Ticket Window, half-price Ticket/Ticket shut down

Ticket Window, a local ticketing agency, and its sister company, half-price ticket vendor Ticket/Ticket, have gone out of business.

Alan Goldwasser, who owned both companies, confirmed Tuesday that Ticket Window and Ticket/Ticket have closed. He said he has no plans to reopen Ticket Window, an operation most visible as the Web site www.ticketwindowonline.com.

"We loved doing our work for 20 years," Goldwasser said, but the businesses closed because he's "moving on."

In a brief phone conversation dominated by one-word answers, Goldwasser said he owns another business in the entertainment field, declining to be more specific.

On Tuesday, the Web site for Ticket Window — which billed itself as "the Seattle Area's only full service, locally owned and operated ticketing company" — still listed upcoming events, including this weekend's stage shows of Unexpected Productions in Seattle and performances of "Private Lives" by Bellevue Civic Theatre at Meydenbauer Center.

But Web sites for both arts groups directed online ticket buyers to Brown Paper Tickets, another local seller.

Ticket/Ticket, the major game in town for day-of-event, half-price tickets, was a booth business, with booths in Seattle at Pacific Place, Pike Place Market and Broadway Market, and at Bellevue's Meydenbauer Center. All four recently closed.

Lorna Chin, SIS Productions producer (the company behind "Sex In Seattle," a show at Richard Hugo House on Capitol Hill) was a Ticket Window client.

"We have gone to Brown Paper Tickets," she said. "We picked [Ticket Window] because they were the ones that did Ticket/Ticket. More than Ticket Window being gone, Ticket/Ticket is a sad loss for the community. It was great resource for people who couldn't afford a ticket."

Andrew Matson: 206-464-2153 or amatson@seattletimes.com