Setting the stage
The Lyric Opera of Chicago partnered with True Tickets early in the spring of 2025 to get ahead of potential ticket issues related to the seven-show run of Billy Corgan’s A Night of Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness in November, one of the highest profile shows to come to the Lyric Opera in its illustrious 70-year history.
Given I’m a child of the 90s, a fan of the Smashing Pumpkins, and knowing the importance of this show for the Lyric Opera, I decided to make a night of it with my wife, my longtime friend Steve, and his wife Brittany. In August, I bought 4 box seats to the opening night performance scheduled on Friday, November 21st (the show was nearly sold out even then, over 3 months in advance).
Act 1 – I Need to Resell my Tickets
My family life is complicated to begin with (probably no different than the lives of many of our client’s patrons), my wife is a senior executive at a major finance institution, I run a start-up, and we have an active young daughter. Adding a quick trip to Chicago just prior to the Thanksgiving holiday doesn’t make it any easier. A little over a week to the show, with everything going on, my wife felt her traveling to Chicago for the show just wasn’t tenable. Totally understandable. I assumed I should be able to find a friend in the area to come with me… or so I thought.
FRIEND 1: “I can’t make it. I am traveling that week and the next, so I need some time at home.”
FRIEND 2: “I can’t be there (end of year soccer banquet).”
FRIEND 3: “I’m tied up with the family in California.”
FRIEND 4 & 5: Both going to Paris for Thanksgiving week. (I didn’t know that was a thing!)
While the Lyric Opera partnered with True Tickets to help address unauthorized resale, I thought to myself, “What if we tested out our new PatronSafe Ticket Resale feature?” They hadn’t enabled resale across their performances yet, but the capability is included in the True Tickets core service and can be enabled or disabled at any time.
So I emailed my client:
“Don’t hate me for throwing this idea out there, but would you be open to us trying out the PatronSafe Resale function?”
They agreed. They enabled my order for resale, with a face value cap, and I listed the tickets for face value on Monday, November 17th. I gave it a day and a half before lowering my ask to 80% of face on the morning of Wednesday, November 19th. That afternoon, they sold to a buyer on Seat Geek. I was able to get 80% of my value back, someone wanting to go to the show got great tickets at a reasonable price, and the Lyric Opera got the data of the new buyer synced into their CRM as well as a fuller house for a great show. Win-win-win!
Act 2 – I Need to Resell Another Ticket
On Friday morning (the day of the show), Steve texted me “Our 3rd just dropped . . . doesn’t feel well.” I had back-to-back meetings the entire day, but once it registered that Brittany was now out as well, I emailed my client a little after 2 pm asking if I could try to also resell her ticket. They agreed.
With doors opening in under 4 hours, I decided to be a bit more aggressive with my pricing (it was less about the value I was getting back, and more about showing how quickly we could list and sell a ticket with PatronSafe Resale). My starting ask was 65% of face value. I adjusted the price down every 30 minutes. It sold at 5:20 pm (40 minutes before doors) on StubHub at a significant discount. I was able to get some of my value back (enough to cover a few craft cocktails), someone wanting to go to the show got a great ticket at a GREAT price, and the Lyric Opera got the data of the new buyer as well as a fuller house for a great show. Another win-win-win!
Act 3 - *
Steve was hung up in traffic. While I was waiting for him to arrive, I asked if I should go to our table and get our order in. This was the ensuing text conversation:
STEVE: “Wanna see if they’ll seat you and let you order – Britt is looking at the menu right now.”
ME: “She’s not coming right?! I sold her ticket!”
STEVE: “Britt?!?! Yes! Her friend bailed!”
ME: “You said she was sick! Oh sh*t!”
STEVE: “No, her friend, the plus one.” (I hadn’t mentioned to him that I’d resold my original tickets!)
ME: “I don’t have a ticket for her. . . well this is going to be an interesting night…”
To make a long story short, after a frantic note to my client kindly asking for some help (never mind how Steve and I completely bungled our own guest list), they were able to get me sorted. How were they able to do this over email an in a few minutes? True Tickets saved the day again. Apparently, some of the tickets for that night were donated back so they had some extra capacity. They exchanged the two tickets I had in my wallet and reseated us (the three of us) with great seats in the middle of the main floor, center stage. Phew!
Finale
We live in a digital world and in an attention economy. In the live event space, venue patrons expect convenience at their fingertips and the ability to accommodate special requests in real time can be a game-changer. A solution like True Tickets provides venues both with an integrated resale capability across 15+ marketplaces and a direct connection to their patrons. Integrated resale gives your patrons flexibility if their plans change. A direct connection with your patrons enables you to make real-time adjustments to meet last-minute requests (even when it may have been the patron who was actually at fault 😉).