Ainsley Harriot show

The article "Obsessed with food... and Ainsley" (The Sunday Times, March 19) stated that celebrity chef Ainsley Harriott "accommodated everyone. No one went home disappointed..."

The same, unfortunately, cannot be said for the Eden Century Cinemas management, which not only failed to accommodate us but could not have disappointed us more after the show.

My wife and I, two cooking enthusiasts, bought our tickets for the March 11 show two weeks in advance to ensure we would get good seats.

However, the powers that be at the Eden Century Cinemas decided to ruin the event for us in the most shameful of manners. As soon as we entered Cinema 16 we were told by the ushers that our seats (E14 and E15) had been erroneously sold to us as they should have been reserved for the Tourism Minister.

Nothing could be done according to the manager on duty and we were shoved unceremoniously to the very front row. The usher even attempted to fob us off by saying that they were actually doing us a favour as we would get the best view of what was going on on stage - in fact our view was totally blocked by the stage and the stoves, apart from the fact that had this been the case, the minister would have got the seats, not us! The manager, evidently hassled, also told us that we would get some sort of compensation once the show was over.

We did see Mr Harriott of course, but we wanted to watch high calibre chefs cook. We waited, in vain, for the manager to come forward afterwards with some compensation to make up for our disappointment. Nobody appeared.

We will never attend an Eden Century or Eden Leisure Group event again - if these things happen, we'll minimise the risk. Once bitten, twice shy.