I am looking for any information on how other venues handle broker sales. Do you embrace it? Deny sales to the brokers? Refund money and cancel sales if found out? Any policies, procedures that can be shared would be appreciated! Also, how do you communicate any policies and procedures about this? Thank you!
Hi Denise,
Here at The 5th Avenue Theatre we place a constituency on the record that tells us they are a broker. We are able to tell they are by the addresses and email addresses they use. We will inactivate their login credentials as well so they can't use that account to purchase again.
We have a document printed that we hand to our guests if they happen to have a ticket that scans as already entered because it's one of those multi-copied print-at-home tickets. It advises them how to go about disputing the charges with their bank. We also advise anyone who has secondary market tickets that we cannot refund or exchange those tickets and we advise them we cannot guarantee the validity of the tickets. We still try to get them into the show by offering a reduced price on tickets or comps, if we are able.
It's not a perfect system but it has helped us track broker purchased tickets and be ready for problems.
Chris Cuhel
The 5th Avenue Theatre