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Warnings of price gouging on Balloon Fiesta tickets [Video]
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Warnings of price gouging on Balloon Fiesta tickets [Video]

If you’re looking to buy Balloon Fiesta tickets, be wary of where you’re getting them. One man found he was paying double the price of what they should be. With thousands coming for the event, the president of the International Balloon Fiesta, Judy Nakamura, said they try to make this as accessible as possible and to be wary of tickets that are above $15. On Tuesday, a viewer contacted the Target 7 tipline saying he bought two tickets for $70. He found those tickets in an online search, looking up Balloon Fiesta tickets, and was sent to an online third-party website. “It’s very unfortunate. It’s not something that we approve of, particularly because we try to make sure tickets are affordable for people to get into Balloon Fiesta,” Nakamura said. “You never have to worry that we’re going to run out of space. We have over a 70-acre launch field out here. There is plenty of room to accommodate people who want to come to balloon fiesta.” There are three places you can buy tickets: on their website, outside the park at the ticket booths and the Balloon Fiesta gift shop.”We do not condone ticket resellers; we don’t sell batches of tickets to anyone else to sell the tickets for us,” said Nakamura. However, price gouging has happened for other big events around town. In May, a similar ticket price changes targeted the New Mexico Ballet Company. Target 7 learned they weren’t alone. Opera Southwest and the New Mexico Gay Men’s Chorus also said patrons were overcharged for tickets. Our legal expert, John Day, said there’s not many people can do. “You can scalp tickets to high school events, other cultural events pretty much anything you want and it’s not illegal,” Day said. “A lot of other states have made laws that make that illegal, but New Mexico is not one of them.” Day said in New Mexico, ticket scalping is only illegal for college athletic events. General admission prices are $15, and children 12 and under are able to get in for free. When you pay online with a credit card or at the booth, there will be a $1.50 charge.

Hurricane Milton prompts evacuations along Florida’s Gulf Coast [Video]
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Small Business Funding

Hurricane Milton prompts evacuations along Florida’s Gulf Coast [Video]

Evacuation orders have been issued for communities along Florida’s Gulf Coast as Hurricane Milton rapidly intensifies. Right now, millions are under a hurricane warning, including 3.3 million in the Tampa Bay area, which could see a direct hit from the storm. “If you stay in an evacuation zone, I can’t promise you that you’ll be safe,” said Chief Lee Bercaw of the Tampa Police Department. Milton’s current path has Tampa Bay in its bull’s-eye, an area still recovering from Hurricane Helene. Efforts to clean up debris from previous storms are ongoing as residents prepare for Milton’s landfall.”We’re still going to have the debris removal operations ongoing all the way until we start to hit tropical storm force winds,” said Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.In a news conference Monday, DeSantis also warned residents to take the storm seriously, saying, “This is not a storm you want to take a risk on. As I’ve said many times over the last day or two, we can’t guarantee where this thing is going to end up making landfall.”On Fort Myers Beach, businesses are boarding up windows and doors with plywood and placing sandbags to mitigate the storm’s impact, which could include storm surges up to 12 feet in some areas.Don Girard, a Fort Myers Beach resident, recalled his experience with Hurricane Ian in 2022, saying he didn’t take a chance on safety then, and he won’t be taking one now. “About this time on Monday before Ian hit, Fort Myers Beach was barely in the cone, just like it is now, and it took that hard right turn and wiped us out,” said Girard.Girard’s home experienced nearly 9 feet of storm surge during Hurricane Ian.Florida has been hit by several hurricanes in the last 13 months. Hurricane Ian in 2022 caused $113 billion worth of damage, much of it in the southwest portion of the state, including Fort Myers Beach, and the total impact from Helene is still being calculated. President Joe Biden has issued an emergency declaration for Florida ahead of Hurricane Milton’s landfall, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency says it has sufficient funding and resources to support federal response to the storm without impacting its response to Helene.