Information leaked to Cherwell last week suggests that Oxford Fashion Week is struggling to sell tickets for its most expensive shows. Some ticket reps are also complaining that the perks offered to them are not enough for the work they put in.
The annual fashion week kicks off this Sunday but according to an e-mail sent to ticket reps two weeks ago, the company had sold just seventeen tickets for the £35 “Concept Show” and only six tickets for their £55 Malmaison Lingerie Show. The considerably cheaper £6 Style Show had reportedly sold over 125 tickets.
This year’s Fashion Week has recently announced the addition of two Lady Gaga costumes, which will feature in the Couture Show as well as the return of Fashion journalist Dolly Jones, editor of VOGUE.COM, who will be joining the Oxford Fashion Week forum on Monday.
However, students are complaining that the week’s events are unrealistically expensive even with these new inclusions.
OFW found it difficult to sell tickets for their pricier events last year in the run up to the week. The business made an overall financial loss for that year’s event.
Although the company declined to comment on current sales figures, Carl Anglim, CEO of OFW, defended the company’s decision to keep prices high. He promised that this year’s Fashion Show will “be far and away the most luxurious evening of the week at Oxford’s dramatic converted prison”.
For its second year, OFW decided to recruit College Representatives to raise awareness of the week and further increase ticket sales. Mr Anglim said, “The primary role of College Reps is to provide a point of information in each college and to bring OFW closer to students. We are delighted to have so many who have volunteered to help”.
However, some ticket reps blame the lack of perks offered by the company for poor ticket sales.
One representative for the week told Cherwell that she had not sold any tickets. “I can’t really be bothered. It’s all very overpriced and there aren’t many incentives. If you sell over £100 worth of tickets you get a free ticket to the Style show, which is hardly worth pushing sales for considering that it is by far the cheapest event”.
Another student, who wished to remain anonymous, dropped out of selling tickets. She said, “There’s some free stuff for ticket reps but only if you sell enough tickets. It’s a tad exploitative. Plus I think everything is way too expensive so I didn’t feel comfortable selling people tickets”.
The criticisms follow other difficulties in what has been a difficult second year for Oxford’s biggest fashion event. Earlier in the year, the company had to scale down the Week from six events to five. The sixth event, a Couture show, was allegedly cancelled following “a big row about budgets and the way OFW was presenting itself,” according to one insider.
However, Mr Anglim has rejected these claims, saying for the Couture Show “the elements were not in place at the right time for the scale of event we wanted.”
