It’s sad to see that Hamilton producers have opted to raise the price of the best seats in the house so that premium seats will now cost $849 (gulp!) yet offering 46 seats per show at $10 each in same-day lotteries.
They say they’re losing millions of dollars in potential revenue to scalpers, yet haven’t found a way to stave off these bottom feeders who then sell them on the secondary market for whatever they deem viable. Producers claim a rationale in raising the premium price hoping it will take the wind out of the sails of scalpers if they have to pay $849 a ticket and then double or triple the cost.
The scarcity and high price of Hamilton tickets have called new attention to the role of so-called ticket ‘bots’, which resellers use — illegally, in New York — to purchase large numbers of tickets to hit shows via automated software.
Hamilton is sold out thru January 2017 but producers have begun selling tickets for the following 4 months to American Express cardholders and will sell tickets for that same time period to the public after the Tonys.
These new blocks of tickets, that number about 200 in the center orchestra, are the ones that will garner $849 per tix.
The remainder of the house (excluding lottery and numbering around 1075 seats per show) will be sold for $179-$199.