The Sharon ticket scam
 

I went to purchase tickets to The Jersey Boys from the web site. At 8:30 I waited for the ticket site to open. When it did and I went to pick a seat I found that more than 80% of the seats were already sold. All in less than 30 sec.. No computer is that fast. About 20 min later I found another site selling tickets to the Sharon, and what did I find ? all the good seats now for sale on that sit at 2 to 3 times the price. Shame on the owners and management of The Sharon. They are scalping their own tickets to up the profit . I will nerver support your theater again and I hope no one will purchase these scalped tickets.:rant-rave:

Actually they are. There are bots that can do this.

"An Internet Bot, also known as web robot, WWW robot or simply bot, is a software application that runs automated tasks (scripts) over the Internet. Typically, bots perform tasks that are both simple and structurally repetitive, at a much higher rate than would be possible for a human alone."

It is the owners of the other site that are the scalpers. This is a common thing that happens to popular events that sell tickets on line. Before the days of the internet, they used to pay people to stand in line at the box office windows to buy the tickets that would later sell for elevated prices.

Please don't think that it is The Sharon doing this.

So glad you posted this. I went to a website yesterday that I thought was for The Sharon only to find tickets going for $300 each. Couldn't figure out how they could be charging 3x what I paid on Broadway to only see a touring non-Equity tour. Typed in The Sharon and got the actual Villages website. They are typical prices for a touring show. Looking forward to seeing it again.

When the Elton John tickets went on sale for Orlando a few weeks ago the same thing happened. It’s not the venue doing it.

I would say that The Sharon could, for shows they know will be a hit, do box office sales only and still sell out. But they host plenty of other wonderful acts that don’t sell out, even with the online system.

Using "bot" software to purchase tickets is illegal in Florida. But it is legal to resell tickets for a higher than face value price. However, this problem could easily have been prevented by the Sharon. I think they should be ashamed of themselves for letting the situation happen. I hope they will report the bot sales and hopefully have the scalpers prosecuted.

So when you move to The Villages you can take off your big boy pants. Because the family is all knowing, all seeing. and takes care of all things. From ticket scalping bots to sinkholes. :a20:

I think Cisco means that he doubts very much that the Morse family who own The Sharon are scamming anyone.

I am so tired of Morse slamming posts. It is not a crime to be successful. Many people do it without breaking any laws. They build a better mousetrap.

Gracie. A huge fan of the free market.

I don't know if anyone is scamming anyone, but I do know that most legitimate ticket websites have a place where you must insert a code or identify a photo, to prove you are "not a robot". This generally defeats bots - and if the Villages Box Office website doesn't have this protection, or something similar, shame on them.

Just wondering, could the box office limit the number of tickets sold to an individual account per show so that bots hackers can not get enough tix to make it worth their effort? Or can the bots simply create unlimited accounts? Also another thought. Could the box office make tickets available to Villages residents only for the first 48 hours before opening up to the general public, giving residents a window to get the best seats before the bots swoop in and snatch them up?

I think the solution is simple (see post #9). As great as the Morse family is, TV has always been lagging a bit on the technology end. It can be quaint, or it can be frustrating.

You are right. They aren't the latest on internet technology. I'm not either. The word "scam" just flew all over me.

If you look online Ticketmaster gets hit hard by the bots also.
So it appears there is no easy fix if you sell online.

:confused: All good questions..... do you really think they will get answered here?

As long as we're good enough to get on the forum!

Good post.

Also, hasn't it been widely known for years now that the solution to all ticket scamming is simply having to have an ID with you to get in BC its your name on the ticket? If you don't want the ticket anymore, there is an easy way to resell it through the venue for the face price. I think Pearl Jam figured this out sometimes in the 1990's to combat scalping. I'm not saying this idea is offered at all places but it could be so easily, like with airline tickets.

Let them choke on the tickets-shows are nice, but they are not the holy grail

The Sharon ticket scam
 

Yeah. Experienced the same frustration. Waited for months to get seats to this show and got locked out from any decent seats. Village resident sales (WITH ID) for the first 48 hrs with 4 seat max purchase would help ameliorate the problem.


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I wonder if anyone at the Sharon ticket sales even knows that this is occurring? To them, it would appear that ticket sales are going well. Block seat sales are common in the concert industry. All the possible suggestions above are quite plausible and should be easy to implement. Wonder what kind of arrangement The Villages entertainment has with these third-party brokers.

Does anyone know someone in power at the Sharon?

To chastise and relate negative commentary about The Sharon is misplaced ire.

We get all our tickets directly from The Sharon website....never an issue from day one the doors were open.

What I am curious about is why anyone would go to a "third party" on line when the tickets and seat selection are available on The Sharon website.

Mark Morse's daughter is in charge of The Sharon's operation. I think it has been carefully thought out. I know this, any theatre venue with live entertainment is struggling to fill seats across this country. Perhaps not on Broadway or here. Even the huge hit show Hamilton on Broadway has seen a huge drop in tickets since last January. No more standing in line and lottery.

It is hard to fill seats in most places and theatre after theatre has closed .

theatre bankrupt - Bing

I am of the belief that if there were a shortfall on some presentations that the family would keep it afloat. But all looks like this too is another thriving business.

Please call The Sharon and ask to speak to the Box Office Manager. They may not even be aware that this is happening!

Please look at the articles or searches you reference. Those are old stories! (Something a previous thread of yours noticed.)

(AGAIN) Broadway is doing quite well Broadway Sales for 2016-17 Season Break Record – Variety

And how do you know theaters are struggling? I professionally know that the primary theaters in NJ are doing very well.

It is not the Sharon that is reaping any added benefit from these third party sites.

EDIT; My family gave three Blues Brothers tribute benefit shows here in the Villages last week. We entertained about 1,000 villages. Standing ovations every night. Not shabby for a dying industry.

In fairness that has something to do with a lot of the original cast moving on, and the people leftover switching to more prominent roles leaving....something to be desired. To put it politely.

Want to fix this problem. Stop sale of tickets online.

Buy from Sharon direct, online or will call....it just does not get any more convenient and secure!

I think people are missing the intent of the OP.
He tried to purchase tickets just after they went on-line, and 80% of the tickets were already sold/unavailable. So, either the Sharon had blocked those seats for some reason or something had already purchased them.

While the OP didn't actually specify which "website" they tried to purchase the tickets from...I also interpreted it that they went to the Sharon site.

Hopefully, they will come back and clarify.

Reread the OP's post. He was on the proper web site when ticket sales were supposed to start, only to find that 80% of the seats were already sold. He went to another site to find tickets, only to find that they were grossly overpriced.

It's obvious there is a bot that snapped up most of the tickets in order to resale them at a higher price, as is explained in subsequent posts. Also explained is a way TV can put in place a means to stop that.

I don't think TV is doing this intentionally. I just think they need a better IT person to put these technological stops in place.

Maybe not but the Sharon has ways they can stop it from happening.

My experience was different from the OP. I was online at exactly 8:30a and got great 2nd row seats. Very happy with the tickets we bought.

??? isn't that what the OP said he did. I know I was #9 in line at the Savannah Center Box Office and the best I could get was halfway up the Mezzanine for 85.00 a piece.

The Sharon mgmt has chosen to contract with a third party online ticket sales organization to "sell" tickets for the shows at The Sharon. As most entertaiment venues are now doing.

There are several well known online sites that handle the majority of entertainment ticket sales. They certainly have the technical capability to prevent the "mass" purchasing of event tickets. However it must not be in these online ticket fulfillment sites to take the necessary steps to do so. Just follow the money. Would you rather collect a service fee or resell sold-out tickets at 3+ original price? Why not even do both?

Don

If it's a popular show that will happen more than not. I suspect most of the tickets now are bought online and if popular, could be gone in minutes. The theater holds about 1100 folks. How many residents and non residents must those 1100 come from? The more we grow the more scarce those seats will become. Our strategy has been to start the login process at 2 minutes prior to when they go and sale and keep reloading....we have been pretty successful at getting in when they open. We also have a priority list of the seats we want so don't spend a lot of time evaluating seats. Works for us.

No ticket should be sold to the general public without a village ID for 48 hours after the first tickets go on sale.

Plenty of ticket for sale third party starting at $410. Each. I could by 10 tickets at a time for that price. I did find 8 tickets on Sharon web for $45 to $85 but none together. Guess they went really fast. For $820. I can find lots to do.

From the prospective of a part time resident that would be a bad idea and make it impossible to get tickets to many shows.

On the Facebook page of The Sharon today.....

Hmm, but... seconds after the tickets went on sale, most of the good seats of them were gone to a third party, at a much higher price... according to the OP. It may be legal, but there's a way to fix this, and TV needs to address it.

I don't buy 100% of TV's explanation.

Yep, they completely ignored the issue of allowing large numbers of tickets to be purchased by those who bought them purely for resale.

I interpret their response as them basically saying that it's not their fault the tickets are drastically marked up...and there is nothing they can or will do.