So you want to buy a ticket to see Phantom of the Opera at the Aronoff Center for the Arts, where a new touring production of the perennial favorite arrives Tuesday and stays through Nov. 27. Innocently enough, you do a Google search for “Aronoff Center” to see what’s available on opening night and for how much.
A list of entries pops up and you click on the first because it looks official — it has “Aronoff Center” in its name. You casually click on your selections and find a good seat in the Orchestra Front Right section — the price early this week was $136, with a $40.80 service charge and a $7.50 instant-download fee. That seems high.
But this isn’t the official ticket office for the Aronoff — it’s a ticket re-seller with a domain name that mimics what you’re searching for, and whose service charge is significantly higher than the Aronoff’s. Once you open it up, it prominently states that “We are a resale marketplace, not a box office or venue. Ticket prices may exceed face value. This site is not owned by Aronoff Center.’’
But it also has several Aronoff-like features in its design that might make you think you’re visiting the official site if you don’t read carefully, especially if you are unfamiliar with the concept of a secondary, speculative market for tickets to major events.
It is one of the “copycat” sites that re-sells Aronoff tickets that it has bought or will buy, says John Harig, director of ticketing services for Cincinnati Arts Association, the nonprofit that oversees the management operations of the Aronoff Center (and Music Hall). The Cincinnati Arts Association has had enough problems with these that it has just started a new community education program on the subject. As of now, the showcase of the campaign is the Be Smart. . . Be Safe! short animated film, playing on the official Aronoff Center site, Facebook, on screen before major events at the Aronoff and more.
“We want people to recognize the copycat sites,” Harig says. “There’s a lot of deception in those sites. The whole secondary market is not deceiving — there are some very upfront ones that say, ‘We’re selling tickets not available anymore at a premium.’ But there are ones that try to be the Aronoff Center, or to be the act.”
If you go to the official Aronoff site — which is fifth on the list, after three others with similar mimicking traits and are advertising on Google — you’ll find a seat in the same section to be $89-$119 with a service charge ranging from $13.15-$14.75. The official site also lists the number of overall unsold seats remaining for each Phantom show, helpful for advance planning. (You can also purchase by phone at 513-621-2787 or in person during box office hours; in-person buyers have no service charge and can park in front of the Aronoff for 10 minutes.)
The situation is complicated by the fact that the Aronoff Center’s official site is cincinnatiarts.org/aronoff, so unless you know what the Cincinnati Arts Association is, your eye may pass over it if you’re scanning an online list quickly.
“That’s something we have to overcome, because we are Cincinnati Arts Association,” Harig says. “We’re not going to change our name.”
Harig cautions that the mimicking ticket brokers may not always have the specific ticket they are offering to sell. It depends on supply and demand. “The speculative buyers will sell you a ticket and then figure out how to fulfill the order,” he says. “They may get it from a buddy in the business; they may get it from us.”
Harig isn’t that worried when events officially sell out and people who still want to attend go to the secondary market.
“It’s when you’re suckered in and you don’t know it — that’s what gets us,” he says. “That creates ill will among potential patrons.”
As a hypothetical example of how that creates ill will toward the Aronoff, Harig mentions what might happen if someone unintentionally uses such a site to get a ticket for the touring production of The Little Mermaid, coming to the Aronoff from Jan. 17-29, 2017. “Someone says, ‘I am going because my daughter wants to see The Little Mermaid, but I’m never going again.’ Our relationship with our guests, our customers, is very important to us and we want to be able to have that relationship.” ©
This article appears in Nov 9-16, 2016.
