A Villager who enjoys attending shows in The Villages is unhappy with a policy at The Tracy Performing Arts Center.
John Van Dyke of the Village of Briar Meadow has been in The Villages for three years, and during that time he and his wife have enjoyed “a plethora of shows” at The Sharon L. Morse Performing Arts Center, Savannah Center and the Studio Theater at Tierra Del Sol.
“One of the features that has been extremely useful is the ability to cancel or exchange tickets. Occasions arise when a change in dates is necessary, attendance is impossible or even when I have additional visitors to our home and have to exchange tickets or shows in order to get additional tickets where we can all sit together,” Van Dyke said.
He eagerly signed up for shows at the new Tracy theater, located at The Villages Charter School campus at Middleton. One of those shows is “Spin Doctors” set for Oct. 6.
He was surprised to receive an email indicating that tickets for the show, for which he’d paid full price, were suddenly being offered, buy one, get one free.
He took a look at the seats available for the show and found that only about one-third of the seats had been sold.
“I called the box office to see if I could get this same deal and was told the policy at The Tracy is no exchanges or refunds of existing tickets, so I was stuck. Period. This is a crazy policy,” he said.
He said that seeing the discounted price and not being offered a similar deal, after he’d paid full price, was “a slap in the face.”
Van Dyke said it’s taught him a lesson.
“Unfortunately, what this policy is forcing me to do is to NEVER buy another ticket at this venue because I know if something changes, I’m simply out that money,” he said.
In addition, he said the manager of The Villages Entertainment has not responded to his queries for an explanation about the policy.
