Demand for inaugural tickets overwhelms supply
They’re not yet printed, but scalping starts
WASHINGTON — As President-elect Barack Obama might say, there are no red tickets and no blue tickets, no VIP tickets and no standing-room tickets.
In fact, no tickets are available yet for Obama’s inauguration Jan. 20 — but that isn’t stopping people from selling them, a fact that’s prompting increasing anger from those organizing the historic event.
As lawmakers from Buffalo and beyond continued to be bombarded by ticket requests for what’s sure to be one of the most in-demand Washington events ever, the senator overseeing Obama’s inauguration said she plans to write to online merchants like eBay to ask that they not sell scalped tickets.
“These tickets are given for free to people,” Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., told the Associated Press. “This is a major civic event of the time, and no one pays for their tickets, and we believe no one should be required to pay for their tickets.”
Some 240,000 tickets will eventually be distributed free through congressional offices — and some of those seats are already being scalped online. Hoped-for, not-yet-printed standing-room tickets to the inauguration ceremony were selling for $1,429 apiece Monday afternoon on StubHub, the online ticket marketplace.
“This will be one of the most historic inaugurations in American history, so we think we’ll see demand [for tickets] like you’d see for a major sporting event,” said Vanessa Daniele, spokeswoman for StubHub.
Of course, $1,429 is a lot to pay for a ticket that does not yet exist — but if you’re counting on getting a boatload of tickets from your member of Congress, you might want to take Obama’s advice and worship an awesome God.
“The phones have been ringing off the hook with requests for inaugural tickets,” said Aimee Ghosh, a spokeswoman for Rep. Louise M. Slaughter, D-Fairport. “It’s pretty clear that the requests will far outnumber the tickets we will receive.”
Lawmakers don’t have any idea how many tickets they will have to give away, but in the meantime, Slaughter’s office is compiling a list of ticket requests and will work hard to allocate its tickets in “the fairest way possible,” Ghosh said.
Similarly, the office of Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, will determine how to allocate its tickets once it knows how many it will receive, said Caitlin Wolf, a Higgins spokeswoman. Higgins’ office has received 450 ticket requests, far more than the office received before the 2005 inauguration of President Bush, Wolf said.
The same sort of thing is happening in congressional offices everywhere, but no more so than in the nation’s capital. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, the Democrat who represents the District of Columbia in the House, stopped taking ticket requests after receiving more than 3,000.
“I share the excitement and enthusiasm of my constituents, but I am concerned that even the few who obtain tickets will not be able to get through the crowds at the Mall,” Norton said. “The only people sure to get a view of the parade and the swearing-in are the people who watch it on television in the comfort of their homes.”
That isn’t stopping people from going to StubHub and other Internet sites to bid on tickets to the ceremony, the inaugural parade and the yet-to-be-announced balls that will cap the evening.
Daniele, the StubHub spokeswoman, stressed that any tickets bought there are put online by “trusted sellers” and added that StubHub offers a money- back guarantee for its customers.
Nevertheless, Feinstein and other inaugural organizers warned that any inaugural ticket bought or sold online might not ever materialize.
“Any Web site or ticket broker claiming that they have inaugural tickets is simply not telling the truth,” said Howard Gantman, staff director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies. “We urge the public to view any offers of tickets for sale with great skepticism.”
With tickets in such great demand, even longtime Obama loyalists like Diana Cihak of Hamburg are left with not much more than the audacity of hope.
“I called Brian Higgins’ office to get my name on the list; I don’t know if I am going to get anything more,” said Cihak, an Obama delegate to the Democratic National Convention. “I have my fingers crossed.”
Plenty of local Obama supporters want to organize a bus trip to the inauguration, Cihak said, although it’s unclear whether that will happen.
And even if it does, inaugural visitors face another problem. An online search for hotels in the Washington area on the nights of Jan. 19 and 20 found only one hotel with rooms: a Super 8 in Manassas, Va., 32 miles to the west, that had smoking rooms available on the night of the 19th only.
Such are the potential obstacles faced by people like Clarence Lott, president of the East Side Political Network in Buffalo, who is organizing a trip that aims to bring four generations of the Lott family to Washington for the big event.
“I certainly want my grandson to be a part of history,” Lott said. “And for my father, he never thought he’d see this day” when an African-American is sworn in as president.
All told, Lott wouldn’t miss it for the world — even though he has ticket requests in with Higgins just like 450 other people. “I’m hopeful about [getting tickets] at this point,” Lott said. “Like Barack, our motto is: ‘Yes we can.’ ”
News Washington Bureau reporter Phillip Lucas contributed to this report.
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