Is there a difference between the ‘Verified Fan’ tickets and the cheap ones?

If you’re a ‘Verified Fan’ for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, you may have been shocked at the price of the tickets. However, you can get $20 tickets online and from the box office. Is there a difference between them?

When you hear that “Verified Fan” tickets for Harry Potter and the Cursed Child cost $400 each for the two-part play, you will initially wonder what you’re getting for them. That’s especially the case when you learn that some tickets are selling for $20-$40 a pop. It makes you wonder what the catches are to the cheaper tickets. Are there really any differences?

Surely, there should be, right? The more expensive tickets must be closer to the stage or include something extra to justify the costs.

(Photo by Rob Stothard/Getty Images)

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Well, the sad thing is there’s no difference. One fan, Jeremy Olshan, wrote in Market Watch that he’d got his hands on both the “Verified Fan” tickets and the cheaper options. The cheaper options were only slightly worse seats than the more expensive ones; nothing to justify the prices.

What are the ‘Verified Fan’ tickets?

When Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was announced, there was the chance to sign up to become a “Verified Fan.” These fans would get access to the tickets first. Of course, the theater prices were high. Olshan spent $1,600 on tickets for him, his wife, and his twin boys. He justified it as $200 per ticket, since he’d need eight tickets between the four of them for the two parts of the play.

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However, it was still eye-watering. He paid for the tickets purely because he worried about what would be available when the cheaper tickets became available. And this is where some of the issues lie. Of course people were going to pay the extra price when they thought they’d lost the chance at good seats.

(Photo by Jack Taylor/Getty Images)

Can you get $20 tickets?

Then came the announcement that 150 tickets would sell for $20 and another 150 would sell for $40. Anyone can get these tickets, too! While you’re supposed to only be able to get them online, Olshan found that you can walk up to the box office and ask for them—you just have to have a set date in mind. You can ask for all the dates you want one after the other until you snag the tickets you want.

And the tickets really doesn’t offer that much of a difference when it comes to the view you get, according to Olshan. It can bring the idea of “Verified Fan” into question. However, I suppose without the prices of the “Verified Fan” tickets, the prices for the small number of other tickets couldn’t be so low.

Have you got the “Verified Fan” tickets? Did you wait for other tickets to go on sale? Have you noticed a difference between prices? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Next: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Let’s talk about the ending

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