Ticket price

“ The box-office price of a ticket for a single performance is $3, and even if the demand should not happen to be as immense as to warrant a long advance on the box-office tariff, McBride can sell his tickets at the regular price of $3 apiece and get the sum of $10,080 for them, which will leave him a profit of nearly $3,000 upon his short investment. ”

“ A virtual monopoly of the best seats, usually the first 15 rows, is thus acquired, and the brokers are enabled to demand extortionate prices of theater goers. Producers and theater proprietors are eager to make these advance sales, which are an effective insurance against loss arising from unsuccessful productions. The brokers are in a position to prevent the direct purchase of tickets to the desirable seats and to exact from the patrons of the successful productions a price sufficient to pay the loss of those which are unsuccessful, plus an excessive profit to the broker. ”

“ If the actress is ill, and cannot appear, the one who has paid the price of admission is entitled to have it refunded, because his consideration has failed. One, however, who had bought a ticket days beforehand, who had gone to great expense on account of the performance in the way of carriage-hire, who had suffered great disappointment through the postponement, might doubtless recover against the maker of the ticket in an action of contract, in which his damages might well exceed the price he had paid for his ticket. ”

“ The money paid for the tax is not identified at the outset but is paid with the price of the ticket that belongs to the owner of the show. We see no ground for requiring the ticket office of a theatre to create a separate fund by laying aside the amount of the tax on each ticket and to keep it apart, either in a strong box or as a separate deposit in a bank. ”

“ Nobody will be allowed to buy more than one ticket. The price will be twenty-five cents! That sum will buy one Ideal Meal. The ticket not only will entitle the holder thereof to admission to Madison Square Garden, but it will also carry a coupon worth ten thousand dollars in cash! ”

“ The most that can be said is that the theater and other places of entertainment, generally have been regarded as of high value to the people, to be encouraged, but, at the same time, regulated, within limits already stated. While theaters have existed for centuries and have been regulated in a variety of ways, and while price fixing by legislation is an old story, it does not appear that any attempt hitherto has been made to fix their charges by law. ”

“ Plenty of placards, the plan of the church showing the number and position of each seat, a table of prices, and behind a little grated window a bearded old woman for the tickets,—nothing is wanting. One has only to choose one’s place, to pay the price down, and to take away the ticket. ”

“ Happily for all, the fundamental guaranties of the Constitution cannot be freely submerged if and whenever some ostensible justification is advanced and the police power invoked.'
The evil of collusive alliances between the proprietors of theaters and ticket brokers or scalpers seems to have been effectively dealt with in Illinois by an ordinance which required (1) that the price of every theater ticket shall be printed on its face and (2) that no proprietor, employee, etc., of a theater shall receive or enter into any arrangement or agreement to receive more. ”

“ Of all those expensive and uncertain projects, however, which bring bankruptcy upon the greater part of the people who engage in them, there is none, perhaps, more perfectly ruinous than the search after new silver and gold mines. It is, perhaps, the most disadvantageous lottery in the world, or the one in which the gain of those who draw the prizes bears the least proportion to the loss of those who draw the blanks; for though the prizes are few, and the blanks many, the common price of a ticket is the whole fortune of a very rich man. ”

“ When Anna Dickinson wants to visit a theatre in New York she invariably buys her tickets of Tyson, who charges her $2 for a $1.50 seat. So it is with a good many other people, particularly the rich and reckless down-town brokers, who purchase their tickets during the day, and who, rather than take the trouble to send a messenger away up to the theatre they intend to visit, go to the speculator’s branch office and pay the advance demanded for whatever they want. There are only a few regular ticket-speculators in New York. ”

“ More impressive still than the extreme radiance about her was the easy and superb gesture of Louis as, swinging the reticule containing pineapple, cocoa, and cutlets, he slid his hand into his pocket and drew therefrom a coin and smacked it on the wooden ledge of the ticket-window—gesture of a man to whom money was naught provided he got the best of everything. "Two!" he repeated, with slight impatience, bending down so as to see the young woman in white who sat in another world behind gilt bars. He was paying for Rachel! Exquisite experience for the daughter and sister of Fleckrings! ”

“ Owing to the unlimited time for which tickets are available, and to other causes, a race of dealers in railway tickets has sprung up, who rejoice in the euphonious name of "scalpers," and often do a roaring trade in selling tickets at less than regular fares. Thus, if the fare from A to B be $10 and the return fare $15, it is often possible to obtain the half of a return ticket from a scalper for about $8. Or a man setting out for a journey of 100 miles buys a through ticket to the terminus of the line, which may be 400 miles distant. ”

“ They show, as I think, clearly, that the ticket brokers, by virtue or arrangements which they make with the theater owners, ordinarily acquire an absolute control of the most desirable seats in the theaters, by which they deprive the public of access to the theaters themselves for the purpose of buying such tickets at the regular prices, and are enabled to exact an extortionate advance in prices for the sale of such tickets to the public. ”

“ Section 1534, Penal Law (as added by Laws 1921, c. 12) , makes it a misdemeanor for brokers to sell tickets on the street. Acts and Resolves of Mass. 1924, c. 497, controlling resale of tickets with maximum brokerage charges similar to the New York statute was approved in Opinion of Justices, 247 Mass. 597, 143 N. E. 808. Pub. Acts Conn. 1923, c. 48; New Jersey Laws 1923, c. 71; Penal Code Cal. § 526, make it a misdemeanor to sell tickets in excess of the printed price. The California Act was declared unconstitutional in Ex parte Quarg, 149 Cal. ”

“ In addition, the tip or extra fee increases the cost of the ticket, errors in "duplicate sales" are made more frequent, and a critical and unfriendly feeling is created in the mind of the passenger who has been unable to secure a "lower" on early application at the ticket office, but was able perhaps to secure one at train time from the unused tickets turned in by hotel porters. Naturally the feeling is created that the railroad or Pullman agents are holding back space for a tip or a favorite, and "playing favorites" is never popular with the public. ”

“ It serves a threefold purpose: it is evidence in the passenger’s hands that he has paid his fare and has a right within the cars; it insures the payment of the passage money by all who take seats, and when it is redelivered to the company it becomes a voucher in its hands, against the office or agent who issued it, in the adjustment of its accounts.”
This is a singularly inaccurate description of a railroad ticket; which, whatever else it may be, is certainly the property of the holder, and not of the railroad company. ”

“ Within this little window, like a pay-box at a theatre, a neat and brisk young woman presided to take money and issue tickets. Every one coming in must take a ticket. Either the fourpence-halfpenny ticket for the upper room (the most popular ticket, I think) , or a penny ticket for a bowl of soup, or as many penny tickets as he or she choose to buy. ”

“ IN THE LOTTERY 1751, IT IS
The writer says, I would beg the favour of all gentlemen, tradesmen, and others, to take the pains to explain to such as any way depend upon their judgment, that one must buy no less than seven tickets to have an even chance for any prize at all; that with only one ticket, it is six to one, and with half a ticket, twelve to one against any prize; and ninety-nine or a hundred to one that the prize, if it comes, will not be above fifty pounds; and no less than thirty-five thousand to one that the owner of a single ticket will not obtain one of the greatest prizes. ”

“ You see, we sold a five-coupon ticket for a quarter, and we had to slice off a section for every fare, with a candle-snuffer arrangement, the check droppin’ into a little box on the under jaw of the nippers. All we had to do was to “build up” on ’em. You held back a lot of clipped tickets, with two or three or four coupons left, as the case might be, and you kept ’em underneath the bunch of regular tickets for sale. Say a man handed you a whole ticket for two fares. You made a bluff at cuttin’ it, and handed him back a three-coupon ticket from underneath your rubber band. ”

“ Appellant is engaged in the business of reselling tickets of admission to theaters and other places of entertainment in the city of New York. It employs a large number of salesmen, messenger boys and others. Its expenses are very large, and its sales average approximately 300,000 tickets per annum. These tickets are obtained either from the box office of the theater or from other brokers and distributors. ”

“ As to fares, we learn from the "Guide" that they fluctuate according to day or night or the number of passengers in a carriage. The fare from London to Birmingham was thirty-two shillings and sixpence first class, but if six travelled inside by day the tariff was reduced to thirty shillings, and a similar reduction for second-class passengers. Now that the season-ticket system is so widespread and familiar, the reader learns with some amazement that "An annual subscription ticket from London to Brighton and back is £100." ”

“ If you people who are hoping you can get your tickets in time to go to Springfield will let me cut in ahead of you out of my turn and get my ticket, I will buy tickets for all of you with this ten dollar bill in thirty seconds, and you can get your tickets of me on the train, and in this way we will all catch it. ”

“ This explains why, for many years past, the ordinary price of pit tickets at the libraries and at shops of all kinds in the vicinity of the Opera, has been only eight shillings and six-pence. No one but a foreigner or a countryman, inexperienced in the ways of London, would think of paying ten shillings and six-pence at the theatre for admission to the pit; indeed, it is a species of deception to continue that charge at all, though it certainly does happen once or twice in a great many years that the public profit by the establishment of a fixed official price for pit tickets. ”

“ By the time each auditor has adjusted himself as well as his bodily bulk will permit to the impossible seats behind the tippy shelves, a man comes to sell him a ticket and to take it up with one and the same motion. Prices are not high, sixty to eighty coppers at most, including the percentage that is almost sure to be added out of respect for his alien condition; even in the Westernized theater within the Tartar City a seat anywhere in the pit or parquet rarely reaches the height of a “Mex” dollar. ”

“ As the ticket only means passage money, and the traveller is charged, as in an hotel, for what he eats and drinks, he, at any rate, is not tormented by the thought that he has paid for that which he has not received. ”

“ In this very place, we are half-distracted by the speculators. They have been holding out for such high prices, that the public have held out too; and now (frightened at what they have done) the speculators are trying to sell their worst seats at half the cost price, so that we are in the ridiculous situation of having sold the room out, and yet not knowing what empty seats there may be. We could sell at our box-office to any extent; but we can't buy back of the speculators, because we informed the public that all the tickets were gone. ”

“ So great is the demand for tickets that many people are able to sell theirs at double the price, which they frequently do, preferring the extra money to the music; whilst cunning speculators buy up quantities of tickets and make a profitable deal with them. ”

“ The murmurs grew, and with them ringing in my ears, by degrees it dawned upon me what had been pretty clearly dinned into me—namely, that I had bought my place in the queue, and not my place in the theatre.
So, as people were beginning to hustle me in a threatening fashion, I drew a six-francs piece from my pocket and asked for a pit ticket. They gave me four francs six sous, and a ticket which had been white. It was time! I was immediately carried away by a wave of the crowd. I presented my once white ticket to the check-taker: they gave me in exchange a ticket that had been red. ”

“ It is so everywhere. I apologize for disturbing a ticket agent long enough to sell me a ticket, and he tries to jump through a little brass wicket and throttle me. Other men come in and say: "Give me a ticket for Bandoline, O., and be dam sudden about it, too," and they get their ticket and go aboard the car and get the best seat, while I am begging for the opportunity to buy a seat at full rates and then ride in the wood-box. ”

“ Although, I believe, it has been held by some courts that the increased rate cannot be collected unless every proper and reasonable facility has been afforded for procuring tickets at the station; [408] and that if a man, without [Pg 139] any default on his part, is prevented getting a ticket, he may pay the conductor the excess of fare under protest, and recover it back by suit, or else he may insist upon being taken at ticket rate, and sue for damages if the company refuse. ”