Broadway Theaters: The New Ticket Scalpers

The Post today brings the news that Broadway theaters may soon be able to sell tickets online through eBay-esque auctions. According to the paper, this potential comes as a result of “new state ticket-scalping legislation that eliminates the existing caps on the resale of tickets.” And as one legislative source explains, “The thinking of the theaters is ‘Why are we going to let scalpers get $1,000 for a ticket when we can get $1,000 for it right from the start?’” The legislation prohibiting scalping expires tomorrow, but before more players get into the how-high-can-you-go game, we decided to check out the current auctions on eBay.

We plugged in “Broadway tickets” and searched for the highest asking price. Perhaps it would be Spring Awakening, with its many Tony nominations and critical-darling status. Or maybe Inherit the Wind, which presents a chance to see the great Christopher Plummer. But no …

For a mere $1,449, you can get two tickets to the July 27 preview performance of Grease, a show that cast its stars on reality TV. Okay, so the seats are front row, and true, Grease is the word. But are people really that hopelessly devoted to this show that they get chills from seeing newcomers? Hey, we guess there are worse things we could do on summer nights. (Okay, we’ll stop.) And to be fair, we should note that the second-highest price is for Tarzan, which stars American Idol alum Josh Strickland: $999.99 for six seats — or Buy It Now! for $1,099.99.

Still, we think we’ll take our chances in the TKTS line.

Though compared to seeing the Police reunion at Madison Garden Square, these prices are kind of a steal. —Lori Fradkin

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