Van Gogh show in Seattle finally announces a location

After months of being listed as a “secret location”, the venue for the Seattle show “Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience,” which was due to open in September but didn’t materialize, was finally announced.

The show will be held in a warehouse in the Sodo neighborhood on Occidental Ave. S. 1750, with the opening date postponed on October 19, according to Santiago Santamaría Soler, global communications director for Fever, the show’s ticketing company. The Fever website is currently displaying tickets that will be available online through January 30, 2022.

Many customers had already bought tickets for a promised sensual experience of Vincent Van Gogh’s works this spring, but they worried when the “secret place” did not materialize, when the first ticket dates in September drew nearer and finally existed.

When they contacted Fever, some were told the show had been delayed, others were told it was canceled, and still others received no communication at all but logged on to the Fever app and found their tickets canceled became. Many filed complaints about Fever with the Better Business Bureau, which is currently posting a warning for the company on its website warning that there is a “complaint pattern” from consumers, and with the Washington Attorney General, which has received 167 consumers Complaints.

Bill Vipond of the Sodo Arena group, which represents the property on which the Van Gogh show will take place, confirmed that Exhibition Hub, the show’s producer, is actually renting the property. After several weeks of working with the Sodo Arena group and resolving some permit issues, Exhibition Hub signed the lease on Wednesday, Vipond said.

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Santamaría Soler said the company has a policy not to announce the venue earlier as it doesn’t have a physical box office from which to serve customers.

“We are a digital company and we didn’t want to announce the venue at first because we wanted to avoid people coming to the venue to ask for information about the tickets,” he said. “We can do a lot of things, however [only] through our system. “

Jeff Parry, president of Annerin Productions, a partner on a competing Van Gogh show – “Beyond Van Gogh,” which opens in Portland in November – said he believes Fever’s “secret location” strategy is about Competition goes. With at least four competing Van Gogh experiences currently touring the U.S. and selling tickets with no venue announcement, he says, Fever may be the first to hit a market.

“We never offer tickets without a venue,” he said. “I’ve been a promoter for 40 years. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. You just can’t get away with it. It’s bad business. It’s not good for anyone … but if you can go in and hit the market, as you can see, it stopped us from going there. ”

Fever attributes the postponed opening date – originally announced in September and later than October 15 – to “shipping problems due to COVID-19”.

“The date was originally October 15,” confirmed Santamaría Soler. “But we want to make sure that the customer experience is perfect. The opening day is October 19th. ”

After starting dates for the show in September passed with no venue announcement and different opening dates were heard from customer service reps in October, many ticket holders contacted Fever with varying degrees of success for refunds.

Santamaría Soler says Fever’s priority will be to help ticket holders who have been “delayed” postpone their show dates or issue them with a voucher for another show offered by Fever, but if a ticket holder is not one of them Both would like these options, they can get a refund.

However, this does not apply to everyone.

For those with tickets after the new opening date on October 19, says Santamaría Soler, the possibility of a refund will be considered “on a case-by-case basis”.

Crystal Paul:
cpaul@seattletimes.com; on Twitter: @cplhouse. Crystal Paul is a reporter for the Seattle Times. She is interested in stories about the people, places and stories that capture the soul of their communities.