City Box Office

Non-​functional website. I have been waiting ten minutes in their «waiting-​room» — I think I will find another way to buy my tickets. Unbelievable in the heart of Silicon Valley!

Horrible online ordering system. Bought tickets to a show, when I got there they did not have me on the list and told me that I had bought tickets for the next night. I asked if they might move my tickets to this night seeing as it was not even close to sold out and they could not/​would not help me out. Then I called their office the next day to try and get a refund and they would not help me at all. Buncha crooks.

These guys were great! Tickets with convenience fee is still way cheaper than Stub Hub and Ticket Master. I had my tix at will call and it was a smooth transaction. All these people talking about convenience fee must have not seen other sites fees which are double these guys $ 3.25 fees. Cheapest fee I have ever paid.

Last year I’d just moved to the Bay Area and found out about a great show I wanted to see, tickets handled by City Box Office. It sounded great, not too expensive, good seats, I ordered my ticket. About a week or so later I got an email from CBO notifying me that the show was cancelled and I needed to call them to process my refund. Oh, well, it happens. So I called and was told that the ticket cost would be refunded but they were going to keep the extra fees they charged. What the hell? Are you kidding? I get nothing and they keep my money anyway and just HOW is this good for business? I asked why and the person on the phone was just this side of rude, telling me that the people who work there need to get paid. Wow, so the only money the employees earn is from the extra fees? They must be in hell working there. My husband was livid, he called them back and demanded to speak to a manager and got a rude person with a rude response, we were basically told to suck it up.
If I order something from, say
and then get a notification that they don’t have my item in stock anymore, they will email me and refund me everything. Why would they keep money for nothing? They don’t just refund the price of the item and keep the shipping fees and then tell me to go to hell. Heck, even Ticketmaster refunds everything when a show is cancelled (I’ve had this happened twice) and you don’t even have to call them, it’s automatic.
All CBO did was make sure I’ll never, ever buy another ticket from them again. It’s a gamble. The show gets cancelled and I’m still out money because of their terrible business practices? It’s not right, and they must know it’s not right because no one else does this.

This is my first one-​star review, but I feel like the service warrants it. City Box Office is that terrible… Horrible customer service reps and an inflexible ordering system. I’ll also echo what everyone else is saying about their «convenience» fee. What exactly does that mean?
I wanted to buy tickets for the Pop-​up magazine event, and even though I requested two, I only ended up with one. When I called them about fixing this error, they were not only unhelpful, but flat out rude. I also left a message with the manager that never got returned. I ended up having to buy an additional two tickets just to get two seats next to each other. One star for rude customer service and a terrible ordering system.
Pop-​up magazine ended up being a great show, but I’d rather go through a different third party to buy tickets because I hope to never have to business with City Box Office again.

Really? All this carrying on in other reviews about the «convenience fee»? Have the other reviewers never purchased tickets through Ticketmaster?
Ok, I’ll admit, a fee for «convenience» is a very stupid term. Just bought 4 tix thru City Box Office online though, and the extra charges came to a total of $ 11…at other agencies it would have been $ 16 per ticket.
City Box Office handles ticket sales for some really great events. It’s worth it to scroll through their calendar to see if there’s something interesting you might have otherwise missed.

City Box Office is tucked away in a tiny alley right next to the Chevy’s on Van Ness (thus it always smells like refried beans inside). It’s really difficult to find as there is no signage outside the building — you just have to know which number it is or look at the listings for tenants.
Once inside the building, I followed the signs and walked around to the back and through what looked like a back entrance for employees. This was not dispelled upon entering what looked like an office space with no clear ticket desk anywhere.
Luckily, the people who worked there were very nice and helpful. Yes, there is a ticket desk up the stairs. But the desk is pretty much run out of the office space. Very low key. I guess they do most of their business online.
The only annoying this is that starting in May 2006 they also charge a «convenience fee» of $ 1 for all walkups. I think this is ludicrous. They should give me $ 1 and an «inconvenience fee» for being so difficult to find in person. To whose convenience am I paying for? Certainly not mine. I don’t understand why they don’t just raise the ticket prices by $ 1 all around instead of trying to fake me out with a fee.
Bike Parking: street sign at the corner of the alley and Van Ness at the entrance of Chevy’s.

BOOOOOO! Wanting to avoid a $ 4 online convenience fee, I called CBO and asked them what I would have to do to avoid paying it.
They told me I could go to their office for the tickets (although you still have to pay a $ 2 fee). My boyfriend called them as well and verified that yes, we could avoid the convenience fee by picking up the tickets at their office.
When he went there today and purchased the tickets, they still added the $ 4 «convenience» fee to each ticket and said that they couldn’t remove it. I am livid that they lied and/​or they are so inept that they have employees giving customers wrong information. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!