Can someone explain why they hold back tickets?

Ok, I'm relatively inexperienced in buying broadway tickets, but I have bought many a concert / show ticket over the years. I have been looking at and will buying tickets for several shows in the upcoming weeks. Its clearly obvious that ticketmaster (not sure about telecharge, but I think its similar) hold back tickets despite them saying tickets are onsale. For example, ground hog day, I have looked at tickets for several dates around the time we will be in NY. For every single show the same tickets show up as not available. Its clear that these seats have not been purchased as its the same seats for every show. IE entire front row of center mezz, any orchestra left/right seats on the aisle below row O etc. Can anyone explain why this is the case? Thank you

Other possible reasons:

1. House Seats held for producers

2. Seats allocated for premium access programs

3. Seats held for lottery or rush

4. Seats sold to tour operators

5. Blocks of tickets purchased by "Bots" for resale sites

In the long run, producers can reduce blocks of tickets to manage supply / demand. Hamilton producers have managed this beautifully. Also, they have reversed some sales of "reseller" seats and put them back on the market at face value.

They are holding them to sell as Premium, and waiting to assess demand before selling them too cheaply.

ahh.....so there are forces at work here :)

Thank you for explaining. Looks like it is what it is......

I work in ticketing at a large theater. We hold tickets back for a lot of reasons:

- the production wants us to, for production comps, VIP guests, press, photographers, creative team, etc

- they are seats owned by subscribers or are being held to be sold only as subscription seats

- there is going to be rush, lottery, or another discount offer for particular seats

- we expect many large groups to be interested in a particular show

- in times of extremely high demand, box office, the website, and the order by phone system will all have seats they have exclusive access to and seats they do not have access to

- if we expect prices to fluctuate shortly after tickets go onsale

- we hold upper balcony until the cheaper seats in the orchestra have sold well so we don't have an empty orchestra and packed upper balcony

- other reasons i am not privy to

qolbinau said: "GhostXmasPast said: "Other possible reasons:

1. House Seats held for producers

2. Seats allocated for premium access programs

3. Seats held for lottery or rush

4. Seats sold to tour operators

5. Blocks of tickets purchased by "Bots" for resale sites

In the long run, producers can reduce blocks of tickets to manage supply / demand. Hamilton producers have managed this beautifully. Also, they have reversed some sales of "reseller" seats and put them back on the market at face value.



"

Can you speak a bit more about what Hamilton did to manage supply/demand? To me it seems like they had a very difficult situation and had too much demand and not enough supply haha.





"

I'm guessing the Hamilton producers checked the resale websites and revoked the tickets which were being jacked up from the original value. (obviously, the producers have a clause in the sale of the tickets that they can revoke the validity of the ticket forany reason). then, they resell it at its original face value. since there is such a high demand for those tickets, it will get snatched up pretty soon anyway.

Updated On: 11/11/16 at 03:02 AM

I remember that the Hamilton people clawed back tickets from buyers who violated the ticket limits that had been posted on Ticketmaster and put them back on sale. But why would reselling tickets for a higher price on another site be forbidden? It's legal in NYS.

Producers get a cut of tickets resold on Ticketmaster. So it's in their best interest to get all the reseller tickets back to they can do it themselves.