Ticket Broker, PCC Neighbor Offers Global Variety to a Local Clientele

Among the litany of fast food restaurants, churches and retail shops surrounding PCC, one of the region’s longest standing ticket brokers has thrived for the past 18 years. Southern California Tickets is owned by industry veteran, Curtis Autenrieth, who started his business buying bulk concert tickets and selling them to friends for a 25 cent mark-up over 30 years ago.

“No one was doing this when we started,” Autenrieth said. “At first we just bought tickets to help our friends out, then we thought, ‘why can’t we buy 100 tickets. why can’t we buy 1,000.’ “

Now Autenrieth runs a business selling tickets for events ranging from the Pasadena Playhouse to the Beijing Olympic Games, for a price.

The more in-demand an event, the more the charge, up to thousands of dollars and over 200 percent mark-up.

“We’re the Nordstrom of tickets,” Autenrieth said.

Located just across Colorado Boulevard, in a small office littered with pictures of every rock star seemingly known to man, Autenrieth runs his business efficiently and personally.

“People can come in here and actually see, touch and feel the tickets,” Autenreith said.

One of Southern California Tickets’ taglines is that they are a “World Wide Ticket Broker.” Autenrieth can and will cover global events such as the Olympics, English Premier League soccer matches and Australian Rugby.

Being a broker for three decades, Autenrieth has faced attacks on his business from legislation, to out-of-town scalpers, to online brokers on ebay.com and craigslist.com.

At one point the state government attempted to block the resale of event tickets for more than their face value, which would be a death threat to Autenrieth’s business.

Ticket brokers across California formed a group to fight the legislation, and won.

“If we weren’t going to fight it,” Autenrieth said, “it wouldn’t get fought.”

Regarding the stigma of ticket brokers only being “high-class scalpers,” Autenrieth takes a hard stance.

“If I want to go to Sparklets and buy water for 50 cents a bottle and sell them for 8 dollars at [a concert], I can.” Autenrieth said. “So what is so sexy about selling a ticket?”

Despite the ‘ups and downs’ of the business that can result in thousands of dollars in losses, based on bad business moves, Autenrieth forges on.

“We’re the secondary market for tickets,” Autenrieth said. “If you need tickets, we will get them for you.