BoxOfficeTicketSales.com scalpers, mass resellers, inflated prices Chicago Illinois

An upcoming comedy show in Boston had a pre-sale today that was not open to the general public. The face value of the tickets was approximately $40. When I tried to purchase tickets during the presale, most of the seats in the first orchestra section were already taken.

At first I thought the show was just really popular and that fans had purchased a lot of tickets during the pre-sale. It turns out, however, that virtually all of the tickets for those seats ended up in the hands of Chicago-based BoxOfficeTicketSales.com. They are re-selling the $40 tickets for an average price of $250!

The venue limits ticket sales to eight per customer and it is clear that this business has made a directed effort to amass hundreds of tickets for resale at tremendously inflated prices. Now I am either forced to purchase tickets for worse seats at face value, purchase the tickets I want from these scalpers or to not attend the show at all.

These people take advantage of fans by purchasing more tickets than are allowed by the venue's policy and reselling them at more than five times the face value. And this was during a pre-sale that was not open to the general public.