Exclusive Investigation
Arena Authority Members Get First Shot At Hundreds Of Concert Tickets, Before Anyone Else
The Bruce Springsteen concert March 10th sold out in 15 minutes - more than 13 thousand tickets.
But some fans who wait in line never had a chance to get 490 tickets reserved for authority members, politicians and their friends.
Authority members were notified in a letter from the center's executive director that each of them would get "18 Springsteen tickets" and "should feel lucky" to get them.
But as it turned out authority chairman Joshua Teverow ended up with at least 96 tickets.
member and councilman patrick butler...42 and member mark weiner with 116 tickets.
"The group actually gave me 90 tickets. the other 26 tickets i got because i was a member of the authority."
Weiner has long been friends with members of the band...and we confirmed he was instrumental in Springsteen coming to providence.
He told us how he distributed his tickets....
Councilman Butler also told us who ended up with tickets he was allotted...
Both said they were upset when they learned the documents Eyewitness News received from Chairman Teverow had the names of ticket recipients blacked out....preventing us from contacting people to make sure the tickets were not being sold for many times their face value.
"If the point is being brought up that there is the possibility of an impropriety that tickets that are allotted to authority members being put on the internet to be scalped, I have a serious problem with that."
Authority members, the mayor's office and the city council paid $86 dollars per ticket.
Each of those tickets was worth $600 to $700 on the street, if there was any scalping going on.
"God, i would hope not. i don't think so. but i have been urging all the appropriate people on the board give you a clean list to show you who got what tickets."
Some people did provide lists, including mayor david cicilline and authority member phil rivers.
Cicilline says it's appropriate for the city administration to be allotted a certain number of concert tickets....but he says the public has the right to know who gets those tickets.
|
