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Portland choir waiting on thousands from Seattle-based ticketing company

A Portland choir is owed more than $4,000 from Brown Paper Tickets after a December concert.

PORTLAND, Ore. — Update to this story: Ralph Nelson, the artistic director for the Bach Cantata Choir, reached out to KGW to say that the choir finally received its payment from Brown Paper Tickets on Tuesday, Feb. 22.

Original story below:

A Portland choir is waiting on $4,500 from Seattle-based ticketing company Brown Paper Tickets after their December concert. 

The Bach Cantata Choir had a concert on Dec. 16 and they are still waiting on their money from Brown Paper Tickets. The choir is owed exactly $4,500 from the ticket sales. 

Artistic director Ralph Nelson said they've worked with the ticket company before and everything was fine but this time was different.

"They've been very good in the past," Nelson said. "But a month went by and nothing happened, and now two months went by and we haven't received any payment. For us, $4,500 is like 5% of our entire budget."

The Bach Cantata Choir is not the only group of performers that missed out on money from Brown Paper Tickets. 

RELATED: Beaverton dance studio owed $20K from ticketing platform Brown Paper Tickets

The Sultanov Russian Ballet Academy, a Beaverton-based dance studio, was missing close to $20,000 in ticket sales from a performance back in December. They ended up receiving their money. Nelson saw the story on KGW and reached out in hopes that it would help. 

"You try and call them and then you get a message that they've taken down their phone support system," Nelson said. "We haven't received any word back from them."

In a statement, Brown Paper Tickets told KGW the money owed to the choir is expected to go out this week. The company cited the COVID-19 pandemic as the reason payments have been delayed. 

Nelson was excited when KGW shared the news with him. But he said he'll think twice before using the company again. The choir's next show is in April.

"We were going to go with Brown Paper Tickets, but we actually developed our own little system on our website to buy the tickets through that," Nelson said. "We just can't risk it again." 

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