Reprinting tickets at the theater?

[TonyVincent]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 8:12am

I bought two tickets to tonight's MASTER CLASS at the box office a couple weeks ago. I just got to work, and, well, the tickets didn't make it into my bag. I have the credit card I purchased the tickets with, and of course my ID. Obviously no online confirmation since I purchased them in person.

Does anyone have experience with having box offices reprint tickets? Should I be OK showing up to the theater an hour early with my cards, or do I need to plan to get out of work a couple hours early to retrieve them from home? Thanks.

[frogs_fan85]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 9:03am

If you have your credit card and photo ID you should be fine. They'll just void out the bar code on the original tickets and reprint new ones for you.

[TonyVincent]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 3:12pm

Thanks. If anyone else has any supporting/conflicting info, please let me know.

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 3:14pm

You should be ok with credit card that you used to purchase the tickets.

When my mom came in from out of town to see the Music Man revival at the Neil Simon Theater, when we got to theater, I said "ok mom where are the tickets they mailed you" and she said "I had to bring those? I didnt know we need to bring anything!" And I thought our night was ruined, but I went to the window and they reprinted them no questions asked.

A few years ago I took a group of students to see Phantom at the Majestic. To help the ushers, I photocopied the tickets for the last seat and the first seat in our row. The only problem was, I left those two tickets on the copy machine glass at school. I thought I'd have to take one of the kids and go see something else, but the box office staff just printed out two new tickets for me, thank goodness.

[PlayhouseBeauty]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 3:54pm

I had the same problem when I went to see Rent at the Nederlander. I was seeing a few shows that weekend and thought I had printed out all my tickets from ticketmaster but I accidently printed out 2 sets of tickets for a different show. When I realized this I quickly ran to the box office, feeling the tears start to well up in my eyes, and then spewing the whole story out to the box office attendant in less than 10 seconds. The Box Office attendant was so sweet and first calmed me down and said re printing the tickets would not be a problem he just needed to see my ID.

[Calvin]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 3:57pm

Should not be any problem at all. I walked out of my apartment with the wrong tickets once, and they reprinted with the credit card info.

It's when it's TDF tickets or such you're screwed. I got really lucky one time. It was one of those extremely rare occasions in which the tickets were mailed and weren't to be picked up at the box office that day. I didn't realize this until I went to pick up the tickets about 30 minutes before the show started, not enough time to get home and back. I somehow still had the tickets sitting in an unopened mail pile at my apt. I called my roommate, told me what the tickets' seats were and they reprinted them for me at the box office a few minutes before the show started (making sure I wasn't just making the whole thing up!).
Updated On: 8/2/11 at 03:57 PM

[sergio_27]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 4:22pm

That happened to me on my first trip to New York. I left my hotel early in the morning without the tickets, and then I realized that I wasn't going to have enough time to go back and get them.

I went to the Box Office at New World Stages and a very nice lady helped me out. The difficult part was saying to her that I had tickets for Naked Boys Singing. :P

[ahhrealmonsters]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 6:27pm

You'll be fine. I work at a box office, an it's very common. Mainly people order online and don't print the tickets. As long as you paid with a credit card, your ticket purchase is in the system under your name/that card, so they can easily retrieve them.

It actually happened once when I was seeing a show at B.B. King's. There was no option to pick the tickets up at the box office, and they weren't mailed on time. Since it was via a third party, it was slightly more difficult. I had to call Ticketmaster and they gave me a code to give to the box office. I don't remember all the details, but it was a strung-out process.

That being said, you'll be fine. That's why I don't buy ahead with cash. Always use a CC when buying ahead.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 6:31pm

Calvin, I had a similar(ish) situation with TDF tickets once. I almost always bring my printed confirmation out with me to the box office, but one time I forgot to. Of course, this was also the one time my reservation happened to be lost. Luckily, it was a show at a smaller Off-Broadway company (Transport Group, maybe), and the box office attendant let me come back there and use the house computer to access my TDF account and show him my confirmation voucher.

I've never left the house without my confirmation voucher since.

[redmustang]

Posted: 8/2/11 at 7:07pm

I did a stupid thing once. Was in NY for the week and had a ticket for every night but Wed. On Wed. we decided to try to get tickets for Bernadette's Annie Get Your Gun. Went to the ticket window mid- afternoon, the guy behind the window was showing me seats in rows MM, TT, far L, far R, I like to sit close so I couldn't decide. Then he said," I do have 2 tickets 7th row center. They belong to a cast member and he wants cash for them." I nearly fainted. So I got to see a great performance of Annie Get Your Gun. Thur. night, went to see Amy's View with Judi Dench. Got into our balcony seats. At 5 minutes till curtain, another couple said we had their seats. The usher examined both sets of tickets and told me my tickets were for Wed. night. The night I saw Bernadette. The usher told me where to find the manager in the lobby, we raced down, found him and he remedied my mistake. We got to sit on 2 folding chairs in a mezz. cross-aisle. Quite a bit closer to the stage, and they even held the curtain!

[Vespertine1228]

Posted: 8/3/11 at 12:32pm

The nice thing about having a smartphone is you always have the e-mail with your order number on you.

[Calvin]

Posted: 8/3/11 at 12:47pm

AC, even the confirmation printout won't always help you with TDF. At show I was talking about (I can't even remember what it was -- maybe The Farnsworth Invention?), a lady showed up with her printed confirmation and they weren't able to help her. Apparently they have a listing of which tickets were sold by TDF, but they have no way of knowing which tickets went to which members. The only way I was able to get my tickets was by knowing the exact seat I had.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/3/11 at 12:50pm

I know. I wish that TDF would do away with mailing tickets altogether, because there always seem to be a handful of people who never realize that the tickets were mailed. And they always mail them in a plain brown envelope with no insignia, so it could easily be mistaken for junk mail and thrown away.

[ahhrealmonsters]

Posted: 8/3/11 at 1:13pm

RE: TDF. They fax (yes, fax) the names and number of tickets for each performance. They don't give us any more information (confirmation numbers, e-mail addresses, etc.) Due to technology, we don't always get the fax, so there's really no way to tell. It can be an annoying system, but the TDF employees can be quite helpful.

[AC126748]

Posted: 8/3/11 at 1:19pm

I'm aware that's how the system works. That's why I say you should always bring your printed confirmation voucher with you. That way, if your name gets left off the fax for whatever reason (as mine did), you still have the official piece of paper that states that you ordered tickets to that performance. As I said, the one time it happened, the box office attendant couldn't have been more helpful.