‘Hamilton’ raises prices to thwart scalpers

How does a Broadway juggernaut defeat the secondhand ticket market? By changing its pricing strategy. As originally reported in The

New York Times, the producers of Hamilton, which is sold out through January, are raising prices on 200 premium seats to a record $849 in an attempt to keep the majority from being snapped up by scalpers and resold at huge profits.

Also, the number of $10 lottery seats (located in the first two rows) will be raised to 46 per show. The new seats are on sale to American Express cardholders and will be opened to the public after Sunday’s Tony Awards, where the acclaimed musical is up for a record 16 trophies.

The remaining 1,075 seats, now priced at $139 to $177, will go for $179 to $199.

While $849 would nearly double the face-value record of $477 set in The Book of Mormon’s heyday, it’s still considerably less than what resellers are asking for the same seats. Orchestra seats for an evening show are going for $1,660 to $2,535 on TicketMaster’s site.

“What has certainly been frustrating to me, as a business owner, is to see that my product is being resold at many times its face value and my team isn’t sharing in those profits,” Jeffrey Seller, Hamilton’s lead producer, told

The Times. “It’s not fair.” On Tuesday, the newspaper published an op-ed by the musical’s star and creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, calling on the New York Assembly to pass a law that cracks down on illegal use of “ticket-bots” to snap up seats seconds after they go on sale. The state Senate has passed a similar bill.

“I want you to be there when the curtain goes up,” Miranda wrote. “You shouldn’t have to fight robots just to see something you love.”