CONSUMERS : What if You Can’t Use Those Pricey Tickets?

If the rock concert you had seats for is canceled, or the baseball game you planned to attend is rained out, or you’re injured in a car wreck and can’t go to the symphony, what happens with your tickets? Do you get your money back, a ticket for another game or performance, or can you swap your symphony tickets for similar ones another evening?

There’s no simple answer.

For rock concerts, fine arts performances and sporting events, it depends on where the event is held, where you bought the ticket and the policy of each performing company or team.

For movies, it’s not as complicated. If you become ill 10 minutes into the movie or have a crying child you can’t quiet, representatives of most of the major movie chains in the Los Angeles area report that they will give you a readmission ticket for another showing. They prefer to issue readmit tickets rather than refunds, but some will return your money.

And if you decide you absolutely hate the film after 10 to 30 minutes, most will refund your money. The grace period depends on the movie chain. You’ll have to ask.

But sports events, concerts and fine arts are a different matter.

If a Dodgers or an Angels game is rained out, you get to attend a replacement game.

If, for instance, you had a ticket to today’s Bon Jovi concert at the Forum that was rescheduled to accommodate the Lakers playoff game, your ticket was good for the new date.

If you can’t attend the rescheduled concert, you can get your money back, a Forum representative said.

But how much money you get back depends on where the ticket was bought. If you bought it at the box office, that’s no problem. Service charges are not tacked onto box-office tickets.

Face the Music

However, that monetary break at box offices may not last forever, according to David Brown, director of marketing for the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

“In some cities, they do charge a service charge even if you go to the box office,” Brown explained. “I personally think service charges should be built into the ticket price. Other people say, ‘No, because then the customers will think the ticket prices are too high.’ I don’t think so, if you give them a breakdown of what they’re paying, including service charges.”

The Philharmonic’s policy is to try to work out the best possible arrangement with the consumer who can’t use a designated ticket, Brown said, adding that fine arts patrons should check with the performing company to make sure what its ticket policies are.

For Philharmonic events, consumers who have some kind of emergency can exchange tickets at the Music Center box office, provided they do so at least 24 hours before the concert. (There is a $3 service charge for that.) Or they can receive a refund or donate the ticket to the Philharmonic and write off the price as a charitable contribution, Brown said.

For subscribers to its events, the Ahmanson staff requests that those with a problem come to the theater box office no later than 48 hours ahead of the performance so the tickets can be exchanged--if other dates are available.

Requests are handled on a case-by-case basis in emergencies with customers who have bought tickets for a single performance.

But with tickets purchased by computer--in most cases through the nationwide outlets or phone banks of Ticketmaster or Ticketron--the consumer doesn’t get back the service or handling charges.

It’s the same principle for canceled concerts. Say you got a $25 ticket to a Jerry Lee Lewis concert that was canceled. You’ll get the face value of the ticket refunded but not the service charge, which ranges from $3 to $5 a ticket for most rock concerts. That’s not too bad if you only bought one seat, but if you purchased 10, you are out $30 to $50.

“Nobody pays more for a ticket than they want to,” said Fred Rosen, chairman of Ticketmaster, the country’s largest electronic ticketing firm, which sold 21 million tickets nationwide last year. “This is not housing or food. We’re performing a service, a mass-merchandising service. When you sell a ticket, you’ve performed the service.”

Computer ticketing is costly, Rosen explained, citing considerable expenses involved for operators, phone lines and the computer system that doles out tickets on a “next-best-available-seat” basis to consumers.

Ticketmaster has 90 operators in the Los Angeles phone bank alone, 120 in Chicago and 150 in New York.

Signs at Ticketmaster and Ticketron outlets say service charges aren’t refundable, and phone customers are told that the service and handling charges are non-refundable.

“Nobody gives back service charges,” Rosen said.

Back to the Seller

In most cases, to get a refund or replacement ticket, you have to take the original back to the place of purchase: a Ticketmaster location at Music Plus, May Co. or Sportsmart; Ticketron at Tower Records or other smaller outlets, or the box office.

“From our position, we’re trying to build a service,” Rosen said. “If the public is not satisfied, they wouldn’t do it.”

Consumers, it seems, are mostly content with--or resigned to--computer ticketing, even though they pay a higher price per ticket. It may be a more expensive way of getting seats, but it is the most convenient; especially in Los Angeles, where you might have to drive 20 miles to the nearest box office to get advance tickets.

Ticketmaster’s phone sales rose 40% last year over 1987; on March 20, phone orders for the coming Neil Diamond concert reached 20,000, the largest phone volume of sales on the West Coast.

The only way you can order tickets by phone is with a charge card, and that costs even more than getting them at the computer ticketing agencies’ outlet stores.

Buying them in person, service charges range from $1 per ticket for the circus to $3 for a rock concert. By phone, those same tickets would carry $1.50 to $5 in service charges. A 50-cent processing fee is also added for each phone order.

Next Best Ticket

Computerized tickets to events are offered on a next-best-available-seat basis in a certain price range, meaning that as soon as you order, the computer will punch the next best ticket that has been released for sale at that time.

The moral here is to do it quickly, once you have the operator’s ear. If you talk too long, you may miss a second row seat--but you’ll never know it. Rows of tickets are released at different times, so you can get a good seat or a not-so-hot one, depending on the luck of the draw.

If you’re getting them in person from a Ticketmaster or Ticketron outlet, you’ll be able to see what you’ve got right there by checking the tickets against the seating plan. Ordering by phone, all you’ll be told is the area your seat is in, for example, the second balcony or near first base.

Planning to buy tickets from a ticket broker? You’ll spend even more money.

A single $6 or $8 Dodger ticket today can run as high as $15 to $30 for a very prime ticket, according to Brian Harlig, owner of Good Time Tickets and president of the California Assn. of Ticket Agencies. Current Lakers playoff tickets with face values of $60 to $80 are being sold by brokers at about $150 each.

Of course, the hotter the ticket, the higher the price. Brokers can get as much as $500 or $600 each for tickets to concerts by popular rock artists, such as Bruce Springsteen or U2. There is no California law that limits what price tickets--to any kind of event--may be sold for.

In case of a postponement or cancellation of an event, Harlig observed, ticket brokers “refund all monies paid to us.”

“If there is an illness or they missed a flight or something, we take the tickets back on a try-to-sell basis,” he explained. “More often than not, we can resell them and give him back what he paid.”

If you insist on attending a certain event, and the only place you can get a ticket is from a broker, find out whether the brokering agency is reputable and check on how long it has been in business, Harlig cautioned.

“Some of these places are here today and gone tomorrow,” he said. “The public should know who they’re buying from. What happens if they buy a fraudulent ticket, it’s stolen or counterfeited? They shouldn’t buy from unknown people.”