Ticketing company leaves Philadelphia artists unpaid for weeks, months, and longer

In the early part of the pandemic shutdown when artists were unable to perform live, Philadelphia actor and writer Chris Davis decided to take his One-Man Nutcracker digital and present it on Zoom. He sold tickets to fans and friends through Brown Paper Tickets, presented three shows, and then waited for his ticket money to arrive from the ticketing service.

He’s still waiting. The three performances were in December 2020, and Davis says he has yet to receive the $1,635 he’s owed.

“I had no job, so I needed money. That’s what made it so hard,” said Davis. “I was excited — I’ll have some income. They just never paid me.”

Davis isn’t the only one. Representatives from several local arts groups report selling tickets through Brown Paper Tickets only to be left hanging for weeks, months, or, in Davis’ case, two and a half years (and counting).

Emails to the Seattle-based company asking about payments have gone unanswered, groups say. An 800 phone number on the firm’s website carries a note saying it’s “temporarily unavailable.” Complaints from across the country have collected on the website of the Better Business Bureau, which has given the company an “F” rating, and a Facebook group called “Stiffed by Brown Paper Tickets” now lists more than 900 members nationwide.

“It is regrettable, and I would even use the word ‘alarming,’ that this particular business that so many smaller arts organizations depend upon has earned an F from the Better Business Bureau,” says Patricia Wilson Aden, president and CEO of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

Smaller companies “depend upon tools such as Brown Paper Tickets to build their capacity, to allow them to focus on their work as artists,” she says. “So it is really undermining the capacity of the smaller organizations that are the lifeblood of our cultural community.”

One of those groups, Pasión y Arte, a Philadelphia contemporary flamenco company, had used the ticketing service in the past, when it took about 10 days to pay.

“They’d been great,” said Pasión y Arte board president Allen Sabinson.

This time, a month went by without payment of more than $4,000 for a May 7 event, and the dance company received no answer to its inquiries. For a group of Pasión y Arte’s size, “$4,000 is a very big deal,” said Sabinson.

But when The Inquirer emailed the company asking about the late payment, it got an immediate response. Within hours, Pasión y Arte received an email from Brown Paper Tickets saying payment would arrive within one to two business days, and it did.

In an email to The Inquirer, Brown Paper Tickets said it is in the process of being acquired by Events.com and the new company is providing “assisted support” until the final phase of the acquisition is complete. Brown Paper Tickets is paying event organizers on a “daily basis,” the unnamed spokesperson wrote.

“As a part of the acquisition, there is a requirement for BPT to accelerate and complete all payments required to organizers,” Events.com said in a statement it attributed to its general counsel, Jaleh Sattarin. “The third and final phase of the acquisition is expected to be completed over the next several months.”

When The Inquirer sent an additional email to Brown Paper Tickets asking about another group, 20MOONS dance theater in Durango, Colo., owed $4,600 since March, The Inquirer received no response, but within two business days the dance group was informed the money was being deposited into its account.

Brown Paper Tickets — “a fair-trade ticketing company,” its website says — sells tickets with an added fee paid by the ticket buyer. It has attracted the business of many small and community arts groups, school productions, and other programs that aren’t big enough to support their own ticketing operations.

It’s those same groups that “work with very thin margins. They depend upon their earned income — that revenue generated through ticket sales,” says Aden. “So the delay in receiving those funds can really have an impact on their ability to operate. It affects their operating budget, it affects their ability to make payments to vendors, to make payment to staff members.”

That’s exactly what the Martha Graham Cracker Cabaret experienced. The troupe waited so long for payment that “we had all given up hope,” said company manager Victor Fiorillo.

The cabaret sold more than $2,000 in tickets through Brown Paper Tickets for a live stream in August 2020, and then heard nothing. They called and emailed the ticketing company and hired an attorney, and eventually Fiorillo floated the money personally to pay guest artists.

The group received payment in December 2021 — more than a year after the money was due.

“We couldn’t get anyone on the phone and the money just shows up one day,” said Fiorillo.

The Media Chamber Chorale used Brown Paper Tickets for several years with no problem, and then, after concerts this past December, waited several months before getting paid $3,310. “It was a lot for a small community choir nonprofit,” said Alex Basilevsky, a chorale board member.

Many groups have moved to other ticketing services, like Eventbrite.

A spokesperson for the Pennsylvania attorney general said the office had received one complaint this year about Brown Paper Tickets, and, citing agency policy, declined to say whether the attorney general had launched an investigation.

Brown Paper Tickets was sued by the Washington State Office of the Attorney General in 2020. As part of a 2021 settlement, the company agreed to pay 45,000 event organizers and ticket buyers approximately $9 million.

The company, established in 2000, operated on “tight margins to keep its fees low, and relied on incoming funds from new ticket sales to cover its costs and debts,” the attorney general’s office in Washington said.

When the pandemic forced “cancellation of most live events — halting nearly all new ticket sales and drying up the company’s revenue — Brown Paper Tickets was unable to meet its outstanding obligations,” the office said.