Did The Ticket Grifters Ever Really Go Away?

I remember a few years back that there was some hot debate and displeasure toward a select group of people who would canvas the ingoing lines of Broadway shows and beg or harass people for tickets.

Today, I happened to see one pop up at Jagged Little Pill this afternoon. Although he seemed polite enough, he began to visible annoy the people on line after walking up and down asking for a spare ticket a few times.

Has anyone else seen a resurgence of the ticket grifters lately?

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Someone asked me if I had a ticket to sell outside Tina this past weekend.

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Who said they ever went away? I never stopped seeing them. I know most of them by face, and some of them by name. 

You see them most frequently at Invited Dress rehearsals, because they know that everyone in the audience is seeing the show for free, and therefore if someone had an extra they would automatically get in for free, and wouldn't have to haggle. And yet, while we may be incredulous about the idea of someone giving up their extra ticket for free to an actual performance, they clearly have enough success that they keep doing it.

The most annoying thing they do is that when a show has a standby/cancellation line, they will try to cheat the system by standing outside and trying to intercept people with extra tickets before they forfeit their ticket to the box office. And so if they succeed, that ticket goes to them, instead of going to the people waiting in the cancellation line. 

quizking101 said: "I remember a few years back that there was some hot debate and displeasure toward a select group of people who would canvas the ingoing lines of Broadway shows and beg or harass people for tickets.

Today, I happened to see one pop up at Jagged Little Pill this afternoon. Although he seemed polite enough, he began to visible annoy the people on line after walking up and down asking for a spare ticket a few times.

Has anyone else seen a resurgence of the ticket grifters lately?"

If it was the mature, pony-tailed, bespectacled gent in the baseball cap, he lucked out. A young tourist in front of me gave him a seat in the first row center of the mezzanine. And no, they've never gone away.

More annoying than he was the gentleman who never showed up until the middle of the 2nd act..His seat was dead center in my row so everyone had to get up during a very quietbmoment. His untimely arrival was almost, but not quite, eclipsed by the incessant banging of the heating unit in the front mezzanine wall. And if I heard one phone, I heard at least four more.

I'm glad I had the chance to see it at ART without annoyance.