This morning we brought you the story about the food at Next’s opening night, but that was only part of the story. The incredibly innovative ticket system has kind of created a whole new market, and it didn’t take long for scalpers to take advantage of it.
• Almost immediately after tickets started going on sale, scalpers popped up on Craigslist offering tickets at wildly inflated prices. Yesterday, we saw tickets going for over $1,000, though multiple sources have pointed out that some have been going for as high as $3,000. Of course, that’s for a chef’s table on a weekend. Still, that’s crazy!
• Of course, you should probably make sure those tickets are legitimate. Aware that people might want to sell fake tickets, Next will soon have an automated system to help “authenticate and transfer ticket ownership.” In the meantime, you can e-mail tickets@nextrestaurant.com if you want to sell your tickts (for face value, of course). We transferred tickets using the e-mail this afternoon, and while it took a few hours, it definitely worked.
• It’s no great secret that the ticket system has been plagued by a few issues since it first tried to launch. As we mentioned yesterday, Internet Explorer was causing most of the problems, but there were also issues with passwords and the actual site. Luckily, it seems like things are working better today, and once you finally can get into the system, we can attest that it’s straightforward and simple to use. We imagine the incredible demand for tickets had something to do with the crashes.
• Last time we checked, tickets were completely sold out. Luckily, you will have other options than grossly overpaying on Craigslist. According to a post on its Facebook page, the restaurant will release tickets constantly, so your best option is to check the site. Still, they are going very quickly: “I have unlocked about 25 tables in the past 1.5 hours… and they are ‘held pending transaction’ within 1 second each. Literally as fast as I hit refresh that’s how fast somebody grabs them.” [Next Restaurant/Facebook]
