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Don’t overpay: Local entertainment venues warn of price gouging, scams on secondary sites

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Don’t overpay: Local entertainment venues warn of price gouging, scams on secondary sites

ASHWAUBENON – Buyer beware.

That’s the message from Green Bay-area venues seeing a troubling increase in the number of patrons who are mistakenly buying concert and event tickets from secondary or scalping sites, often with costly and frustrating consequences.

It’s happening more and more often, even as tickets are still available at face value directly from the venues. Customers end up getting price gouged or, far worse, find themselves with fraudulent tickets and little or no recourse.

Representatives from TicketStar, the Resch Center, Meyer Theatre, The Weidner and Ashwaubenon Performing Arts Center held a joint press conference Wednesday at the Resch to remind the public to make sure they know where they are buying their tickets from.

TicketStar, a division of PMI Entertainment Group with its box office in the Resch Center lobby, is the official ticketing agency for events at all four venues. Each of the venue websites take customers directly to the TicketStar site (ticketstaronline.com) to buy tickets. It’s why officials stress it’s a best practice to always start the ticket-buying process with the website of the venue hosting the event.

“For us, we have tickets to events that are not sold out and they are mistakenly going to other sites that really look like our sites, and they’re paying tremendously more money, paying more fees and getting little customer service, because they technically aren’t our customers because they didn’t buy from us,” said Terry Charles, senior manager of corporate communications for PMI Entertainment Group, which manages the Resch Complex.

“They’re frustrated once they realize they paid way more than they should. So one of our key messages today is to please make sure you’re buying from venue websites. Look for the word ‘official.’”

How is it that people get fooled about the ticketing website they’re on?

The confusion often comes in when customers do a quick Google search of the name of the touring act and the city or the name of the act and the venue. When the results come up, sometimes the official Resch Center or TicketStar site is three or four down on the list. Customers click on a site that they think is the venue. Some secondary sites even go so far as to include a photo of the exterior of the venue, which can make things even more confusing.

Don’t search the event name and the venue or city. Start your search with the venue name and go from there.

Then what happens? How does the price gouging come in?

Those secondary sites are buying tickets from TicketStar or the venue sites and then reselling them on their platform at an exaggerated cost. They can also claim to be selling tickets to events that are not even on sale yet.

As an example, Charles pointed out a pair of tickets to Trans-Siberian Orchestra on Nov. 13 at the Resch Center are available for roughly $190 with fees through TicketStar. Those same seats on a secondary site were $470. It’s similar with Mannheim Steamroller playing Dec. 17 at The Weidner: $170 for two vs. $400-plus for two.

Sometimes customers might not even be aware they overpaid for tickets until they talk with the people sitting next to them at the concert. Other times they feel so badly about overpaying they don’t say anything.

“I think the problem is worse than what we even realize, because unless we hear from someone who has an issue, they thought they bought the tickets from us and so they’re overpaying and we don’t even know it, and it’s a lot of money,” Charles said.

It’s not that those sites are necessarily doing anything illegal, but the wording that lets customers know they are on a resale marketplace and not the official ticket site or that prices may be above or below face value is sometimes hidden or easy to miss. Sometimes customers just don’t look closely enough.

“A lot of these are legitimate businesses. They are offering a concierge service. They’re offering the service of you as a customer looking for a ticket. They will go find it for you and so your ticket is face value, but the service they’re offering, they’ve now added $50, $100, $500 on to your total price,” said Kate Williams, executive director of the Ashwaubenon PAC.

Exaggerated ticket prices on secondary sites for events that are not sold out is not just something happening in major markets or for international concert tours and sporting events, she said. She sees it happen at the 700-seat Ashwaubenon PAC.

Such scenarios, however, should not be confused with intentionally going to a reputable secondary site like StubHub to purchase tickets for an event where tickets are no longer available from the venue.

The other risk? Getting stuck with invalid tickets.

With every major event at the Resch Center, Charles said there is usually at least one or more incidents where someone got scammed from a secondary site — the ticket looks real but is fraudulent and has already been scanned.

Charles Edinger, who is director of ticket operations for PMI and TicketStar, shared that for the Styx concert last weekend at the arena, someone purchased eight tickets from Minnesota and resold them, not once, but twice to different parties.

When a customer buys from a secondary site, TicketStar is extremely limited in the customer service it can offer, Charles said. There is no way it can legitimize that ticket.

That leaves venue operators feeling helpless. They try to use those scam situations to educate the consumer about ordering from the venue in the future.

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Watch for these red flags and keep these tips in mind next time you buy.

Always start with the venue website when buying tickets. It will take you directly to the TicketStar site.

The simplest way to know you’re at the right site is to look at the address.

Reschcenter.com, meyertheatre.org, weidnercenter.com and ashwaubenonpac.org are all straightforward. If the address looks funky, be cautious.

People who have been scammed or who overpaid are often convinced that they were on the TicketStar site but were taken to another site. Remember, the TicketStar website will never direct you to a secondary ticket site.

If you’re checking out and the site you’re on isn’t able to give you an assigned seat (unless it’s a general admission event), it’s a red flag.

If the language for tickets is in vague terms like “level 1” or “level 2,” that’s also a red flag. TicketStar deals in specific section, row and seat numbers.

Use social media as a tool. Most venues have Facebook pages that will send you directly to their site. The artist’s website or social media also often have links to get you where you need to go for tickets.

“Listen to your gut,” said Troy Williams, marketing coordinator for The Weidner. “If it feels wrong, if it feels too expensive, it probably is.”

The increase in people overpaying by mistakenly ending up on secondary sites has been increasing in recent years. While most people are purchasing tickets the right way, it is often less experienced people who are having issues, Charles said.

“I think the beast here is what we all do at some point … a general engine search on the web. People are just simply making the wrong choice and paying for it,” Charles said.

Kendra Meinert is an entertainment and feature writer at the Green Bay Press-Gazette. Contact her at 920-431-8347 or kmeinert@greenbay.gannett.com. Follow her on X @KendraMeinert.

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