Free tickets to the Antiques Roadshow are being sold on eBay and producers are not happy about it, according to a spokesperson for the popular PBS program.
The free tickets, which are distributed exclusively by TicketMaster six weeks before taping of the programs, are apparently being snatched up and sold on the online auction site for healthy profits. eBay, a corporate underwriter of the Antiques Roadshow, was hosting ticket auctions for admission to the program throughout June and July in New York City and San Diego
According to Judy Matthews, Senior Publicist for the Antiques Roadshow, "We are unhappy that people are selling them on eBay. We've had conversations with eBay and they understand what our concerns are."
eBay spokesperson, Kevin Pursglove acknowledged that there had been discussions with the Antiques Roadshow about the situation and told AuctionBytes, "Ebay cannot find any reason to remove [the ticket auctions]. They [The Antiques Roadshow] have not provided any rationale to cause eBay to remove them. Even though we're a corporate underwriter of the program, they cannot be given any special accomodations."
According to eBay's policies on event ticket resale, "Due to laws regulating ticket sales in this area, the seller in this auction will not accept any bids above the total face value printed on the ticket(s) [plus $ permitted in some states]."
However, according to Pursglove, since the tickets were being distributed by WGBH and the Antiques Roadshow for free, there was no resale, so the auctions were not in violation of ticket resale policy.
Many of the auctions stated that the tickets were free and that the buyer was paying a "shipping and handling" fee. Pursglove contacted AuctionBytes late in the day and said that eBay had begun pulling some of the auctions because, although they did not violate ticket resale policy, they did violate eBay's policy on excessive shipping and handling. By 10:30pm ET all but 3 of the 26 auctions had been cancelled by eBay.
This morning, 13 auctions for Roadshow tickets had been relisted with modified descriptions.
A completed auction search on June 21, 2001, showed that 104 of 107 auctions had closed successfully with "Antiques Roadshow Tickets" in the title, bringing prices as high as $292.71.
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