After all these posts, can anyone explain why two users of the same website at the same time had completely different results?

Their FB post doesn't address the issue we are discussing here. They are just defending the WAY they sell them not WHY they disappeared in minutes. No one says they are in cohoots with 3rd party buyers just that Villages residents don't get first dibs which IMO we should.

I've been on at the beginning of Paul Anka and Tony Bennett. You can't dilly dally if your first choice fails, and it may help to have a high speed connection. Got the seating area I wanted both times. Popular events (think The Jersey Boys) have been promoted and demand is high.

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Probably because the 8:30 guy got lucky and if he had logged in at 8:32 he'd have had nothing.

or

maybe he's a Russian bot trying to cause dissension:spoken: :D

Think about The Villages golf tee time system. You must be a Village Resident to place an online request for a tee time, up to a week in advance. Three days prior to your requested play date the tee time and course is assigned. Once those times are assigned then the unassigned open times become available for any resident. A modified version of this could work for The Sharon, possibly for known certain high attendance shows only. For example RESIDENTS ONLY could place an online request (max 6 to 8 per request), for the ticket price they prefer, the day the tickets would normally go on sale. Three days later these requests would be assigned based on the time the request was made. After the three day ticket requests are assigned then remaining tickets could go on sale to the general public. Yes in this case you could not pick your specific seats, but at least you would get a seat at face value, and RESIDENTS would get first dibs. Possibly this idea could be tweaked to work in a more efficient and equitable manner so let the conversation start here.

I am happy to report I was able to grab 4 great seats to see Jersey Boys on Saturday April 14 at 2:00 at the Sharon. I have to say I have never seen seats go so fast! The box office opened at 8:30 and I completed my purchase at 8:35.

Since I have frequently purchased seats for popular shows, I became curious regarding what I was seeing and immediately searched the other two dates to see if they were as popular as the matinee. Both the Friday and Saturday night shows were well on there way to being sold out. That would have been within the first 10 - 15 minutes of the box office opening. The thing I noticed as I was purchasing my tickets was that large groups of seats were disappearing, rather then two, four or six at a time. I was really glad I had selected the matinee because I seriously doubt I would have gotten such good seats at either of the evening events.

I know very little about online ticket scalpers other than my daughter has has to pay ridiculous prices for my granddaughter to see performances, due to tickets being purchased by brokers with the first few minutes of a sales offering.

Since the Sharon is such a big part of our Villages lifestyle I would love to see some sort of process be developed which would allow residents to have purchase priority for popular shows. Perhaps a first day sale which would require signing in using our Villages ID might help Villages get first dibs. Just a thought!

If you have a neighborhood group who wants to go to a show one person from that group purchases the tickets to keep the seating together. That could be why groups of seats disappear at a time. And that person chosen to be the seat purchaser is usually the most diligent of the group.

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:agree:

This is the simple answer !!

I don't think the Sharon (or even Savannah) have ever been a resident only venue. They are doing their part, getting a nice variety of acts at both places. They bid for these acts on a National stage and have a break even point on seats that need to be sold. I wouldn't depend on the resident base to make my numbers, and don't think they should either. There are over 100K people in and around TV and it seats 1100, first come first served as it is in all venues in this country unless you purchase a yearly early advisory subscription.....which might be an option. FYI, check the Orange Blossom Opry, they will sometimes have the same acts as The Sharon and Savannah but do the same thing, first come first served.

The same thing happened with tickets to Tony Bennett.

Why hasn’t the Daily Sun reported on this?

If no one bought the ridiculously overpriced scalper tickets, the scalpers would go away.

chilout They have. Why didn't you read it? :read:

That is a great idea! If the tickets were available to residents first, we could eliminate many scalpers purchase.

Read what Jo Mar wrote above.

I agree with tophcfa. Offer tickets to residents only on the first day of sales and in person only. We got 6 tickets at 9AM at the Spanish Springs office for $80 each, but mezzanine were the best we could get. We were lucky. They are now over $400 each on the internet.

The Sharon ticket scam
 

No one has claimed they should be "resident only" however Allowing resident only purchases for the first 48 hours certainly wouldn't stop outsiders from buying after that period passes. Jersey Boys still would have sold out as would any of the major attractions. If they didn't sell out under those rules they wouldnt have sold out anyway.

As an example American Express offers "advanced purchase" for card holders for many major shows in NYC and other major cities a couple days before they go public. Villages Entertainment could do the same. You still might not get seats but at least you'd beat out the pros and have a fighting chance.




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My user name should be EdF(formerly from)NJ and glad to be gone. [emoji3]

So instead of anonymous scalpers buying the tickets and reselling, Residents could take over the resale market? It would be a nice source of side income.

They could put a stop to bots buying blocks if they cared to do so. It’s not difficult so they do share blame.

The Sharon ticket scam
 

LOL. You are kidding right? Frankly if I had a choice I'd prefer OUR residents scalping than outsiders [emoji3] but even if that were the case (and somehow I wouldn't expect that) if all the residents purchases were limited to 4 tickets for the first 48 hours it would keep it to a minimum and greatly slow down the "3 minute sellout.".




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My user name should be EdF(formerly from)NJ and glad to be gone. [emoji3]

It was a bit tongue in cheek. But I have no doubt that out of 100K+ residents there wouldn't be a few enterprising souls in the bunch.

Let’s see 100 tickets @ $45 each $4,500. Plus points on your card. Sell at $400 each only need to sell 11 to break even. Hope who ever is selling them from$400 to $500 gets stuck with them. Can’t think of any venue worth that much money

Perfect and simple. Require the customer's name on the ticket and Village ID card are the same, then after some time release them to the public.

Agreed. It happens because the scalpers know that they will sell the tickets.

Simple solution
 

Hi all,
The solution is very simple, it just requires a bit of self disapline and just requires that none of us buy tickets at more than the asking price - the scammers would soon get fed up of having a load of tickets on their hands that they cannot sell and/or make a profit on!!!!!

Management
 

I would have to question the management of The Sharon if they are only selling tickets to the Jersey Boys for 100.00 and someone is selling them for 300.00 by simply buying them from them. Why would they lose 200.00 per ticket in sales? Obviously this is not a "we don't want to charge residents so much" as they lose that argument immediately when they sell them to non residents to re-sell at a much higher rate.

that only works if you are including ALL buyers and not just residents. It would be very interesting to see who the buyers were for the really good tickets. I bet they are not residents and are from Orlando, Ocala, many other locales in Florida.