To paraphrase Howard Beale in the movie “Network,” the producers of “Hamilton” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” are mad as hell and they’re not going to take it any more. The subject of their ire? The scalpers and touts who are getting rich off the secondary market for their blazingly hot shows. When money is no object, scalpers can charge customers hundreds, even thousands, of dollars above face value through outlets like StubHub. They’ve secured the tickets through “bots,” sophisticated computers that can snag thousands of seats within seconds, thereby depriving fans of getting seats at reasonable prices.Broadway is fighting back with legislation, and the West End is demanding proof from patrons that their tickets were purchased from legitimate sellers.In July, New York Senator Chuck Schumer introduced legislation that would make bots illegal and would attach severe penalties, up to $16,000, to those caught outrageously jacking up the price of tickets. At the Palace Theatre in London, where “Harry Potter” is working its magic, at least 60 people were recently turned away and received refunds for only the face value of their tickets. More confiscations were promised, sending a chill down brokers facing irate customers demanding their money back.At a press conference where he was flanked by Jeffrey Seller, lead producer of “Hamilton,” Schumer said, “We need to sweep the stage of bots so that actual fans can enjoy ‘Hamilton,’ other hit Broadway shows, and major concerts. These bots have gotten completely out of control and their dominance in the market is driving up prices for music and sports fans as well as tourists and theater-goers.”One broker, who wished to remain anonymous, doubted that any legislation could completely squelch the get-rich strategies of him and his peers. He observed that in the early years of Broadway, there were “diggers,” people who’d wait in line to buy volumes of seats. This was followed by “ice,” the name given to prime tickets sold at inflated prices by theater insiders. A scandal in the 1960s, detailed in Michael Riedel’s book, “Razzle Dazzle,” almost brought down some prominent theater owners and producers.“And now there are bots,” said the broker. “Broadway’s been trying to control this stuff since ‘Show Boat,’ and trust me, there’s always been a way around it. This will be no different.”Perhaps a more effective way has been found by Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender. The producers of “Harry Potter,” in league with Nimax (which owns the Palace Theatre), are trying to clamp down on scalpers by going after their marks: demanding that ticket holders produce documentation that proves their tickets were purchased through reputable and approved sellers. “The secondary ticket market is an industry-wide plague, and one which we as producers take very seriously,” said the producers in a press statement. “Our priority is to protect all our customers and we are doing all we can to combat this issue.”The object, say the producers, is to keep the price of the ticket to “Harry Potter” as affordable as possible — the top ticket price for each part of the two-play series is only 85 pounds ($112.48), a fraction of the official top price of “Hamilton,” which tops out at $849.The ticket price hike for “Hamilton,” which came in the wake of the show’s 11 Tony Awards last June, was, to some extent, a response to scalpers. Producer Seller said at the time that he had grown frustrated that the secondary market was reaping a benefit which properly belonged to those who had created the show and the investors who’d risked their money to present it. The war against scalpers and touts has been welcomed by the theater community, which has long warned about Broadway pricing itself out of the market. And there is every indication that it is going to grow hotter. Come this fall, there will be more meetings among both West End and Broadway producers for ways to fix the seemingly intractable problem.
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