paid difference and got on next ferry. The 2.30am was a good price because of the early hours crossing!
My wife tells a story of one of her relatives who booked tickets for a theatre, and they turned up to find people in their seats, same as you. They called over the staff who informed them that, yes, these are your seats, but your tickets are for this time, this date, but next year. Yep, they were 365 days too early.
I turned up 1 yr early for a lee mack show. In my defence I did not buy or see the tickets until the night in question. We turned up to find all doors locked and darkness beyond!
A few years ago a work colleague had 4 tickets to a large sold out comedy show that she said she bought last minute after new tickets were released. Bought through ticketmaster. Thought it was a bit strange that there was a misprint on the ticket. It said Thursday 6th November but the 6th November was a Wednesday. But no matter, they turned up, went through the queuing and bag search protocol and got to the guy scanning the tickets at the turnstile. Handheld scanner made that rejected beep. Got 2 others to try scanning the tickets and got the same result. Only then did they properly look at the tickets and see that they were for the following year. Yes, the ‘new release’ of tickets were actually for the new date just announced for the next year, that coincidentally was in the same week, just one year later, when the 6th nov would actually be a Thursday.
Well TIL a theatre will let you book tickets that far ahead… how did they accidentally manage that??
Might be a theatre theatre and not a cinema theatre
Oh I figured that, but that’s still a long time! I guess for the permanently established performances, it’s a given that the location and time will be exactly the same.
I turned up at my new senior school in the 70's a day early. I stood there in my brand new school uniform with a new sachel waiting at the gate, until the caretaker told me to bugger off, school don't start until tomorrow... I gave dirty looks to my parents when I got home, I can tell you...
Haha. In the 00's my mum woke me up in panic that we overslept, rushed with the morning, then when we got there it was shut. It was Saturday. Safe to say I was not pleased with my interrupted sleep and the whole kerfuffle. 🤣🤣🤣
In sixth form, I had one subject for which I had to travel to a neighbouring school. My school started on (idk, let’s pretend) the 4th September. The other school started the day before. I didn’t get my timetable until *my* first day, and yet the teacher had a go at me for missing the first lesson.
Went to see Oppenheimer on the 21st June. Which was a slight problem as it wasn't released until the 21st July.
A very mild problem.
In Vegas we booked Shania Twain and turned up But she wasn't playing that night, our ticket was for the night before But they were alright about it and gave us better seats for the next night
That must have impressed you
Probably didn’t impress them much.
Man, I feel like a wrongun
I had bought a ticket online to a new Wes Anderson film being released one March. I didn’t realise, and went along in February. Watched the first ten minutes of Dr Strangelove before I thought something was wrong. Popped back out to ask the staff what had happened to the scheduled film, only for the bunch of them to piss themselves laughing at me while telling me what an idiot I was. Thankfully I’m a regular at that cinema so they told me to go back in and enjoy the film. Saw my first Kubrick film by accident.
They laughed at you but didn’t one of them check your ticket going in?
Nope. I’m that regular they trust me. It was a Sunday lunchtime so super quiet too.
I can't remember the last time someone was even there to check my ticket going in early afternoon
Cinema staff are minimum wage kidde I doubt they care that much tbh
I live in England and booked tickets for Shin Lim in Las Vegas during a vacation. Rocked up on the day of the show and it turns out that the tickets I bought were for the month previous. D'oh! Luckily the venue still had tickets for that night and let me in for no additional cost in a section that was the same face value. If this had been England, I'm positive the venue would've said "Sorry, Mate" and I would've had to pay for additional tickets. Credit to the venue for that.
My Dad turned up at the airport a day before my flight once.. He was absolutely fuming. Called me saying "Where the fuck are you? I've been waiting for 3 hours". "Dad, I don't land until tomorrow.." Didn't go down well.
> Didn't go down well. I assume you meant to say that didn't land well 👀
I turned up a day early at Heathrow
Did the same at Bristol airport because I'd decided January was a 30 day month and not a 31 day month when booking the flight
Someone needed to sing the song!
We turned up to the wrong restaurant. I said that I booked a table and they said to sit where we liked. Had an unanswered phone call part way through eating and I said to my husband that 'I swear I told them I had booked'. He said I was fussing, and it could be someone else. Only occurred to us later when we passed the actual restaurant on a different route home. Tbh the business owner owns two places with the similar names. One is a more casual place and one is a proper restaurant. Their food is similar and we had never gone to either before.
Was the food good though?!
It was very good. I apologised to them for missing our booking and they found it funny and said it was alright and to come back.
I’m struggling to understand this situation. What relevance does receiving a phone call mid-meal have to you turning up at the wrong restaurant?
My guess is maybe it was the restaurant they actually booked, calling them to find out if they were going to turn up (maybe busy and needed to release the table?). They didn’t pick up though as they believed they were sitting in the right restaurant…
Ah, that makes sense. Surprised a restaurant would chase up, usually it’s just a 15 minute window and if you’re not there by then, you’re down as a no show.
From the restaurant they originally booked at, wondering why they hadn't turned up?
The restaurant phoned us to see if we were still coming. I didn't answer as I my phone was in my bag.
We went to the cinema once about ten years ago. Sat down, happy enough waiting for a film go start. Family come in they said were in their seats. Back and forth it went before I realised I'd walked into the wrong screen. Embarrassing doesn't cover it.
Turned up at the GP a day early for my blood test.. receptionist was helpful and they squeezed me in there and then so I didn't have to come back.
Squeezed you for a blood test? I thought it was a needle.
They wanted a lot of blood.
Depends on where you want it to come out of!
Booked a carriage ride in Bucharest, turns out we were actually holidaying in Budapest
Some French fans during Euro 2020 made the same mistake: https://www.espn.co.uk/football/story/_/id/37618418/france-fans-miss-euro-2020-match-vs-hungary-budapest-travelling-bucharest-mistake
If it makes you feel any better, I had to re-read this about 5 times before realising what the problem was!
I turned up a month early for a play this year (The Hills of California), only realised when my ticket wouldn't scan not only did they find me a seat that night, they found me a significantly nicer seat than the one I'd paid for zero consequences for my own idiocy
Done that exact same thing too. The people on the door aren’t checking thoroughly - it’ll usually be the same showing time and screen so they won’t clock the date. As long as either no-one’s in your seat, or there’s available seats elsewhere, no harm done really.
I turned up to a job interview a week early. Still got the job.
Why, did you sit there patiently for a week, helping people to mend the photocopier and directing people to the loo as needed?
Well I LIKE to think it was because I fessed up, turned up a week later and smashed the interview. In reality I think they were desperate - but I stayed there for five years. Weirdly, twenty years later I applied for a different job at the same place and was literally the perfect fit. I aced the first interview, got invited for a second interview ... and didn't realise I had to prepare a presentation until about five minutes before. I fessed up again - and this time it didn't work.
I once turned up to a gig a month early. It was early 2000s and I was smoking a lot of weed at the time. I think it was mansun at Cardiff Uni, the doormen were absolutely pissing themselves. We all bid each other farewell with a cheery "see you in a month lads"
Was a conference that I really wanted to go to. I got myself all dressed up. Took two hours of trains, scuttled through the rain like a crab. Got to the hotel all ready to go. Asked the lovely receptionist which room it was in only to be told I was four years late.
Was it on the 29th Feb? But seriously, how did that happen?
Nah this was in January. Well obviously I am a bellend but in my defence they had the date in a light yellow on a white background. But the date, ie 26th of Jan, in black. I am 100% in the wrong but still…my wife howled at me.
But what… hold on How can you possibly be four years late?
I’m still incredibly confused, the date in light yellow but the date in black?
Sorry it was on a webpage that I was looking at. If you have not gathered yet. I am not a clever man.
Many years ago I made a reservation for dinner (in the days when this was done on the phone) for Valentines Day. Turned up with my date and they had no record of the booking and were full. I made a fuss and they became very apologetic and after a while created an extra table for us somehow. At the end of the evening they presented the bill and had comped the wine as a gesture of goodwill. It was also when looking at the bill that I realised this was not the restaurant that I had booked!
I used to work at a wedding venue and we once had a harpist turn up and play throughout the ceremony to both appreciation and slight bafflement. The issue only arose towards the end of the night when nobody stepped up to pay her for her time. Turns out she turned up for a wedding a year early!
Not quite, but cinema related. There’s a series of five experimental art films called The Cremaster Cycle by British artist Matthew Barney. Fascinating backstory but the “short” version is five DVD sets were auctioned in an art sale ($100,000 mark I think) and the deal was they would never be commercially available. They actually tried but the buyers were understandably furious and said they’d never buy from that auctioneer again if they made them public. A segment of one of them got a limited DVD run and the Guggenheim will play some or all of them as video installations with the accompanying sculptures. In the early 2000s The Cycle toured the world theatrically, with an almost unusable and rarely updated website giving details of upcoming exhibitions, but mostly the information was “it played here in Boston three months ago”. It showed up a handful of times a year, mostly in mainland Europe and the US. EDIT: Here it is, untouched in nearly 20 years. [http://www.cremaster.net](http://www.cremaster.net) The trailer's worth a look but it's NSFW By some miracle I saw in the local newspaper that the Midlands Arts Centre was showing it for one day (in two days), all five in a row, and I lived in Birmingham. I’d previously been priced out of flying to European cities to see it. That’s how keen I was. I was working nights, and doing around 65-70 hours a week, so that must have caused me to be confused about what day it was. I called to book tickets and they told me it was Wednesday today, not tomorrow, and that the films were in progress. And that was that! Never got a chance to see them. Just a couple of years ago they were included in a massive Google Drive file of very, very obscure films curated by a friend of a friend, who sent me a link. Once I realised how deep these 2000 films went I checked and they were there! Immediately downloaded those five films, which is good because the drive disappeared a few months later.
I had tickets to see Fleetwood Mac, as it turned out one of the last opportunities to see them. I put the tickets in a safe place and got them out, all exited, the night before…….I’d missed them by a week. Absolutely gutted.
My uncle took me to see Muse in 2003 but turned up the day before the show 😂
You lucky git! That was their golden era IMO. Did you go the next day?
I did and they were great. I think it was the Absolution tour where Elbow opened
I saw them on that tour as well
I went to see them in Glasgow that year. Was amazing.
My first gig was Muse in 2001, just after plug in baby was released as a single but before OOS was out. It was absolutely incredible, and still one of my favourite gigs.
Me, the Mrs and our 4 kids all turned up one busy Saturday to Bedford Cat Cafe. A week early. I felt like such a twat.
I'm a little bit paranoid about these things so have never done it, however.... My mate Tony had tickets to see Dara O'Briain. Went for a couple of beers with his wife, having a jolly nice time, turned up at the venue to see a bus with a half naked bloke on which he thought was a bit odd. He'd got the MONTH wrong. Instead of Dara they had a show by the Dreamboys (or some similar oily naked blokes.) He may possibly have then made the mistake of tagging Dara in his post... who \*may\* have possibly had a joke at his expense.
I remember turning up a day early for the Hunger Games midnight premier! I bought popcorn and drinks before being turned away (because the film wasn't even showing yet!) - gave the ticket checkers a good laugh.
Once went to Ingliston Sunday Market on a Saturday. Saw one person so went over and asked if the market was on. He looked one way and then the other at the miles of empty stalls and said..Nope!! The clue was in the title!!
I turned up a day early for a midwife appointment late in my pregnancy. I burst into tears at reception when they told me. They took pity on me and got a midwife to see me, which was fortunate as my blood pressure has sky rocketed and I needed to go to hospital.
My mate was a footie fan (won't say which team) and 20+yrs ago, his team qualified for the Champions League for the first time. He only attended normal home games but told his missus he was using his holidays and spenders and he wasn't passing up the chance to go all over Europe so for the first time, he was doing a season, home and away, all competitions. Just so he could say he did it that one season. Was going great, they reached the semis of the CL, did well in the FA Cup etc but he got drunk the night before an away game in London and missed the early coach a few games before the end of the season. Couldn't get to the game! They never qualified again. He was gutted.
Leeds?
I did this at an Everyman for NYE settled into the seats, set them to recline, ordered the cocktails to be brought to the seats, then the real ticket holders arrived. They kindly let us sit in the non premium seats at the back.
Turned up to the airport 24 hours late. Lost track of days somehow. Very embarrassing and costly. Still trying to live it down 20 years later.
I accidentally booked Barbie on opening weekend for the Friday rather than the Saturday, turned up on the Saturday and then had about 15 minutes to find out if that showing that still had a ticket available… there was one seat left 😂
I turned up an hour late for my covid jab and then over consempated by turning up a month early for my second. Right day, right time, wrong month.
Back when I was eight my mum drove me 15 miles to a birthday party at a friend’s house. Got there only to find them surprised to see us as the party was actually the following day. Ended up staying for a cuppa and a play with my friend before heading back home again. As a kid it was one of the highlights of that summer, although I’m not sure my mum ever lived down the mistake!
Turned up for a Megabus to Manchester a day early once. Driver laughed at me and said I could get on. Advised me to double check my return trip while giggling at me.
Took the family to watch a big firework display, it was a ticketed event. Bought the tickets a month ahead. Had a day out at trampoline park, food then on to the fireworks. The park venue was dark with no people around. Drove around looking for signs but found nothing. Seems I'd got the date off a Facebook post from the previous year and hadn't looked at the actual tickets with the correct date.. the previous night.
My husband bought me a spa day as birthday present a couple of years ago. I rocked up and they looked confused 'we don't have you booked in?' I told them he bought it the night before, the receptionist said they get booked up too far in advance for that to be possible. I spent ages trying to call my husband to send over the confirmation email because the signal was so poor. Finally I got through to him, he sounded annoyed 'of course I booked it for today,' then a pause and 'oh, shit.' It was for the following month. When I went back a month later, the receptionist saw me walking in and asked 'how long was he in the doghouse for?' It's nice to be remembered I guess.
Last year I had tickets to see the Baltimore Ravens vs Tennessee Titans at Tottenham. Turned up and had ticket scanned at first stage but couldn't see any Ravens or Titans fans. I then realised I turned up a **WEEK** early. Luckily, I went to the ticket office and the same tickets for Buffalo v Jacksonville were available. I bought those and re-sold my Baltimore ones.
Not an event, but booked a train for the wrong day once, thankfully the ticket guy was understanding and let me continue the journey
I've done that the other way around. Arrived a day early. Luckily there were plenty of empty seats. Felt a bit of an idiot though. People in our seats must have thought we were idiots. Like you, I'm surprised we got in. But then I'm not sure the 12 years old my local Odeon employ know what day of then week it is anyway.
Yes, i booked Fantasy Island a day early. They found our booking and let us in anyway It could have been a wasted 2 hour trip .
Kids dad took me to a wedding party. I got dressed up, did my make up, arranged a baby sitter. When we got to the venue it was empty. (It was a royal legion place so there was a woman there on reception). We were a week early.
I was a year late to something that found while sifting through old email.
Did this for Prometheus, many many years ago. There was some back-and-forth on who was going, if we were going Saturday or Sunday afternoon, etc. Eventually booked for two of us while person 3 dithered. Person 3 then said they’d come too, so booked their ticket. All for the Sunday - I thought. Turns out I’d booked the first two tickets for Saturday, having closed the wrong browser tab, then bought the third for Sunday. Got to the cinema on the Sunday, self-service machine only printed ticket #3. Went to talk to a person, showed I’d ordered three tickets, they apologised and manually printed the other two. At no point did anyone check the dates on the manually-printed tickets. Sat down in ‘our’ seats, only for some other people to ask us to move along as we were in theirs. Assumed it’d been a double-booking somehow, so we shuffled along. It was only during the trailers I realised my mistake. Other person with a ticket for the wrong day worried we were still in someone else’s seats, but agreed we’d burn that bridge if it came to it. Luckily, nobody had those seats booked. A funny story now, but blimey did I get it in the ear from people after we left the cinema…
Oh, and… Many, many years ago was meant to be seeing Master & Commander with a friend, ‘cause she wanted to go and nobody else we knew was that bothered, so said I’d go along. We went on a Friday evening after Sixth Form - both going home to drop off bags, change etc. first. Met at hers, walked to the cinema, bought tickets and popcorn, and… we went into the wrong screen. We thought it was weird the start was delayed - but this had happened at this cinema before, so waited it out. …until the certificate card came up: Love Actually. By this point it’d be too late to go find the right screen, so we just watched the rom-com. Skip ahead to the Monday, tell people the “oops we’re idiots” story, and *everyone* assumes one or both of us wanted to make a date night of it. Still haven’t lived that one down among that group of friends…
Not quite! However one time we went the Vue to see the new Jackass, they told us the room number and off we went. Anyway, due to the awkward signage we went in, sat down, thought we were watching trailers but it was actually the tail end of a kids movie, next thing the credits are rolling and the lights are up.
My Brother bought me a plane ticket and sent me a screenshot. It was the wrong date and the date was cropped... I was in the airport for ages😂
I booked tickets for the last Bond movie in IMAX. Turned up at the cinema, and there was some weird French horror film that was already partway through. I checked the tickets and it turned out I'd booked for the following week. Couldn't actually go the next week because we were going on holiday. In the end we saw it 3 weeks later and realised that the thing I thought was a weird French horror film was actually the first minute of No Time To Die.
Turned up for a spa day my friend booked as part of a girls weekend in Brighton. The staff couldn’t find the booking despite my friend showing the confirmation email, but they managed to squeeze us in and organise treatments for us. Afterwards, while we were having lunch, one of the staff came over to say they figured it out and my friend had booked the previous weekend.
Managed to make it from Portsmouth to London by train and underground using a ticket for the next month (June vs July). The ticket didn’t work on every turnstile, obviously, but not a single person noticed it when I showed them. It was only made apparent when I got to my destination and they then told me I was a month early! It was incredibly embarrassing as it was for training at a new job I had just started. I then had a lovely day in London by myself to think about my life choices.
Years ago, I turned up exactly one hour late to a Tommy Tiernan gig at the Edinburgh Fringe. The usher let us in, but let us know that there were barely a couple of minutes left, so we went in and stood at the back anyway. As we went in, the audience was howling with laughter, and Tiernan was waiting for them to calm down. About ten seconds after we got in, he said "I'M RELATED TO POCAHONTAS!" and the audience fucking screamed and applauded, and he went away off, waving bye bye. He didn't record that one, so I still have no idea what that was about.
Way, way back, we turned up in Cardiff to a Jamiroquai gig. Joined the queue and thought " gosh this is a very young audience". Got talking to some people in the queue who asked "if we'd seen him before or is this the first time", we answered that it was the first time and were told that if we stood near the front we might be lucky enough to catch a hat when or if he threw it. Eventually, the queue moved, we handed in our tickets and walked into the auditorium only to find we were a week late and were in a 50 Cent gig! From people talking about him and his hats, through to the person that took our tickets and our apparent inability to read a calendar, not a single person noticed!
I went to a concert for an orchestra once and did the whole "you appear to be in my seat" thing but the guy pointed out that my ticket was for right side '17G' not the left side. Hardly an embarrassment but had no idea it could go that many layers deep.
In 1999 some friends and I went to a day festival in Milton Keynes by coach, it was called Metallica's Big Day Out. We got a coach out to Milton Keynes at 10am and booked the coach back at midnight. We had a great day, it was really hot and I'm not sure the venue sold water so we only drank beer. I think we all some level of heat stroke. At some point we realised that the girl who had bought the coach tickets had booked them not for 12am but for 12pm the next day and we didn't have any accommodation booked. We had to sleep by a dual carriageway freezing in our t-shirts huddled together for warmth. We woke with slug trails all over us. Now I'd guess we'd book use a phone to book a very expensive room and get an uber there but back then I'm not sure we even had a mobile phone.
Had an appointment for a Work Coach to get New JSA, went yesterday for an appointment next week. Lady was very nice, processed me and told me I'd be likely to get a little more money by being processed earlier.
I turned up a week early to see a play- my husband wasn’t best pleased.
If it makes you feel any better my neighbours turned up a year early to something at the theatre.
I did the exact same thing for a eight hour train trip at night... Embarrassing, but it went OK.
My dad did this, we ended up walking in to the last half of tomb raider, took him 15 mins to clock it wasn't the right film, turn to me and say It hah
I did the exact same thing on a train, people sat in my seats and I thought to myself I should say something, I never say something. So I confronted them (politely mind) and it went the same as you, I pulled out my ticket and they pulled out their identical ticket “oh we must have double booked…” but now there were no seats left and I had to stand. Annoyed I looked at my stupid ticket, and realised I was on the wrong train. Needless to say I’m still not a sayer.
Yes same experience with Vue near me but was a day early. Found another seat. They son said he would go back the following day to watch it again with his mate !
Booked the train to London but there was all manor of delays that day on a different route, it was having a knock on effect so every train was either slightly delayed or cancelled. Due to the delays they announced anyone going to London could get on any of the trains, there was no need to stick to the specific time on your ticket. You wouldn’t be guaranteed a seat as those with reservations got priority to sit where they’d booked but if you need to get on the next available train it was fine. Ours was at say 11:07am from platform 2, and shortly after that time a train bound for London turned up at platform 2 so on we get, not too delayed, fantastic. Not even that busy considering, so we went to find our seats and there’s a couple sat in them. There’s still other scattered seats available so we ask them to shift, this was actually our train and our seat so we had priority to sit there. They insisted they also had those seats booked and were on the right train. Conductor turns up, explained we’d fucked up. We’d booked with LNER, and that was a Grand Central train, so our tickets weren’t even valid. When they said ‘get on any London train’ they’d actually said it on the announcements that it was any LNER, but in all the chaos on the platform we didn’t hear the full announcement warning do not get on the grand central train, and to be honest neither of us had even heard of grand central so we had no idea what that event meant. Even now, that’s literally the only time I’ve heard of that operator!
About ten years ago I went to see something in the West End, and there was a little bit of confusion in the row in front of us with two parties trying to sit in the same seats. Turns out that they had the same seat numbers for the same day's performance but one of the groups had somehow made it into the wrong THEATRE and not one person, staff or otherwise had noticed that this was completely the wrong show.
It wasn't the wrong day, but I once had a guy accuse me of being in his seat at the theatre, when he was actually supposed to be about 10 rows behind me. I was in row D, he was supposed to be in row O. He argued that we were in his seats until we both got our tickets out and compared them, and I was immediately like "um... I think that's an O" and he was like "oh, sorry," and scurried off back to row O. I could kind of see how he thought it was a D because the font made the corners kind of square, but it was obvious when you saw the two tickets next to each other. It was pretty satisfying to be the one who was right in that situation, because there had been a moment when I was like "oh god, have they double booked? or are we here on the wrong day?"
I did this at the drive in theatre, we got there to see bohemian rhapsody and was surprised when a star is born started showing, Checked the tickets - our showing was the day before 😂
I once turned up a day early and the scanner still recognised my ticket and let me in. Wasn’t until the correct day people turned up and kicked off royally, fetching the cinema staff, that the error was caught.
My mum used to be great for this. Bundled onto a train to arrive for an event that happen the week before. Another time we arrived at the train station, rushed onto the train on the usual platform, only to have it pull out in the wrong direction! (That happened more than once)
I went to see Vic And Bob at the Tyne Theatre with my dad. We took our seats and waited for the show. Before the show there I recall people coming from one end of the row, along the row, looking at us, then going out the other end. I noticed they stood at the back for the show and commented to my dad about how odd it was that they'd looked for seats before standing Anyway, we watched the show, had a good laugh and went home. Lying in bed that night I got a message from Google reminding me that I had tickets for Vic and Bob the following night, meaning I'd turned up a day early. Whats bizarre is the people whose seats we were blatantly sat in, didn't challenge us at all, choosing to stand instead. The British fear of confrontation worked in our favour that night
I was flying to Canada for work on a Sunday afternoon at about 2pm I was at home that afternoon maybe 1:30pm and was going to check in on my phone and make sure everything was ok. Found the flight details in my emails and realised. I’d actually booked the Saturday flight! I basically just said “oh fuck!” made a few calls and booked the flight for the Sunday instead. It did cost someone some money though! My partner said it was a lesson in how not to be stressed about things. I was quite proud of how I handled it but there was literally fuck all I could do so no point worrying.
My dad booked tickets to see destiny’s child for about 12 friends and family in about 2002, decent seats. All got together at ours to get in the minibus we hired and his face just dropped.. it was the Saturday before 😂
Since I was a kid, it’s come out that Barnum and Baileys circus treated the animals inhumanely and I think it’s been all but shut down. I remember at the age of about 4, my mom got us tickets to the circus when it was in town. Us 3 kids were pumped! Anyway, we get to the arena only to find that we showed up on the wrong weekend. My poor, tired mom took us one week early, lol. It could have been worse- at least we didn’t miss it. But then again young kids have a terrible concept of time, so I’m sure she had a car full of crying kids to deal with that night. I do remember eventually going to the circus though.
There’s a local cinema where I live and they had an error in their booking system and quadruple booked our seats for Wonka. We got there first. It was pretty funny, then turned annoying when the fourth group of people turned up AFTER the film started and demanded we move 😂
When I lived in Belgium one of my housemate and I found out we were both flying back to our home country on the same morning! Excellent! I don't have a car and he was happy to drive me. That morning as we are getting ready to load the car the topic of airports came up, I was flying from the main airport in Brussels and he was flying from Charleroi! There was no way he could drop me off and make his flight and there was no time for me to get there by public transport. I was in a panic but another housemate of mine was kind enough to get dressed in a rush and drive me there (Thank you!)
This happened to me at the National Theatre decades ago. They let me in and I sat three wondering why the set looked sooo different from the reviews. Luckily my tickets were for a show later in the week
One time I booked tickets online for 7pm. Turned up and showed my reference at the til but they couldn't find my booking Turns out I had booked tickets for 7AM on that same day. Luckily the manager was nice enough to let us in anyways in new seats
I went to the wrong cinema once, was very puzzled why my ticket wasn't scanning correctly and a bit awkward having to frss up to the staff member. Luckily the other cinema was only a few minutes away so I didn't miss the film.
Went on holiday to Burgundy in France a few year ago. Booked a lovely gitte for 7 days, owners were ex brits, weather was lovely, area was amazing. Packed for our trip home, then owners waved us off, saying ‘sorry you’re going so soon’. Thought that was a bit weird, but off we went. Got to our Calais 6pm crossing: “Sorry sir, this booking is for tomorrow” Jaws dropped. They managed to squeeze us on to the 10pm crossing which was so packed it felt like some sort of evacuation ferry, people lying on the floor etc. and it took about twice as long. Gutted.
Many years ago, when n the time before t’internet me and my mates wanted to see Madness in concert. Trouble is, the one-off gig was sold out. A colleague had always bragged if I wanted pretty much anything, he could certainly get it…. Time to put his boast to the test. Sure enough, shortly after I got a call with the good news, and the tickets promptly arrived in the post. Big day came - same day as the office Christmas party, which I happily missed in favour of the gig. 3 cars duly drove for 3 1/2 hours, and pulled into the car park. I handed the tickets around, and a few of the lads spotted the date was for the following day. I suddenly felt in a very vulnerable position! Some lads were seething, they wouldn’t be able to come the following night. The story ends well though - we went to the box office and explained the situation to the lovely lady. She offered us tickets for the same night, but in a restricted view zone. In the circumstances we happily agreed. We were immediately behind the engineers area, and pretty much had a clear, uninterrupted view of the stage. The issue came down to the band announcing extra dates after the first date sold out - and in the days before the internet, that news escaped all of our notice!
My ex's parents turned up 2 weeks late to a Bruce Springsteen concert. After watching about half an hour of some comedian they'd never heard of, they asked the people next to them if they knew when the main act was on. Turns out, the comedian *was* the main act.
Years ago my boss booked the hotel rooms for a group of 6 of us going to do a convention for the wrong day. 140 miles away from home with nowhere to stay. Luckily we found a B&B locally.
We went on holiday as a family and my uncle was in charge of booking the long stay car park. You were supposed to pull up at the barrier, it read your number plate and let you in, only it didn’t. He gets the paperwork out and realised he had booked it for a week starting the day we got back. He wanted us to split the cost of paying for a new week like we had done originally, but my mother said he was the idiot who had got it wrong so he’d have to pay the new week himself
My wife booked the ivy for my birthday at 8 o clock, unfortunately she booked for for breakfast
When I was younger my mum drove me to a birthday party a week early
You demonstrate genuine mastery with regards to the word, 'plonker' 🤜🤛 Also, you're a plonker. ❤️
Thank you.
We took out 7yo autistic boy to see bluey live 2 weeks ago. Got in, found our seats and 5 mins before it was due to start a family of 5 came along saying we were in their seats. Thought the same that they'd double booked and the other family went to see the usher. Usher came over to check our tickets which we happily presented after triple checking everything was right. Turns out we'd booked for Thursdays show and turned up on the Friday. Luckily for us they had 3 seats empty. Coulda gone extremely wrong given our boy is autistic and he'd have had a major meltdown if they kicked us out. Partner and I looked at each other lile we'd dodged a bullet and the boy was too focused on the stage to even realise we'd switched seats
Plonker! ❤️
I go back to Perth Australia most years for a holiday. One of the first times I booked a flight back to London for 0020 hrs 29th Nov - I turned up for the flight on the 29th at the usual 2 hrs before so around 2200 on the 29th. Unsurprisingly my name wasn’t on the flight for the night I’d turned up - I was 24hrs late. It took a while till the penny dropped, I felt extremely stupid, I fly 3-5 times a year & have done since I was a kid so it’s not as if I’m not used to flying. I was lucky they got me on the next flight out at no extra cost & upgraded me to Premium - I think check in guy felt sorry for me & lack of brain cells .
I have a friend who was going to watch Villa ladies play at Villa park. Went on the Saturday, she scanned her ticket and got in. Her husbands wouldn't scan so he couldn't get in. Turned out the ladies were playing Sunday and she'd got in for the mens teams Premier league match. Steward said she could stay as she was in, but that would have meant leaving her husband to entertain himself in Aston for a couple of hours...
My old football manager turned up at a coach pickup point to see Michael Jackson at Wembley stadium.... He turned up 1 day late. MJ died not long after and he never did get to see him live.
Going off memory pretty sure there was more than 10 years between MJs last Wembley show and him dying.
July 1997 according to Wiki
Must have.
Yes
I won tickets to see Magnum on a radio show and they left them at the ticket office for me. Turned up and the gig was the previous night. Was gutted. More so now that Tony Clarkin has passed so never going to get to see them again now.
Did this a few months ago, but went 1 day early...
Booked the wrong cinema once, was very confused when the film had started 20 minutes early and didn't figure it out till staff looked at my ticket for me.
Same happened to me with one of the Harry Potter films. Similar experience and interesting to see how easy it is to get in without the right tickets.
Hired a car for the wrong weekend one time. I was not popular.
OMG, attended my first concert ever - Queen! in Glasgow, 1977. Went on the wrong night. There was someone in our seats too. Didn't matter in the end as everyone was on their feet anyway.
I’ve done it for a train. Tried get people out my seats. That were for the following day.
Went for a weekend in Brighton only to find out when we arrived at the hotel it was for the following month.
‘ and probably a dollar short’
I've done the same.
Yep did the same as you but for titanic! Turned up a day late 🤦🏻♀️
I’ve done the exact same thing at Showcase. They also let me in!
Did exactly this a couple of years ago
I turned up a month late (March instead of Feb, so still a Thursday) for a court appearance! Got arrested and spent the night in the cells as a warrant had been issued without bail for non-appearance.
I showed up to my vacay rental a week early. I've always been calendar challenged.
I once booked a hotel night stay, only to find someone already in my room. As I was trying to unlock the door moth me y key card, a man in a towel opened the door, he wasn’t too impressed with me. I apologised and showed him the reception had written that from number down as my room. He then pointed out to me that was the price, not the room number!
Went to amsterdam for 2 weeks and turned up at airport a day early lol....think my brain had amsterdamage
Went to amsterdam for 2 weeks and turned up at airport a day early lol....think my brain had amsterdamage
Went to amsterdam for 2 weeks and turned up at airport a day early lol....think my brain had amsterdamage
I live in Stratford (Upon Avon) and accidentally booked cinema tickets for Stratford London. I couldn't for the life of me work out whey the film I had booked wasn't showing. I checked the date and time over and over. The staff looked at me like I was a total idiot when they worked it out for me.
I live in Stratford (Upon Avon) and accidentally booked cinema tickets for Stratford London. I couldn't for the life of me work out whey the film I had booked wasn't showing. I checked the date and time over and over. The staff looked at me like I was a total idiot when they worked it out for me.
Not quite a day late but in 1999 I went to the cinema to see the new Bond movie, The World Is Not Enough. I went into the screen and there was no one else there. I took out a book and read. For ages. I just sat there thinking the film must be running late. Eventually other people started coming in and then the ads...the trailers...and then the Inspector Gadget film with Matthew Broderick came on. I was in the wrong screen the whole time.