ApplauseStore® Recenzje 

Outstanding. Organisation was great and the show fantastic. 5 stars 🌟

Gladiators was a great day out... or should I say in! The time flew by once we entered the arena, and the show was great fun for the family.

The only pain is the ticketing system and queuing, but the tickets are free so it is was it is. I understand they have to guarantee a full audience, but maybe a deposit/hold that can be returned would incentivise people not to be flaky.

Well run organisation. Staff very helpful.

Still waiting for my refund nearly a year later

I am extremely disappointed with the way Applause Store has handled my refund.

A **£35 membership payment was taken on 22 September 2025**. I contacted Applause Store shortly afterwards because I had not intended to renew and wanted the membership cancelled and the payment refunded.

I was given instructions on what I needed to do to receive my refund. I followed those instructions, cancelled the recurring payment and provided the information requested, including my PayPal details and transaction ID.

I was specifically told that **as long as the membership had not been used, I would be refunded**. I have **not used the membership**, and the payment arrangement has been showing as **INACTIVE** for months.

Despite this, it is now **August 2026 and I still haven't received my £35 refund**.

I have sent numerous emails since September 2025 trying to resolve this. I even sent a formal notice giving them seven days to refund me, but I am still waiting.

It isn't the £35 alone that has upset me; it's the amount of time and effort I have had to spend repeatedly chasing something I was told would be refunded.

I gave the company plenty of opportunity to resolve this privately before leaving a review. Unfortunately, after nearly **11 months**, I feel I have been left with little choice but to share my experience.

I would be very happy to update this review if Applause Store finally resolves the matter and issues the refund.

Was charged for a subscription that I do not ever recall signing up for, and requested a refund immediately. Received a reply requesting transaction ID along with my details which I sent straight away, and was told I would receive a refund within 14 days. This has not happened and it has been a month. I am being ignored now via emails. Avoid this company at all costs, they are shocking with customer service and are not honest.

Great atmosphere, fun day out, family friendly, lots of queuing but great info beforehand which made the process clear and set expectations beforehand so knew what to expect

Well organised, good system for giving out tickets. Always something happening even when events are being set up.

Amazing experience from start to finish - such a long day but so worth it!
We arrived around 8.30am and queued around 1 hour and for most of that time it was moving so not bad at all.
just time to grab breakfast and make our signs, then go back into the arena.
We were entertained the whole day and absolutely loved it.

We were lucky to get tickets for gladiators on our first try. It was chaotic with the amount of people but overall well organised. It is a really long day and lots of waiting around but entertainment throughout the day to follow the time and add to the atmosphere. A brilliant experience and would definitely do it again!

Great day. entertaining

An absolute disgrace of an operation. We walked away feeling entirely cheated. Children spent all day creating posters for the gladiators, only to be turned away at the door because they had "run out of tickets" despite us registering in advance. We spoke to a family who had traveled all the way from Scotland with their kids, only to face the exact same heartbreak.

The system is fundamentally broken: they invite 5,000 people to fill just 3,000 spots, gather all your private details, and send out a QR code that turns out to be completely meaningless. I walked past at least 20 children from different families in tears. This company's ticketing model is misleading, poorly managed, and completely unfair to families.

If you review the details for the day, you have to keep scrolling to reach the terms and conditions—it’s actually listed as the seventh most important item. Applause Store tells you where to park, what to wear, where to eat, what ID to bring, who can use the ticket, and who it can be transferred to. All of this comes before the fundamental fact that you may still be denied entry. They purposely ensure more people turn up in the hope that all seats are filled, knowing full well that people will be turned away.
Why is this not the first thing mentioned? Because it would deter people from attending if they knew entry couldn't be guaranteed. Their marketing strategy burns through people and upsets kids just to hit their targets. This is deception, and a corporate response dismissing it with "it’s in the T&Cs" is completely unacceptable.
The organisation is purposefully and intentionally deceiving people. On-site staff and security admit it happens every year and that it’s a deliberate tactic. But it is wrong.

**In Response to your update - Once Again the original email says "Congratulations! You have been selected to attend Gladiators 2026 on Wednesday 5th August 2026 at 15:30" you should at the very least re word this to state "You have a chance to see Gladiators" The very first sentence is miss leading, and just blatantly advising "we can't say when to arrive" is again miss leading you're expecting people to take a chance upon arrival that they may have travelled hours for which there was! dozen of families though the exact same as us and hiding behind a drop down menu of "Are tickets guaranteed" is still not justification for miss leading wording and not setting expectations. Your opening original email should be explicitly clear, it comes across as "lets word this in such a way as hopefully people will turn up to our event, but sod the ones who didn't understand what you actually meant is arive multiple hours before the scheduled event but we don't want to tell you that as then you might not turn up at all." The fact a company is getting so defensive in a review proves my point.

We had tickets for the Gladiators recording on 5 August 2026 and were incredibly excited. We took a day off work, got our children excited for the experience, paid for parking and travelled to the venue, arriving around 20 minutes before the advised arrival time of 3:30pm.

As we reached the entrance, we were stopped and told there was no room left and that we wouldn't be admitted.

The biggest issue isn't that the show was full. It's that nowhere in the email correspondence is it made clear that your tickets are not actually guaranteed. The confirmation email starts with "Congratulations! You have been selected to attend..." and provides "exclusive eTickets", which naturally leads you to believe you have secured entry.

Every email simply tells you to arrive by the stated time. There is no clear warning that admission is on a first come, first served basis or that you may need to arrive much earlier than instructed to have any chance of getting in. That crucial information is buried away in the Terms and Conditions rather than being made clear in the booking emails.

We followed every instruction provided, arrived before the advised time and were still turned away.

This ticketing system is misleading and unfair. Families are taking annual leave, paying for travel and parking, and getting their children excited, only to be refused entry despite doing exactly what they've been told.

ApplauseStore needs to be far more transparent. If tickets are not guaranteed, that should be made crystal clear in every confirmation email, not hidden away in the small print.

A hugely disappointing experience that could have been avoided with honest and clear communication.

*****In Response to ApplauseStores email below I'm more than happy to provide additional evidence of the inaccuracies of their response if they should email me directly, in the initial email congratulating you on receiving your tickets there is ZERO mention of this is first come first serve, dozens of other families at the time mentioned exactly that. It's only after looking at the drop down menu's at a later stage is it mentioned.

Received an email last month from Applause congratulating me on being selected to attend Gladiators. Booked a hotel and travelled down from Newcastle. We arrived at the arena 20 minutes before the ticket information arrival time of 8:45.
However just as we were about to join the queue a steward informed us the arena was now full and we would not be able to attend. She scanned our ticket and said we'd have priority next year. The disappointment on the kids face was heartbreaking. The 2 hour drive back horrible. My problem with Appluase is 1. How can you congratulate someone on being selected if they have not got a ticket? 2. You could have a certain amount of proper tickets with seat numbers. From what I've heard it is at full capacity every year so empty seats wouldn't be an issue. 3. State the arrival cut off time is 8:45 and you should attend an hour earlier to avoid disappointment. There has got to be a better way of allocating tickets.

A fantastic free day out, loved it, thank you for the opportunity to experience this

Amazing experience. Thank you so much. Well organised, lots of food, snacks, drink and laughs

How do they allocate tickets?!? It’s a mystery 🤷🏻‍♀️ was one of the first to apply, heard nothing and then a couple of days before the event they advertise tickets are available and encourage people to apply with a promo code. How can tickets be available if the people who applied originally haven’t got tickets? Surely they should be considered first?

Absolutely shocking company. I was given 3 tickets to see an episode of Gladiators filmed. They were "guaranteed" as one of the party is a wheelchair user. With 8 days to go I got an email saying the tickets had been cancelled with a really crappy reason.
I was sceptical that it was a genuine email so I emailed and WhatsApp'd them to check. I got ignored by email and I got a very short, fob off text through WhatsApp. I replied being perfectly reasonable and got ignored there too. I put a comment on an Instagram post, again absolutely nothing malicious, just a comment about my how disappointed my 9 year old son was as well believed guaranteed tickets meant guaranteed. Not just guaranteed unless we over book! This comment was swiftly deleted but I decided not to put it back on as I was still hoping for tickets for another date.
I was given a code to book something else. As Gladiators for another date was still showing as tickets available, I tried for that. I also emailed and said that I'd applied, I got ignored 3 times until I got another rude answer saying that the code was intended for another show as Gladiators is fully booked. Dispite it still showing as tickets available on their website. Also, there literally are no other shows on their website calendar so the code was just a major fob off anyway!
I'm sure with their level of customer service, I'll be blacklisted now but as far as I can see from social media comments, people go year after year so I don't have any hope that new customers have any chance! Absolutely disappointing

Great experience. Really enjoyed seeing how it all went together.

Absolutely amazing day from start to finish! We managed to get moved near the front also which just made our day!