Wick3 said: "I personally think it's a misnomer. They're not 'cancelled' tickets by the average joe since, as you stated, there are no refunds/exchanges. "
That depends on the show. I tell this story here all the time, but on one of my NY visits years ago I had tickets to Wicked, my +1 was sick, my tix were just regular tickets at will call, and the guy in the box office gave me cash for my second ticket, and sold it to the cancellation line. Which I know because I struck up a conversation with the girl in that seat during intermission, and learned about how she got in. I'm sure it helped that there was already a cancellation line formed, and that mine was a center orch ticket, but that was my first experience with oh, no refunds/no exchanges doesn't actually mean no refunds/no exchanges all of the time.