Neco OK to sell final 11,000 tickets, court rules

Defunct ticket resale operation National Event Company (Neco) has been granted permission to sell its remaining inventory of approximately 11,000 tickets, after successfully arguing in a New York bankruptcy court the tickets would otherwise become worthless.

Neco filed for bankruptcy last month after bank accounts and other assets belonging to its founder, former maths teacher Jason Nissen, were seized by sheriffs in connection with an alleged US$120 million ponzi scheme.

In a court filing yesterday, judge James L. Garrity, of the bankruptcy court of southern New York, approved Neco’s request to sell the inventory, which Nissen says includes tickets to a number of baseball matches, the US Open tennis championship and “concerts at Jones Beach [Theatre], PNC Arena in Newark and other venues”.

“Unless such tickets are sold promptly, there is a risk that they will not be sold at all”

Neco’s motion for permission to sell the tickets centred on two arguments: That revenue from their sale would allow it “to terminate all remaining full-time employees, other than its chief restructuring officer, and will allow the debtors to terminate their existing office lease at 1430 Broadway shortly, which together will substantially reduce operating expenses”; and that many of the events are scheduled for “dates in the near future”, meaning if the tickets are not sold immediately, “there is a risk they will not be sold at all”.

Neco’s lawyer, Herrick Feinstein’s Stephen B. Selbst, has previously estimated the value of the tickets to be around $5.2m.

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