Tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are hard to come by. The initial sales saw thousands lining up around the box office. Further rounds of ticket sales are for seats for the production at least twelve months away. And other tickets are being sold through secondary websites many times above their face value.
According to The Guardian, one case reported is of a ticket that cost £140 (around $190) going for an eye-watering £8,327 (above $10,000.)
U.K. laws about selling on tickets are vague, with some aspects of touting illegal and some which get around the current legislation. The tickets going at the $10,000 price are via legal online touts (in this case a company called Viagogo.) StubHub, which is owned by eBay, has a ticket on sale for £4,999 ($6,500.) The play’s producers have urged fans to steer clear of paying these exorbitant prices.
In a statement (reported by Sky News), the producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender said: “The secondary ticket market is an industry-wide plague, and one which we as producers take very seriously. Our priority is to protect all our customers and we are doing all we can to combat this issue.”
While it is not illegal to purchase a ticket from an online tout, many venues refuse to let people in who have purchased a ticket that was originally bought by someone else.
The new Harry Potter play is being staged at Palace Theatre in London, based on a story by J. K. Rowling. The play sees Harry Potter as a grown up wizard and with three children of his own. Rumors are abound that the play could one day become another movie to add to the seven (or eight, depending upon how the split Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is considered) that form part of the lucrative franchise.
