Shubert’s Telecharge Continues To Use An Awful Ticket Lottery System For Broadway Tickets

Broadway Fans Are Not A Fan Of Intrusive Data Grabs

Shubert’s and Telecharge’s Social Toaster Lottery System Should Be Toast

Despite having the cutesy name "Social Toaster", the system is really just a nefarious data-grab demanding access to users’ various social media accounts. But those hopefuls wishing to enter the digital lottery for tickets for Shubert shows on Broadway have no choice but to fork over all kinds of personal information.

If the user doesn’t provide the required information, including their birthday, they are refused eligibility for the entrance into the lottery or rush pool. So, wallet conscious theatregoers are forced to choose between compromising their own data or searching elsewhere for discounts.

How Social Toaster Takes Your Bread

Before handing over your money, there’s a FAQ page on the Telecharge website containing fairly standard issue language about logistics and relevant info. But all interested parties must first create an account and then “click a social network to get started” (Facebook, X or LinkedIn— why does anybody actually use LinkedIn for this?) to proceed.

While the savvier user may be able to opt out of some marketing tactics— like declining opportunities to increase chances of winning by way of “likes” and public sharing— there’s no sidestepping the basics. If users don’t feel comfortable with the forced intimacy, they have no choice but to instead show up in-person to try their luck in-person for rush tickets or go to shows with ticket lotteries that don't require these awful data shares.

Social Toaster’s Current Broadway and Off-Broadway Roster

As of May 2024, current shows using the system include Broadway offerings like the highly anticipated play with music Stereophonic, Lincoln Center’s star-studded Uncle Vanya, Russian themed drama Patriots, circus musical Water For Elephants, Huey Lewis’ jukebox musical The Heart of Rock and Roll, jazz era musical The Great Gatsby, stage adaptation of tearjerker film The Notebook, Alicia Keys’ auto- fiction vehicle Hell’s Kitchen, as well as Suffs, Appropriate, Lempicka, Back to the Future, A Beautiful Noise, Kimberly Akimbo and An Enemy of the People.

Off-Broadway fare includes revival cult favorite Little Shop of Horrors, farcical Broadway transfer The Play That Goes Wrong, Lincoln Center’s Corruption, Katsura Sunshine’s Rakugo, The Life and Slimes of Marc Summers and A Sign of the Times. All in all, that's a whole lot of shows! In other words, users who don’t want to play ball with Social Toaster will lose out on a massive amount of potential money savers.

Broadway Fans Absolutely Hate Social Toaster

Younger millennials, Gen-Zers and beyond may not flinch or balk at a system that asks for personal and private analytics but Gen-Xers and even Boomers still want a bargain too and those populations are extremely suspicious of systems that try to get them to share anything. There’s just too much fine print. Those middle-aged groups comprise a huge part of the Broadway purchasing public— and they downright hate Social Toaster and the way that Shubert and Telecharge has implemented it.

Fake Social Media Accounts Come Into Play

Obviously, many folks rely on fake social media accounts in order to protect their identity and potentially vulnerable personal information, not to mention as a way to avoid being harassed subsequently with endless marketing. This stealthy approach may also allow a user to buy additional tickets under different handles. However, seemingly strict ID requirements on the winning tickets would likely render this method impossible to execute to fruition. If you want to win the tickets, you got to fork over your personal info.

The Love Hate Relationship Between The Shuberts, Their Tenants And Their Customers

Any production residing in one of the many Shubert owned Broadway or Off-Broadway houses has no choice but to use Telecharge and as of late, Social Toaster. For producers, it’s not only frustrating that they hate the system itself but also that they have no say in how they market and distribute their tickets. Producers don’t like having their power or autonomy kept in-check and the Shuberts have been quite successful in doing just that.

For the Shuberts, however, it’s a win-win because in addition to attaining a bit of good will for offering such deep discounts across dozens of desirable plays, musicals and theatrical events, it also gains them a lot of data on their clients as well as a ton of exposure across a variety of social media platforms. In other words, free advertising. And what theatre owner would say no to that?

Shubert and Telecharge is just an awful monopoly and it cannot end soon enough. This service demonstrates exactly what happens when a theatre landlord faces no competition and can run amok with whatever they want to do to their customers.