Brown Paper Tickets is withholding ticket money from multiple wrestling promotions

Brown Paper Tickets is withholding ticket money from multiple wrestling promotions, and it’s worsening an already unprecedented situation.

Over a month after assuring their clients that ticket sales would be delivered as promised, Brown Paper Tickets is still withholding ticket money from multiple wrestling promotions and others that have used their services. The issue was first brought to light by OnStage Blog on Mar. 18, which published an email sent to clients where Brown Paper Tickets revealed that “outstanding Brown Paper Tickets checks will not be honored.”

According to that initial communication by Brown Paper Tickets, their plan was to reissue the checks and “begin re-processing payments within 14-21 days.” That was at least 32 days ago.

As of today, Prime Time Pro Wrestling Co-Founder Lolo McGrath revealed on Twitter that Brown Paper Tickets is still refusing to pay them for tickets sold to Butch vs. Gore, an event which took place on Mar. 7, 2020. As they noted, Brown Paper Tickets is also failing to communicate with clients or customers and refusing refunds to customers who purchased tickets for events that were ultimately cancelled due to the threat of COVID-19.

https://twitter.com/hellbenderLo/status/1251894648920068097?s=20

As for Brown Paper Tickets, they’ve been silent over the last month. Some clients who have attempted to contact them reportedly received only a link to a customer statement, rather than any actual details or specific answers. In the month since things first came to light, stories have continued to spill out around the nation about companies being hurt by the actions of Brown Paper Tickets.

The Chicago Tribune reported on Mar. 26 that multiple Chicago clients, including Lincoln Lodge, had been told by Brown Paper Tickets not to cash checks. Their request for further comment from Brown Paper Tickets went unanswered.

Crosscut reported on April 1 that a client who’d hosted a concert on February 24 attempted to cash the check from Brown Paper Tickets on Mar. 21 only to find out the check had bounced. Crosscut also noted that since Mar. 19, “Washington state’s Consumer Protection Division has received 10 complaints about the company.”

Brown Paper Tickets founder and president William Scott Jordan spoke to The Seattle Times on April 1, marking some of the first comments from someone with the company. Jordan claimed, “the company and its bank lost control of their financial machinery — together, they decided to shut down the account that paid artists and organizations.”

Jordan further said the situation was “a mess,” and “Everybody will get paid — it’s just going to take us some time. This is a huge backlog that will get cleared up. We have not been able to take care of our customers and clients the way we think they should be taken care of.”

Brown Paper Tickets spokesperson Barb Morgen also commented on the situation, saying, “we’re going to survive this and thrive and help all communities do the same. This is a temporary issue and very isolated. In 20 years, we’ve never had an event organizer who hasn’t gotten paid — and we’re not going to start now.”

While a delay in issuing refunds for events that were canceled is honestly understandable in this climate considering the unprecedented impact of COVID-19, what still makes no sense it the inability of Brown Paper Tickets to pay out for tickets that were purchased and events that already took place.

Despite the assurances from Brown Paper Tickets back at the beginning of April, stories of clients still having their rightful ticket sales withheld by the company continue to trickle in. MPR News reported on April 10 that they “spoke with leaders of five performance companies in the Twin Cities that are owed money by Brown Paper Tickets, totaling approximately $40,000. That doesn’t count all the theater patrons awaiting refunds for tickets to canceled shows.”

On April 12, Fosters reported that the Governor’s Inn was still awaiting funds from a completed seven-week run of events. Innkeeper, actor and Rochester Opera House Executive Director Anthony Ejarque said, “no one is returning calls though they’re saying they’re trying to fix it.”

As recently as three days ago, Dallas News reported McKinney Youth Onstage is still owed $1400 for tickets sold to four separate performances in early March.

The stories just don’t seem to end, and Brown Paper Tickets is long past the amount of time they said it would take to reissue checks which never should’ve bounced in the first place.

I had the opportunity to speak to Lolo McGrath of Prime Time Pro Wrestling, and they provided a statement about the ongoing situation with Brown Paper Tickets:

"“When PTPW was seeking out a ticket vendor, Brown Paper Tickets was our first choice because of their fair trade status and partnerships with small, independent entertainment companies. My expectations were just really different for them than the way they’ve delivered in this situation. Their status as the “go to” for independent companies makes this situation even more appalling, because those are the companies that tend to get the axe first during times of financial hardship.”“It’s not just that they aren’t refunding for cancelled events. Our company and others all over the United States aren’t being paid for events that happened weeks ago. While I’m confident about the financial standing of my own house, the profit margins are nonexistent for enough companies that a few thousand bucks missed can be the death of that business. BPT has not given consistent messages or communication, as we have heard a myriad of official responses and reasoning behind the lack of pay. There is zero transparency, and the absence of a clear answer is frustrating.”"

I also had the opportunity to speak to Prime Time Pro Wrestling Owner, Co-Founder, and Promoter Nick Capezza, who explained the communication and lack thereof that he’s received from Brown Paper Tickets as this has unfolded:

"“After contacting them, they suggested signing up for direct deposit to expedite the process and I provided that information to them – twice. I’ve spoken to customer service at least a half dozen times on the phone and been told someone from BPT would contact me when they were ready to proceed. Yet I’ve been the only one contacting them and we are now over a month out from the event we are owed payment on – March 7’s Butch Vs Gore show.”"

Capezza also noted that all talent that worked the Butch vs. Gore event on March 7 have been paid for their work, so it’s Prime Time Pro Wrestling specifically taking the financial hit for this right now. They’re also far from the only company being affected.

Just via a search on Brown Paper Tickets for future events, their wrestling clients appear to include KFW, Dropkick Depression, Adrenaline Wrestling, Black Label Pro, GLAM SLAM Wrestling, New York Championship Wrestling, Zero1 Wrestling, Big Time Wrestling, XWA, DEFY Wrestling, MicroMania Midget Wrestling, and potentially even more than have used the company in the past but don’t have future events currently listed.

It seemed like there was hope – at least in the first week or two following the development of this story and the early reporting from OnStage Blog – that Brown Paper Tickets could be taken at their word and would begin to fix things.

However, as more time has passed it’s become clear there are deeper issues with the company, their level of communication with clients, and the ethics of having housed ticket sales in a way that now makes them unable to deliver payments for events that were held over a month ago.