Officials with the Neal Blaisdell Center, the state Office of Consumer Protection and the promoter of two upcoming Bruno Mars concerts are warning the public to think twice before buying what are likely bogus tickets from third-party online dealers who are selling them now.
Officials said tickets don’t go on sale until Feb. 3.
While scalping of tickets is a common practice and consumer advocates often warn about the legitimacy of what is being sold, this situation is unique because not only is the first day of ticket sales more than two weeks away, but also, the ticket prices have yet to be announced.
Nonetheless, several websites are selling what purport to be seats at Neal Blaisdell Center Arena for the April 18 and 19 concerts, at inflated prices of as much as $2,036 each.
"No tickets have been allocated, so there’s not really an inventory to even do this yet," said Barbara Saito, vice president of A Tom Moffatt Production Inc.
Some tickets are often set aside for performers, record companies and others. In this particular case, Mars’ large family presence here could mean a fair number of seats might be set aside, Saito said. But such seats are typically not issued in advance, she said.
When directed to one of the sites, Saito pointed out there are clear indications the tickets are bogus. First, a number of the purported tickets are for upper-level seats, and complimentary tickets are typically not issued for the upper level, she said. The large number of tickets available also should raise red flags, she said.
Brent Suyama, a spokesman for the state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs, called the phone number listed for one of the third-party sites offering tickets and got an operator who identified herself as being from an entirely different company. When Suyama asked how they obtained tickets in advance of the actual sale, "she said they had a small allotment of tickets that they can sell ahead of the actual (sale) that go for a premium," he said.
Both Saito and Tracy Kubota, the city deputy director of enterprise services, said they had made no such distribution.
Suyama advised concert enthusiasts to examine the validity of a company and its website by doing Internet searches and checking with the Better Business Bureau.
Kubota said the best way to ensure the purchase of legitimate tickets is to buy them at the Blaisdell Box Office or through authorized dealer Ticketmaster.
