If you are looking for tickets to the hit Broadway musical “The Wiz,” you may be thrilled to see on StubHub’s site or app that it’s playing right here in Long Beach at the Aurora Theater — except it’s not.
According to Aurora Theater owner and artistic director Charles Tentindo, someone has been selling tickets on StubHub to a nonexistent show at his theater, located at 4412 East Village Rd. He said the fake ticket sales have been “devastating for our community.”
“We are a small business fighting to survive,” he said. “And now we’re forced to turn away heartbroken families who thought they were coming to see a show that was never even playing here.”
At the time of this writing, StubHub was selling tickets for “The Wiz” at the Aurora Theater in Long Beach for $54 to $337 each between Aug. 20 and Sept. 5, even though it was never scheduled to play there.
The dates correspond to a scheduled run at the similarly named Aurora Theatre in Lawrenceville, Ga., from Aug. 20 to Sept. 7, according to that theater’s website.
StubHub is a ticket reselling site where sellers can set prices for tickets they had purchased that may be higher or lower than the original amount. According to StubHub, all ticket sales are final.
“You cannot change, cancel or return any orders after the sale is complete,” StubHub’s website states, including “purchasing tickets for the wrong event.”
In addition to the Aurora Theatre in Georgia, the musical is also performing at Citizens Opera House in Boston this month and at Segerstrom Center in Orange County in January 2026, according to those theaters’ websites — all correctly identified in StubHub with the glaring exception of the Aurora Theater in Long Beach.
“People first started calling me two weeks ago asking me if I was showing ‘The Wiz,’” Tentindo said. “I told them no, but they kept on texting me and emailing me, and then it continued for several days.”
Tentindo described a woman showing up who said her father was on his way to the theater, driving a long distance with 10 other family members.
“She began to cry in front of me,” he said. “I had to console her. It’s a very upsetting thing for these people.”
Tentindo tried calling StubHub to fix the problem, but to no avail.
“I spoke to StubHub three times and got the runaround each time,” he said. “They wanted me to join StubHub for some reason and then asked me to take screenshots of everything.”
The Long Beach Post also tried contacting StubHub to ask about the error but was met with indifference and requests for screenshots and information that did not resolve the problem or explain why it happened.
Tentindo also reported the matter to local authorities.
“When I spoke to the police, they basically told me that if people show up at your theater and you have an altercation, please call us,” Tentindo said. “They were put on standby alert.”
Given that, Tentindo said he tried finding security to make sure last Saturday’s performance of “White Rabbit Red Rabbit” at his theater with actor Paul Williams was not interrupted by people asking about “The Wiz.”
“It was very stressful, and I could not find any security guard, so I had to have friends show up to watch the door,” he said.
Tentindo is not the only one who has suffered because of falsely sold tickets. Last year, 200 fans in Seattle were turned away from a concert there after purchasing fake tickets through StubHub.
StubHub says it has a “FanProtect guarantee” that allows people to “buy tickets with confidence” and “get valid tickets to any event or your money back.” StubHub also lists seller policies that require sellers to only list valid tickets with correct information.
“If a seller does not follow these policies, we’ll step in to obtain the correct tickets from the seller, or offer you replacement tickets or a full refund,” StubHub says.
Of course, it’s up to buyers to contact StubHub to try to get a refund. In the meantime, Tentindo anticipates further heartache involving his theater, through no fault of his own.
“These poor people are so emotionally upset when they arrive and realize that they’ve gotten ripped off and they’re not going to be able to see ‘The Wiz,’” Tentindo said. “Patrons have spent thousands of dollars on these fake tickets, with no way to recover their money at the door.”