Before Ravinia Festival publicly announced that rap artist Snoop Dogg was joining its summer lineup, unverified tickets were being sold for more than triple the face value. Charted on an outdated seating map weeks before the official on-sale date, these deceptive listings falsely suggested the performance was almost sold out.
Last fall, rock musician Billy Corgan brought “A Night of Mellon Collie and Infinite Sadness” to the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Enthusiastic fans snapped up premium seats on third-party sites, only to later discover their tickets were fake due to unauthorized resale.
Just blocks away at the Auditorium Theatre, a similar scene played out: A group of friends arrived, excited to see Sting. But when their tickets were scanned, they learned they were invalid — having been duplicated across multiple buyers.
Each winter, the Joffrey Ballet welcomes 75,000 guests from around the country for the beloved holiday classic “The Nutcracker.” This season, a couple arrived to take their front-row seats, only to find the heavily marked-up tickets they’d purchased online were actually for the rear of the balcony.
These are not isolated events. Chicago’s premier presenters, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association, the Harris Theater and countless other performing arts organizations, regularly experience similar issues.
The common thread among these accounts is speculative ticketing, a deceptive practice in which third-party sellers list tickets they do not actually own or possess. Highly sophisticated sellers disguise these tactics in many forms: manufacturing a false sense of urgency for seats that haven’t even gone on sale, peddling invalid or duplicated QR codes, or promising seat numbers to be revealed later. No matter the method, every variation of this practice harms audiences, artists, venues and the live entertainment industry.
That is why this week, House Bill 4984 goes to the Illinois Senate for a vote. Championed by state Rep. Nabeela Syed, 51st District, and state Sen. Steve Stadelman, 34th District, the bill legally bans the sale of tickets not in a seller’s possession and has already earned unanimous, bipartisan support in the House.
As cultural institutions in Chicago, we recognize that our success is based on trust, perhaps even more than the art itself. Every time an audience member purchases a ticket to any performance across our city, they are entering into a simple agreement: The seat they paid for will be there when the show begins.
Increasingly, that trust is being broken. Consumers believe they are purchasing legitimate admission, but in reality, they are paying for nothing more than the possibility that a seller might later secure a seat on their behalf — and often not the specific one they selected and paid for.
Because fans rarely realize they have been deceived until they arrive at our doors, it creates an immediate operational crisis for our venues and front-line staff. Just before showtime, panicked patrons often discover they have no way to reach customer service or request refunds. Venues frequently take a financial hit to salvage a fan’s experience by absorbing the cost of replacement tickets. Most critically, these experiences inflict lasting reputational harm, undermining the relationship between our organizations and our audiences, and threatening the likelihood that a guest will ever return.
Chicago’s robust artistic offerings are at the heart of what makes this city so special. The ability for locals and tourists alike to walk out their doors and choose from world-class operas, orchestras, ballets, plays and concerts is a gift — one our organizations do not take for granted.
Our institutions are collectively dedicated to protecting that experience for the entire community, and we urge the legislature to support this bill. We must ensure Chicago’s vital arts legacy continues, not only on our stages but in the systems that make those experiences possible.
Live performance should be a source of joy and inspiration, never uncertainty.
Lori Dimun is president and CEO of the Harris Theater. Jeff Haydon is president and CEO of Ravinia Festival. John Mangum is general director, president and CEO of the Lyric Opera of Chicago. Rich Regan is CEO of the Auditorium Theatre.
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