Flashman: Scalping tickets in London

By Sue L. Blanchard, Communication Strategist and Writer.

To some, he’s the angel who fell from grace, making an obscene profit at the expense of others. To others, he a good angel in a portly disguise, providing a vital and important service. His name is cursed on some circles, yet gleefully passed around in others. He’s both praised and pilloried, sometimes by the same customers.

The invaluable service Jack Flashman provides is tickets. In the theatre and sports crazed city of London, England, where sold-out signs are an all too familiar sight, Londoners and tourists alike call Jack when they really need to be at an event.

A mountain of a man, Flashman sits imperiously in a tiny one-room office answering a never-ending cacophony of ringing cell phones that are placed daintily on napkins on a sparse wooden desk. “Yeah, I got ‘em,” he mutters into his cell. “Of course that’s 75 pounds apiece. It’s the hottest show in the East End.”

The 53-year-old Flashman began his ticket selling career four decades ago when, as a rabid football fan, he watch people at the gates sell tickets to ‘sold-out’ events for fistfuls of money.

“That made a real impression on me. It was a job that combined two of my greatest loves: sports and pocketfuls of pound notes.”

One warning about dealing with Flashman—his service is not cheap. For an orchestra ticket to a hot London play he charges 200 percent over cost; for a ticket to Wimbledon during the finals he has been known to mark up seats by 1,000 percent.

“When people call me they know they’re going to pay extra,” he says, wiping perspiration from a defiant brow. “But I deal in quality and they get the best there is.” While Wimbledon, Wembly and the Football Association Cup finals are the hottest sports ducats, Flashman also has choice tickets for cultural events.

“I get people into Miss Saigon and the like. When they ring me, they know they’re going to get a top seat. I never fail to come up with the goods,” he notes.

“What I provide is tickets to events no one can get tickets to. I’m giving people an evening they’ll never forget, especially for someone who is only in London for or two nights and can’t get anything from conventional sources. Most of my customers don’t care what they pay as long as they can put their fannies into those seats.”

Flashman’s major clients include well-healed tourists, movie and television celebrities, and even an occasional member of the Royal Family. Known by cabbies, concierges and ticket agencies all over London, Flashman has become an institution. A generous tipper to those who direct clients to his services. Flashman has a telephone list of regulars that numbers 5,000 long.

Says a concierge at a posh hotel, “There’s three things I couldn’t do without—my mom, my pint of bitters and Jack Flashman.”