About Luminato

Carol said: On June 21, 2010 5:48pm

Terrific festival!
The Infernal Comedy was excellent, Prima Donna was fine, & the free events were varied & easy to attend. Volunteers I spoke with were helpful & if not always well informed, knew how to get the information speedily. My only criticism/concern would be that the sound level at Dundas Square makes it painful for some of us to attend events.

Free earplugs?
Lowered sound?

carol

Owain Briehl said: On June 17, 2010 9:32am

Guys, great job putting together the J-POP concert last night. It was finally nice to see J-POP getting some exposure in Toronto. Please do this event again and see if it's possible to get bigger names like Utada Hikaru or May J. to come as their music has had more exposure. Again, great job again!!!

jdit said: On June 16, 2010 11:35pm

I can only afford the free events. Have many many more and please list by venue as well!

Allison @ Luminato said: On June 16, 2010 1:13pm

Thank you for your feedback and comments regarding last night’s AZAR NAFISI event at the Al Green Theatre.

With this event, we specifically kept a small number of tickets off sale on Ticketmaster in order to have some tickets available for customers to purchase on site at the event, as this event would have sold out in advance otherwise. Our box office opened 2 hours before the event as advertised and these tickets sold extremely quickly. In order to accommodate additional walk up sales, we learned that there was the potential of 13 additional tickets available for sale. For these tickets, the first 13 people to arrive after we had sold all the tickets were issued number from 1 to 13 in the order in which they arrived. They were told to return 15 minutes before the event began in order to see if these tickets would become available. A small number (not all 13) of these tickets became available and the returning guests issued numbers were sold tickets in numerical order. Unfortunately, we could not accommodate all the guests issued numbers.

Luminato’s policy on all ticketed events, general admission or assigned seating, is that once a ticket has been issued, it cannot be resold. While it is disappointing when ticket holders arrive late or do not attend performances, we cannot resell tickets which belong to someone else.

We always recommend that guests purchase their tickets in advance to avoid the disappointment of an event being sold out.

Adib said: On June 16, 2010 8:53am

OMG, that many empty seats!!! Now I'm really p****d.

The reason given was that at least 10 seats are reserved for photographers. I think that they are grasping at straws. The photographers would already have been there if any were coming. The public, that is us, would be willing to give up the seats and stand if ANY showed up. But the rigidity of the Luminato officials is astounding.

Luminato should be more flexible with their rules. At the Toronto Film Festival, after noting that there were a few people in line who did not get tickets, the officials even opened a second theatre. And, the writer, director, etc, also came to this second theatre for discussions so as not to short-change the fans.

Now that's good public relations.

Movies it is for me, no more of this Luminato hot-air hype. Cineplex, AMC, and other movie theatres, here I come. Never had problems with them.

Luminato, get it? This is bad publicity for you.

Dori said: On June 15, 2010 11:48pm

Adib's experience this evening at the Azar Nafisi event mirrored my own and that of the 2 friends who were with me. However, there is an additional distressing chapter to the story. Our waiting list ticket numbers were 6,7, and 8. The people with numbers 4 and 5 were no longer present, so 2 of us got their tickets. With consternation, two of us went in, hoping that a last minute ticket would become available.

Now came the most disturbing part of the story. There were 2 entire rows at the top of the theatre, almost completely empty, a few with a "reserved" sign on them, some with no sign. After a few minutes, I went outside to let the forces that be know that there were a bunch of empty seats that were available to the remaining waiting people, including my friend. Aside from the argument given that those people might come late, I was told that they couldn't resell tickets that had already been sold.

Now, at first glance, both of these arguments seem logical. However, the reserved seats had not been paid for, and could have been given away free. In fact, I understood from my friend later, that she and others offered to give a donation in return for a seat. As for the first argument, at some point those seats could have been given away. Statistics would indicate that all 20-25 of the people who "owned" those seats were not going to show up, and in fact, only 7 of them did. All the other seats remained empty, and many people missed out on an event that they should have been able to see. If Luminato advertises itself as wanting to make these wonderful events available to the people, the inflexibility that results in decisions such as tonight's, is not a good start.

Ivan said: On June 12, 2010 1:04pm

I'm very unsatisfied with TicketMaster services and entire ticket issuing process for the festival events.

I had ordered a ticket for "The Infernal Comedy", but it was a huge mess at Massey Hall to pick up tickets, even if you have printed receipt with all details.

I tried to order a ticket online for "Two faced bastard" - the system could not proceed it through, then I ordered a ticket by phone, but for a 8 pm show I had to pick up a ticket at TicketMaster venue which closed at 6 pm.

People are charged extra fee for such "convenience", excuse me? BTW charge for 50$ ticket is 8.75$ - isn't it too much?

I don't want to deal with TicketMaster any further, and as you see from the comments here, it's not my personal problem.
I suggest that if the festival won't provide the other options to get tickets, some people could find more customer friendly events in Toronto.

Please don't screw up your great initiative with lousy TicketMaster service!

Eroca Nicols said: On June 12, 2010 11:56am

I'm a professional dancer and cannot afford to go and see Australian dance company Chunky Move because the tickets are an appalling $50 each. Why doesn't Luminato offer discounted tickets for artists? Tickets are only available to the the financial elite-sad but true.

Mary Grath said: On June 9, 2010 9:36am

I am frequently downtown and would love to come to a Luminato office and buy a $15.00 ticket to hear Azar Nafisi speak on June 15. To buy ahead of time I have to pay $18.00, $3.00 of which will go to Ticketmaster. Why is the ticket price listed at $15.00? I called Luminato directly and was told I could come the day of the event and buy a $15.00 ticket.. I guess if the event is sold out that is my problem. Can I not come down earlier? I am willing to make the trip!

Jessica Dargo Caplan said: On May 3, 2010 4:35pm

Rosemary, thank you for your interest in our Masters of Magic program. I run the Education & Outreach Programs for Luminato, and will look into other opportunities for you and your students to see any of the performances/events.
I will email you directly with more information ASAP.
Many thanks again for your interest in the Festival!

Rosemary Hughes said: On May 3, 2010 11:00am

I'm a teacher of Special Needs senior students. We would love to have the class go to a magic show. Unfortunately, all the weekday shows are at night. Are there any rehearsals that we could attend that take place during the day on a weekday?

Marta Kline said: On April 23, 2010 10:22am

I would love to go to the "Fiction in the Age of E-books" event and was happy to pay the $15.00 (plus a reasonable service charge) to get a ticket. However, when I went to purchase a ticket from Ticketmaster, there was a $3.00 charge added to the $15.00 ticket, AND then another $3.00 charge added to that, to make the total $21.00!!! That's over 30% of the price of the ticket. Outrageous! I'm very disappointed that I won't be going to this event.