ARE secondary ticket sellers evil leeches, as Hamilton producer believes?

In announcing the rise of "premium" seats at Hamilton to $849 (a record), lead producer Jeffrey Seller told the Times; "What has certainly been frustrating to me, as a business owner, is to see that my product is being resold at many times its face value and my team isn’t sharing in those profits...It's not fair."

Is it unfair to theatergoers too?

Jeffrey Seller sounds like an intensely out of touch asshole in this entire article. He was angry that him and his team weren't partaking in the scalpers profits? He sounds like it's causing him to eat cat food at night because he's not making any money. He's making hundreds of thousands of dollars off this show and it recouped months ago.

This quote is the most asinine thing I've: "By raising prices, he said, “In some ways, we’re taking from the rich to give to the poor, because there’s no question those premiums are subsidizing those $10 tickets.”

Please, once again, the other $475 premium tickets couldn't subsidize another 20 $10 tickets? He sounds like we should all bow before him for putting more tickets at lottery price. Now we have 1/10,000 chances to win one of 44 tickets instead of 22 tickets.

Pricing tickets at $849 isn't going to stop scalpers. It's only stopping people who could maybe afford to pay the $485 (again, still a crazy price for ANY SHOW). If anyone sees Jeffrey soon, please slap some sense into him.

I think secondary ticket sellers certainly have a right to do what they do... if people want to pay a premium to secure hard-to-get tickets, and they want to pay to not have to wait to see the show, they should be able to do so.

The issue with Hamilton tickets is that through bot-assisted mass purchasing, the secondary market has grown to the point that it is competing directly with the official sources of tickets. People who don't want to pay a premium to ensure they get tickets they like are being limited that chance.

Seller's solution seems to be rather than limiting the secondary market's ability to acquire mass amounts of stock, hiking up prices to be comparable with the secondary market. Which seems to be missing the point.

Seriously, Sellers made a great decision once (taking on Hamilton) and then everything he has done since has done nothing but convince me that he is the evil leech.

sundaymourning6am said: "Jeffrey Seller sounds like an intensely out of touch asshole in this entire article. He was angry that him and his team weren't partaking in the scalpers profits? He sounds like it's causing him to eat cat food at night because he's not making any money. He's making hundreds of thousands of dollars off this show and it recouped months ago.

This quote is the most asinine thing I've: "By raising prices, he said, “In some ways, we’re taking from the rich to give to the poor, because there’s no question those premiums are subsidizing those $10 tickets.”

Please, once again, the other $475 premium tickets couldn't subsidize another 20 $10 tickets? He sounds like we should all bow before him for putting more tickets at lottery price. Now we have 1/10,000 chances to win one of 44 tickets instead of 22 tickets.

Pricing tickets at $849 isn't going to stop scalpers. It's only stopping people who could maybe afford to pay the $485 (again, still a crazy price for ANY SHOW). If anyone sees Jeffrey soon, please slap some sense into him. "

You're entitled to your opinion of how this article makes Seller sound. And I am entitled to mine.

It is my opinion that your comment makes you sound like a whiny, out of touch child. Seller isn't saying he's poor or eating cat food. His issue is that scalpers, who didn't put any of their own money into funding the hit show, are profiting off ticket sales, making it harder for the public to access tickets. If tickets are going to go for a higher price, Seller and his team have every right to claim those profits before the scalpers do. Hamilton is his baby, Hamilton is his show. The profits should be his too.

And you have the nerve to complain about Seller increasing the lotto seats by over 100%. I'm thankful enough to have the opportunity to get one of the 21 tickets. The news that there will be 46 is incredible! 10,000 entrants for 21 seats: if you and a partner enter for every performance, that averages out to you winning the lotto once every two years (if you each enter for 2 tickets). 10,000 entrants for 46 makes that about winning once a year... not so bad, and surely better than you having no chance at all if Seller decided to sell those first two rows for $849 too. So yes, if you want to see Hamilton that badly be a little grateful that there are more lottery seats available at that price.

He's really just deploying a variation on the strategy that The Producers team used when they created Premium Seat pricing that was eventually adopted by all the shows (and kept in place when theatre owners hiked the rents wanting their cut of the profits ).

These ticket resales have always been around and even more common with concerts and sporting events. Outlawing the practice would be a Herculean task that would have to address all types of ticket resales. Just sorting out the jurisdictions would be a nightmare as well as justifying the regulation on the age-old capitalist venture of secondary markets. The producers could try a "not for resale" contractual clause on the ticket, but good luck with trying to track and litigate offenders which would be at the legal cost of the producers.

macnyc said: "Sellers can put a lid on the whole scalping business just by not allowing Ticketmaster to resell. It's at his discretion. Yes, people would still be able to resell on StubHub and Craigslist and other sites, but TM is the main engine of the frenzy. It's just so easy to put tickets up for sale there for price you want. And buyers like the guarantee that the tickets are genuine and they won't be turned away at the door. (StubHub has a guarantee, too, of course, to reimburse your money if the tickets are fake, but it's much better to actually know the tickets are real.)"

THANK YOU for bringing up the Ticketmaster resell option.

The prices tickets are fetching on the secondary market is what the public has deemed they are worth. Sellers is simply reacting to the market given that they've been underpriced. As the risk bearing entity, I don't see what's so evil about wanting to capitalize on that.

And eliminating the Ticketmaster resale feature isn't going to stop someone else from capitalizing on how in demand this show is.

Sellers can put a lid on the whole scalping business just by not allowing Ticketmaster to resell. It's at his discretion.

Any knowledgeable speculation as to WHY they haven't done this? Surely that would make the tickets less appealing to the bot buyers.

sundaymourning6am said: "@MyLife who said you weren't entitled to you opinion?

Oh, please tell me about how Jeffrey Seller took a HUGE RISK. It wasn't like Hamilton had sold-out run at the Public, or a well known writer/star, or cancellation lines every night at the Public. He should be coddled and showered in cash, and the finest of meats (why not?), for the risk he took. Where's the statue for his bravery? Let's throw him a parade. It's not like he's not a millionaire many times over from Rent either.

Jeffrey Seller used to be all about making theatre accessible (Rent) to those who wouldn't be able to afford full priced tickets. Now he's doing the opposite. I was able to buy two orchestra seats for $199 on whatever day the AMEX pre-sale happened. I will be right next to the fools who paid $849, too. After I see the show, I can be done with it, happy to have seen it as I'm sure it's quite enjoyable, and never give it another thought.

I'm not calling Seller a greedy d*** because I can't see the show, because luckily I have the means to buy the "cheap" tickets, I'm calling him a greedy d*** because he seems to have lost all of original morals. He doesn't want to bring young people to the theatre anymore. He just wants to make his bottom line bigger.

Ah, capitalism.



"

if the prices were cheaper all the bots would literally buy them and sell them for monstrous amount of money. That is what has been happening... Rent didn't have this problem and was not selling anywhere near as much and came out before the internet. In fact i would say a big reason for Rent popularity was because of the $20 lottery tickets and cheaper prices.

I do think Seller is a little greedy and exploiting Hamilton as money making machine. But he did expand the number of lottery tickets and people forget that 20,000 NYC kids are seeing this for 10.00



how do you think he can make is so young people can afford to see Hamilton? There is literally no way....

I think Seller is an extremely smart man who knows what he's doing. I admire that he takes on projects that aren't obviously commercially appealing and then helps to make them so.

The fact is, these are the prices that people have been willing to pay to see the show. It will absolutely hinder scalpers. Scalpers wont be able to sell the tickets for much more than those premium prices.

Jason Danieley has a GREAT Facebook post about this right now.

Jason's post: https://www.facebook.com/JDanieley/posts/555838991267391