Roanoke Business Duped by Fake Chippendales - FOX 21/27 WFXR Roanoke/WWCW Lynchburg News, Weather

Roanoke Business Duped by Fake Chippendales

202 Market is refunding tickets to the Chippendales Show scheduled for Sept. 18, 2012, after learning it was not an authorized Chippendales touring company.

202 Market posted this announcement on its Facebook page Wednesday morning:

"Due to circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to continue with the Chippendales Show scheduled for September 18, 2012. We apologize and anyone having purchased tickets and/or VIP Tables will receive a 100% refund of their money."

We contacted 202 Market, and their events and promotions director, Jo Jo Soprano, said the 250 tickets sold out in record time and they were sorry to have to cancel the show but it was beyond their control.

"The group that was claiming to be the Chippendales is not an authorized Chippendales touring company and is no way affiliated with the trademarked brand Chippendales, so it was essentially a fraudster or an infringer," said Kevin Denberg, a Chippendales managing partner. "Like any other major brand, we take that type of behavior quite seriously. It's deceiving to both the club owners and, more importantly, our fans."

Denberg tells Fox 21/27 because Chippendales is the "gold standard in this type of entertainment," this type of thing happens occasionally, and 202 Market worked with them to have the performance canceled.

"It's certainly a problem for us," Denberg said. "It's problem that most global brands deal with, but, fortunately, assuming we're able to learn about the situation, venue operators are quite amenable to working with us to stop the show for fear of defrauding the public."

Denberg said people very often use their images to pass themselves off as the trademarked Chippendales and every authorized show is listed on the Chippendales web site.

"We're disappointed," Soprano said. "The disappointment is not only because we wanted to have the show here and figured it was something different to bring, but we're just disappointed we have 250 ladies who were looking forward to having a girls' night out who now have to look for something different to do that night."

The fraudulent company contacted 202 Market by mail and Soprano said once they were interested, the company sent promotional materials, including tickets and posters for them to use.

"We looked at it all and it all had the Chippendales registered trademark - the tickets, the posters, everything. So obviously we thought it was a legit show" Soprano said. "The contract even itself has Chippendales all over it, making the contract completely fraudulent."

Denberg said they do have plans to bring Chippendales to the area and are always looking for partners to put on the show but are not familiar enough with 202 Market to comment if that would be an appropriate venue.