Tickets are the perfect holiday gift—they are easy to give, suit a wide range of tastes and they promise a once-in-a-lifetime experience for your loved ones. With the rise of ticket scams this holiday season, these well-intentioned gifts of joy can sadly turn to disappointment. According to the AARP, 9 out of 10 adults have been targeted or experienced an online scam. You may think this won’t happen to you, but even longtime patrons at The Lincoln Center have been fooled by ticket scammers. The bottom line for staying safe from scammers this time of year is to purchase your gift tickets from the source. For gift-giving tickets to The Lincoln Center, that means purchasing directly from LCtix.com.
Over the past decade, The Lincoln Center Box Office has seen its fair share of heartbreaking stories. Here are just a few of the problems and scams we have seen ruin plans for a night out.
The Concierge/Convenience Fee
Ticket reselling, a practice that is generally legal in Colorado, is often the source of the most common heartbreak that we see. Ticket brokers (A.K.A. resellers) typically spend money on ads to make sure they appear at the top of the search, before The Lincoln Center, on popular search engines. Patrons will click on the search results/ads and then purchase tickets without realizing hefty “convenience” fees are attached.
For example, typing in “Kinky Boots Fort Collins” doesn’t get you the most relevant response, which is The Lincoln Center’s presentation of Kinky Boots. Instead, two or three ticket broker services populate the first few results. What’s worse is that they spoof or mimic our website and in very fine print (to comply with CO law), they add a warning stating they are not the official sellers of the tickets. That warning may resemble the image below.
Buying from these resellers is an easy trap to fall into. The seating maps on their sites are often nearly exact copies of The Lincoln Center. The prices, however, are not. Below is an example of tickets listed on a real broker’s website for Kinky Boots at The Lincoln Center.
The first price listed is only a few cents higher than The Lincoln Center’s actual ticket price, but the second is $30 more expensive. The third price listed is nearly six times that of The Lincoln Center’s. Charging that much for a “convenience fee” may come as a shock to you, especially since these tickets are available directly on The Lincoln Center’s website. Any amount of “work” a patron would put into purchasing tickets from a reseller is nearly identical to the amount of work of buying a ticket directly from The Lincoln Center. That extra “convenience” fee goes straight into the ticket broker/reseller’s pocket.
To add salt to the wound, The Lincoln Center won’t have the patron’s direct contact information to alert them to any important show information, like cancellations or bag-check screenings. Sometimes the ticket broker/reseller sells “tickets” that aren’t compatible with our scanners. When patrons seek help from our Box Office, we often won’t have the patron’s name or seat location in our system, making it very difficult to fix their ticketing problems. This may mean that patrons with broker/reseller tickets might have to re-purchase tickets directly from The Lincoln Center for valid entry. Or, if the show is sold out, the patrons may simply be out their money and any plans they had for the evening.
Fake Tickets
What’s worse than paying the unnecessary and expensive “convenience” fee is paying for seats and not receiving a real ticket. It’s illegal to take people’s money with a promise of providing goods and then fail to deliver those goods, but we see it happen, especially with tickets, all the time. It can be hard to verify that tickets are valid until they are actually used to enter an event. Scammers are aware of this and exploit the situation.
Fake VIP packages
Many customers come to our shows believing they have purchased VIP experiences that were never offered. One heartbreaking example was from a patron who purchased thousands of dollars’ worth of tickets for a private meet-and-greet accompanied by a private limo ride to the show. Unfortunately, these community members did not know they had been scammed until the limo failed to show up. What’s worse, The Lincoln Center could not provide any help because the package never existed.
False Information
Even patrons with legitimate tickets can get confused by information posted on resellers’ websites. When we had Napoleon Dynamite Live, StubHub erroneously listed the show as cancelled. Because StubHub has large sums of money to pay for search engine marketing, the falsely listed “cancelled” information was displayed in search results above the actual Lincoln Center results. This caused the Box Office to field panicked phone calls all day. Unfortunately, because The Lincoln Center cannot control StubHub’s website, we were unable to fix the false information.
In addition, ticket resellers and event aggregators have listed incorrect performance dates and times that The Lincoln Center also has no control over. This has caused many patrons confusion and has led some to miss their scheduled shows.
No show is safe
You might think that ticket brokers/resellers only target national headlining artists with a high demand to exploit, but that is not true. They also target local arts groups, such as Canyon Concert Ballet and Fort Collins Children’s Theater. The prices posted on resellers’ sites can be three to four times the price of tickets on LCtix.com. What’s worse is that the extra money goes into the broker’s pocket, not the community organization that needs it. We’ve even witnessed this happen with dance recitals, leaving parents unable to see their child perform because of fake, highly overpriced tickets.
How to protect yourself
It’s easier than you think to protect yourself. Reading this article was a good first step because being aware of this information is your first line of defense. Next, we recommend that patrons always visit the venue’s website directly to purchase tickets. For The Lincoln Center, that website is LCtix.com.
If you do use a search engine like Google, don’t assume the real venue’s website will display at the top of the search results. If you do follow a search link, be cautious to look for any words in small print that indicate you may be on a reseller’s website, such as reseller/broker, third-party, convenience, and concierge service. If the prices on the site seem too high, there is a good chance they are. If you’re still unsure the site is legitimate, look up the venue’s phone number in a separate search and call them directly.
Also, remember that Google and Google AI are not always trustworthy sources for information about your show. The venue’s website should provide the correct time and date of the show, as well as information about any possible cancellations. Taking this extra step may save you major headaches in the future.
The Lincoln Center Box Office is always happy to assist you with purchasing authentic, scam-free Lincoln Center tickets at face value. If you are in doubt, you can always call the Box Office and check the prices. In fact, it could save both your pocketbook and your night out.
What We Are Doing
While The Lincoln Center cannot control what other organizations post on their websites or what information the Google event calendar displays, we have taken steps to protect our community. When we discover a ticket broker violating Colorado law, we report them as quickly as possible. Often, this de-lists the broker/reseller’s tickets to prevent future patrons from being scammed. Additionally, The Lincoln Center invests in search engine marketing and search engine optimization to keep our venue near the top of all relevant search results. We have also invested in risk assessment software and technologies that detect and prevent suspicious sales to likely scammers.
May your December be bright and cheery! If tickets are on your gift-giving list, please share this article with your family and friends. Protect both your pocketbook and theirs by ensuring the tickets they gift are authentic.