We are looking to implement TPAHTS at BAM and have been having philosophical discussions about whether it makes sense to offer this service on very popular shows. The worry is that if the show is expected to sell out there may be more opportunity for scalpers to re-sell many print at home tickets since they are so easy to duplicate. In order to avoid a mess at the front-of-house it has been presented as a desire to be able to "turn off" PAH for these shows.
1. Is this even possible?
2. Have you/your organization done this?
3. Do you have good or bad experiences with scalped PAHTs that you care to share?
Thanks so much all!
Hello,
Do you use scanners for your tickets at the door? If so, even if scalpers try to copy the tickets the front of house staff will know that the tickets have already been used. I believe we also have a cap on the number of tickets that can be purchased online via print at home. The PAHT can also fail if the order is too big and the attached PDF too large for the patron’s inbox.
We have been pushing people to use print at home for a few years and it has streamlined our box office workload.
Gabriela
Thanks, Gabriela!
We do use N-Scan at our doors.
I guess it's not as much scalpers (who are selling tickets at a higher price than face value) that we're worried about but the people who would try to sell counterfeit tickets by copying our PAH design. Have you had much incident of that?
Hi Christina,
No, I don't believe that we've encountered any ticket counterfeiting. Last year we produced The Iceman Cometh and we did completely sell out of tickets. Occasionally we would have patrons calling the Box Office asking about listings they found on Craiglist. Since we could not guarantee their authenticity we would strongly discourage people from buying tickets from 3rd parties.
In the end, I don't believe our Front of House staff had to deal with fake tickets.
Hope that helps!