We have two options as a festival: Process tickets ourselves - which is fraught with complications - or let a specialist agency deal with it. It costs a great deal less in real terms to let a ticket agency do it, so whether it's an 'extra cost' or within the ticket price, the latter option means more of the festivals budget is spent on the festival itself.

We totally understand people's frustration with booking fees. We have been very proactive in making sure you pay as little as possible. We have dealt with an independent agent (The Ticket Sellers) for many years, to offer below-normal booking fees.

The booking fee per adult ticket covers the processing fee levied by the banks (about 2% of the whole order total), the VAT payable on the fee, the cost of providing and maintaining the online system to take your order, the ticket agency staff in the 24 hour call centre (and other business costs for the agency), providing the team that you will see at the gate when you get there, and all the electronic equipment used to process your e-ticket code on arrival. Please also note that the way booking fees are structured means you pay the costs attributable to the actual tickets you buy (e.g. only one transaction fee / delivery charge per order, rather than per ticket).

Using e-tickets actually saves customers over £7500 in postage charges and a good few trees as there are no paper tickets printed. The above saving relates to the cost of postage which the customer would pay if we used postal tickets.