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Brown Paper Tickets, an online ticketer specializing in smaller community events, owes ticket holders and event organizers millions of dollars in the US and in Canada after failing to pay for COVID cancellations.
That’s according to a lawsuit filed by Washington State against Brown Paper Tickets alleging that it owes more than $6.75 million to consumers across the US. The state’s Attorney General’s Office noted in an announcement that it had received 583 complaints from residents about the company not issuing refunds. The Office estimates that over 80,000 people in the US have been affected by Brown Paper’s conduct.
“Beginning in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent restrictions on public gatherings resulted in the cancellations of many live events. Brown Paper Tickets has failed to remit payment to event organizers for events that took place and has failed to provide refunds to ticket buyers who purchased tickets for canceled or rescheduled events,” alleges the Washington State lawsuit.
The company has been in business for more than two decades, but the more than 1,200 consumer complaints over the past year caught the agency’s attention, notes the BBB website.
Community event organizers have reported waiting over a year for events that were canceled last spring due to COVID-19. Organizers at a high school in Wisconsin told local reporters that they, as well as the schools and ticket holders, are owed thousands by Brown Paper after their play was canceled last spring.
“We were supposed to do the Sound of Music at the beginning of April last year,” explained one of the organizers to a local NBC affiliate, stating that family and friends who purchased tickets to the canceled event never saw their money back from Brown Paper. “Our poor ticket holders who were just trying to support our local high school theater production are out all of this money.”
Canadian event organizers and performers also say that Brown Paper failed to pay them and their audiences, according to CBC News. Several community event organizers told reporters that the company has been holding proceeds and refunds for more than a year now.
In September of 2020, the company issued a COVID-19 recovery statement promising better communication in the future.
“While we can’t offer an estimated timeline for your specific refund at this moment, our team has been and continues to initiate full refunds,” said Founder & President William Scott Jordan in the letter. “It’s a long process with thousands of events canceled, postponed, or abandoned. Like many businesses, we were unprepared for a crisis of this scale, but we are making headway.”
Community organizers owed refunds by Brown Paper told reporters that it was concerning that the company was still offering event services.
“The scary thing for me is that you can still go onto Brown Paper Tickets and people can still book an event,” stated one Wisconsin organizer.
Are you waiting for a refund or event proceeds from Brown Paper Tickets? Tell us about your experience in the comment section below.
The State of Washington is represented by Craig Rader and Marc Worthy, Assistant Attorneys General for the State of Washington.
The Brown Paper Tickets Lawsuit is State of Washington v. Brown Paper Tickets, LLC, Case No. 20-2-14549-1, State of Washington, King County Superior Court.
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44 thoughts onBrown Paper Tickets Owes Millions to Small Theaters, Schools, and Holders, Lawsuit Claims
Brown paper tickets owes us $7000 plus.
My name is Allison McDonell Page. I am the artistic Director of Sierra Classic Theatre, a community theatre in Mammoth Lakes, CA. We have not received our money from three shows (this is our money) since November, 2022. This amounts to $26,000. We are a non profit and this is a huge portion of our budget. We need this money back. What can we do?
Held a fundraising event in December 2022 for a nonprofit and used BPT. They owe $2515.00 in ticket sales for the event. I’ve sent multiple email and nothing!
Bellingham high drama (Bellingham ma) we were owed 2 checks totaling $850 plus from sales of Legally Blonde in Feb march 2020. We were repeatedly promised funds were being issued. We are a club not a budgeted club and they stole from our funds
The Annisquam Village Players is one of the oldest community theaters in the country, tracing our roots back to 1863. We produce an annual summer musical. We have been using BPT since 2015 for online ticket sales with great success. This summer we produced Mary Poppins and BPT sold $18,800 worth of tickets, but we have not seen a penny. After many requests, we received a form email reply and BPT has cancelled their phone service. We would like to join any class action group in hopes of retrieving some of our $.
We are a small non-profit that used Brown Paper tickets. In Feb, 2020, we received a check for $1785 that was returned for insufficient funds. Despite numerous attempts to email the company, we have heard nothing to date.
I too can’t believe this company is still allowed to advertise their services. How do you take in money, retain a fee then not be able to pay the vendor?
And how can we get our money?
Owed $5300 from an event February 2020. Still no sign of compensation. Sign me up for a class action.
BPT owes us $4300, 50% of the tickets sold to our events in June 2022. We had been a loyal customer for 5 years, but only ever used Paypal as the processor. We thought this year we would give our customers the option to use the BPT credit card processing, b/c many had trouble using Paypal. Turned out to be a HUGE MISTAKE!!!! We had no idea that there had been an issue BPT until our money didn’t show up after the advertised “10-day” waiting period. Now come to find out they haven’t been paying for 2 years and we are now in a long line of disgruntled users. This is outrageous.
Brown paper bag owes us 800 + in ticket sales from
Our presentation of ^Legally Blonde’ our high school drama program
Is 100% self funded. With the loss of 3/4 of our sales tickets we have struggled to be able to do another larger show. We would truly like our ticket sale proceeds issued to us.
Brown Paper Tickets owes our nonprofit theater “Sparta Stage Inc” approximately $1400 for ticket revenue that was collected for two shows, one of which had to be cancelled because of the pandemic (ticket holders were refunded by us) and one of which was held just prior to the pandemic shutdown and tickets were purchased through Brown Paper and we never received any of the monies.. Numerous emails and promises and we even reluctantly sent them our bank account information because they claim they no longer send out checks as was their usual way of doing business. Frustrating and our non profit could certainly use those funds that are owed us.