Can someone please help to check whether any ticket of any show before June 25th is still available for purchase at their box office ?

When I was there last week to make enquiry I was not very friendly treated and I suspect the ticket seller lied to me to turn me off. I an an Asian and I was not poorly dressed that day.

Someone please help to clear my suspicion. I will give the full story if my suspicion is right.

Well, I didn't do an exhaustive search, but I checked on availability for a number of shows and couldn't find anything available until July.

Did you actually physically go there? You might try going to a FNAC and seeing if they have any tickets. If they don't (and I tried to go through the FNAC site as well as the Opéra site itself and they didn't have any), I think it's true they're sold out. But as I said, I didn't check on tickets for everything.

I think the above is good advice. It is possible there as just a miscommunication problem at the box office, and it really depends what you asked. Of course you could be right, they might have gotten short with you. I find it hard to believe there wasn't a single seat to any performance from now to June 25th, but on the other hand, it's not impossible. If you only asked for certain kinds of seats, it wouldn't surprise me at all. They do get sold out a lot. I think they don't sell the cheapest seats online, but I'm not sure as I've never wanted to buy those. If you didn't want a real cheap seat though, that is irrelevant.

The tickets at FNAC have only a very slight service fee.


well, I just went to the website and given the first thing that comes up is that tickets are now on sale to the works by Jiri Kylian (whom I like), I tried to book tickets for a date that I figured was slow -- a Monday, June 14th. The calendar gave me about four possible dates and then I was allowed to book four tickets for that performance, one in each price category (which is what I requested).

So clearly there are tickets available to something, but it really depends what you asked. Did you ask for any performance at all of any ballet?

Looking further, it appears La Bayadere is sold out, but not the Jiri Kylian works, so if you only wanted la Bayadere, that would explain it.

I went there personally on a friday at 5.50 pm and asked what is available within the next few days and the ticket seller, a guy said there is nothing left within the next few days. From his look given to me he is very unfriendly. So I asked when is the next show available then. He took out the program booket and point to a date June 24th or 25th without even refering to the computer. When I tried to ask more, he asked me to come back on Monday. Before I leave, I asked for his name but he kept pointing to the broucher´s website name. I said I know that and I want his name with a finger pointing at him, clearly several times before he reluctantly give a name that sounds like lorge or longe. There is no one else that I can refer to except for the security guard who will not care for booking matters.

I want to confirm if there is really no more tickets of any kind before June 24th, or else I want to make a complain against him. I can register as a member on their website to find out but I am still travelling, quite inconvenient to do it until next month.

After one month of travelling I find most Europeans helpful and with good attitude except for this guy. He is quite below medium build and aged around late 20s to early 30s. I doubt he give me his real name.

I am not sure if it is the Garnier´s pratice to put-off Asians. If so, I can understand his attitude but if not, he don,t deserve the job. It gives Garnier a bad name.

Look, there are rude, unhelpful people all over the world, whether you're in Paris or NYC or Hong Kong. And these people probably are rude to everyone, no matter he/she is white, yellow, red, brown, black, green, or purple.

It's probably a combination of: him being a rude person to begin with; him having a bad day (after a long week and a long day); him wishing that he DIDN'T have to work at 5:50pm on a Friday when everyone else he knew was enjoying a glass of wine; and some language miscommunication.

Why let such a small incident ruin your vacation?

The Garnier is kind of in the middle of an area with tons of Asians, so I rather doubt it (he could just not have wanted to help anyone with a vague request, who knows -- lots of time people at box offices just want to check one specific thing you ask not search for things). Also, it sounds like they were about ready to close, which isn't a good time to go if they need to look up and search lots of things. Banks, hotels, restaurants, there are lots of Japanese places around there, for instance. But you could be right, also, although I suspect it could be more him not wanting to help any foreigner or tourists at that time of day rather than Asians specifically. Why would they dislike Asians more than Americans, for example?

However, what he said was probably right that there weren't any tickets within the next few days. But from my experience, there are tickets to something before June 24th, at least the Kylian program.

I am definitely not unpolite or vague in my enquiry. I saw both the people before and after me took some tickets although i dont know if they reserved earlier of if the they shows after June 24th. There is no excuse for anyone to mistreat a customer whether there are in a good mood or not.
Making me unhappy is nothing important but the Garnier Opera gets a bad image because of one single employeee is an issue.

I must write in officially to Garnier Opera and give them the details, appreciate if anyone can help me with a link to their contact email for such issue.

Thanks

fcukip, stop ruining your holiday over this one incident. Yes, maybe he was rude, but for goodness sake, just forget about it. Maybe you were rude to him when you pointed your finger at him??

cathies,

Have you read my messages well before you take side ?
I was not rude at all. I pointed my finger at him only after the whole incident and when he refused to give me his name and pretended to musunderstood me by keep repeating Garnier name. I point my finger to him to let him know that I am asking for his name and not Garnier.
All over Europe, I have spoken to no less than 100 people on enquiries from passerbys, shop assistants, hotels staffs, metro and buses staffs, I have no problems with any except 2. I wont report on the other one as he is just a metro stop attendant but this is GARNIER.

No, my holidays are not ruin. In fact, I feel happy to have helped in some way by being a responsible and helpful. Such nasty employee existed because no one report on them.

When I said your request was vague, it was vague by my definition exactly as you described it. I'm not saying it is right, but I have noticed that sometimes ticket sellers like that don't like to have to look at different seats on different days when you don't know what type of seat or date you want. So to me, a vague request IS what you asked -- is there are seat available before June 24th? They like it when you say is there any seat in the orchestra on the evening of June 14th? or something. I agree they should know in their heads what dates probably have seats available, but I've had problems myself with that kind of thing.

I think people should complain more and be good consumers, I agree with you, or nothing changes. Their website doesn't have a good email address for this type of thing, the best thing I could find was this general address for public relations to write to:

Opéra national de Paris - Opéra Bastille
Relations avec le Public
120 rue de Lyon
75 576 Paris Cedex 12

Other than that, they only give a general address to write (OPera National de Paris, 9 rue Scribe, Paris 75009)

Since you don't have a name, you will have to be specific about the date and time of day you were there, they should know who was working then.