Refund requests are being handled as swiftly as possible. If you have not yet heard from us or submitted a refund request, please complete the form below. (Please submit only one request.)
Due to the large number of requests and questions we are receiving, please know it may take several weeks before your refund is processed. The Ticket Office staff appreciates your patience as they address each and every order. You will receive a notification once your refund is complete.
Refund FAQs
Is the Ticket Office staff allowed to work during the pandemic?
Yes! In accordance with NYS guidelines, our staff has been working safely from their homes since mid-March. They have access to the computer and phone systems and are processing your refunds remotely.
Do I need to submit a separate request for every order I’ve placed in 2020?
No. If you have placed multiple orders, there is no need to submit a form for each purchase. When our agent reviews your initial request, they will include all purchases listed under your account.
How long will it take to process my refund?
Please note that submitting a request will not automatically activate a refund. All refunds and donations require ticket agent attention. Once your request has been processed by our agents:
- Refunds to a credit card may take 3–7 business days to appear.
- Refunds issued via check may take 3–6 weeks (working remotely may cause delays).
- A letter of receipt for your tax-deductible donation to the 2020 Chautauqua fund will be sent to you by Chautauqua’s Office of Advancement.
I’m a property owner. Will I need any passes or parking permits if I still intend to visit my Chautauqua home this summer?
We plan to make a detailed announcement about this in the beginning of June. Any gate passes or parking permits will be free of charge, but some fees will apply for other lawful services (e.g. docks, golf, etc.) No passes will be necessary until June 27, 2020.
I've received my concert ticket refund but the event has now been rescheduled for 2021. What next?
- Patrons who purchased popular entertainment tickets for 2020 will be offered advance purchase for the rescheduled concert date in 2021.
- To ensure that we have your most up-to-date contact information, please email us: ticketoffice@chq.org or call us at 716.357.6250.
- Due to the uncertainty of future guidelines on seating arrangements for performance venues, we cannot guarantee the same seat location(s) for rescheduled concerts. That said, we will make every effort to offer the same or comparable seating to guests, if guidelines allow.
10:45 a.m. Monday–Friday, Amphitheater
Ideas and opinions are exchanged in an open, challenging atmosphere, and Chautauqua's knowledgeable audiences have the opportunity to participate in question-and-answer sessions at the conclusion of the lectures.
Week One :: June 27–July 4
Climate Change: Prioritizing Our Global and Local Response
How we talk about climate change is rapidly shifting. But amid the ongoing political debates, how are we — and should we be — responding?
- What does prioritizing a response to climate change mean, and how do we collectively determine the overall benefits and costs of such investments?
- How do we balance proactive work aimed at reversing climate change with strategies for adapting to the realities of its worst effects?
- We examine case studies of solutions being sought at a global and local scale, from the work of small U.S. towns to foreign countries, and from corporate investments to military strategies.
View Week One Chautauqua Lectures
Week Two :: July 4–11
Forces Unseen: What Shapes Our Daily Lives
We like to think we have ultimate freedom of choice. Yet every product or experience we can possibly consider has been carefully selected for us by a mostly invisible class of societal gatekeepers and tastemakers. Our choices are not only limited, but also affected by everything from explicit advertisements and an industry of “influencers” to secretive campaigns and algorithms.
- Who are these shapers of modern life? How do they decide what trends to push?
- Who are they accountable to, and how can we as individuals recognize and contend with them?
View Week Two Chautauqua Lectures
Week Three :: July 11–18
Art and Democracy
Artist, advocate, activist, citizen. What is the role of art — and the artist — in an active democracy? In this week, we hear from artists raising the social consciousness, challenging the status quo and engaging communities large and small toward meaningful action.
- We consider how art and artmaking serves as a catalyst for dissent and change and has the unique ability to bring community together to heal following trauma.
- How are the arts uniquely positioned to move the conversation forward, when other attempts at dialogue fail?
View Week Three Chautauqua Lecture
Week Four :: July 18–25
The Ethics of Tech: Scientific, Corporate and Personal Responsibility
Big Tech companies have begun to acknowledge their tremendous and sometimes harmful impact on society — particularly with regard to marginalized communities and civil liberties, and usually only following public calls for ethics reform and oversight.
- Is it enough for these giants to self-police, or is an industry-wide code of ethics or government regulation necessary to protect a future dominated by artificial intelligence, datafication and facial recognition?
- Does such oversight stifle innovation? How is the rest of the world responding?
- And, while it’s easy to see ourselves as victims, how do we take personal responsibility as consumers and users?
View Week Four Chautauqua Lectures
Week Five :: July 25–August 1
The Women’s Vote Centennial and Beyond
As we join the nation in celebrating the 100th anniversary of the passage of the 19th Amendment, we also consider those who were left out of the mainstream suffrage movement, examine the slow progress toward gender equality in the United States, and look to the movement’s relevance to the ongoing battle over voting rights.
- Despite women having the vote for nearly a century, and a surge in the 2018 election, why are so few women represented in government positions and on the ballot today?
- How does gender bias continue to be used against candidates, not only by political opponents, but by voters?
- Why has the Equal Rights Amendment, first proposed in 1923 and passed by Congress in 1972, fallen short of ratification?
View Week Five Chautauqua Lectures
Week Six :: August 1–8
Week Six Theme :: Rebuilding Public Education
In this week we take a comprehensive view of the cradle-to-college pipeline and look beyond the 2020 election to ask how we build more integrated and equitable public schools and best prepare our children for careers and as citizens in a rapidly changing world.
- With a growing shortage of credentialed teachers, how do we recruit and keep the next generation of educators?
- How do we navigate what has become one of the most contentious debates in education today and evaluate the impact of charter schools and vouchers in American communities?
- What does the recent college admissions cheating scandal tell us about how parents, students and society-at-large view the purpose of secondary education?
View Week Six Chautauqua Lectures
Week Seven :: August 8–15
The Science of Us
In the midst of robust debates about tribalism, isolation and bridging differences, this wide-ranging week explores how 21st-century science is disrupting our social and historical understandings of how “us” happens and who “we” are — as communities, demographies, families, nations and a human race.
- We look at America’s long narrative of folklore and our “melting pot” narrative. • We explore our obsession with — along with the limitations and repercussions of — genealogical/ancestry services.
- What are the emerging scientific understandings of heritage and ethnicity?
- How is science is informing community development and our socioeconomic models going forward?
View Week Seven Chautauqua Lectures
Week Eight :: August 15–22
Reframing the Constitution
Two-hundred and thirty years after its ratification, the U.S. Constitution remains one of the most difficult to amend of any in the world. During this week we ask if the Constitution is securing the “blessings of liberty” for all Americans and whether constitutional reform — from amendment to outright replacement — is necessary and even possible.
- We look at constitutional politics to understand the “unamendability” of the U.S. Constitution, consider resistance to a constitutional convention from both the political left and right, and determine what we can learn from younger democracies around the world.
View Week Eight Chautauqua Lectures
Week Nine :: August 22–30
The Future We Want, The World We Need: Collective Action for Tomorrow’s Challenges
A Week in Partnership with the U.N. Foundation
What will the world look like over the coming decades, and how can we work together to better prepare for the future? From climate change to new technologies, the world faces countless interrelated and fast-moving drivers of economic, political and social change.
- Where are the most important opportunities to realize a more equitable and sustainable world? What are our biggest collective challenges?
- During the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, we examine what we can learn from international communities and partnerships driving innovative solutions to global issues and identify tools that communities can use to learn from one another and drive collective action.
View Week Nine Chautauqua Lectures
Organist, liturgist, choir director, community faith leader: Our community mourns the loss of our beloved Jared Jacobsen and celebrates his remarkable life and artistry.
Having spent 65 summers at Chautauqua, Jared Jacobsen served as the Institution’s organist and coordinator of worship and sacred music since 1996, shaping the worship life of Chautauqua’s thousands of residents and guests for each of its nine seasonal weeks. He was the primary operator and guardian of the 112-year-old Massey Memorial Organ of four manuals and 5,640 pipes, located in the Amphitheater, which is the centerpiece of Chautauqua’s programming. He also shepherded the 50-voice Motet Choir for daily worship services and the 150-voice Chautauqua Choir for Sunday morning and evening worship, played weekly recitals on the Massey and the 1893 Tallman mechanical-action organ in the Hall of Christ, and appeared frequently as soloist with the Chautauqua Symphony and Music School Festival Orchestras.
In 1987, Jared played for the papal mass in San Francisco’s Candlestick Park for a congregation of 70,000 and the following spring was invited by Pope John Paul II to be an American delegate to the historic First World Congress of Church Music at the Vatican.
When not at Chautauqua during the summer months, Jared served as director of music for First Lutheran Church in downtown San Diego, and as a member of the performing arts faculty of The Bishop’s School, an independent college-preparatory middle and high school in La Jolla, California.
Please feel welcome to leave a public tribute to Jared in the thread below.
Photos
Videos
In Memoriam: Jared Jacobsen, March 18, 1949–August 27, 2019
"Day is Done" & "Largo," August 25, 2019
Sacred Song Service: "Camp Meeting is Over — Final Chautauqua Thoughts"
Leavetaking: Litany of Thanksgiving for Chautauqua
A version of the following litany written by Jared, shown as it appears in the program, has been read near the conclusion of the final Sacred Song Service of each season since 1999, including his last on Aug. 25, 2019.
Public Tributes to Jared
We welcome you to share memories or tributes to Jared using the comment box below. Please note that comments are public.
2020 Season Update
On May 2, 2020, our Board of Trustees decided unanimously and with moral clarity to suspend any in-person programs on our sacred Western New York grounds this summer. We will not be convening as we usually do, but rather in a new, online space, as a distributed but still tightly knit community of lifelong learners and lovers of the arts, education, interfaith and recreational programming. View and read President Michael Hill's message to our community at chq.org/update.
Refunds
The Institution is offering full refunds for services, gate passes, Athenaeum Hotel reservations, and single event tickets. The Chautauqua Ticket Office and Athenaeum Hotel will be reaching out to patrons via email to facilitate the refund process. Patrons are asked to avoid contacting the Chautauqua Ticket Office or the Athenaeum Hotel via phone during this time as call volumes are expected to be very high, and our staffing is limited.
If you have a specific question, please email the Ticket Office at ticketoffice@chq.org and staff will respond as quickly as possible. The Institution will be posting frequently asked questions and responses on the webpage chq.org/update, where questions can also be submitted. We look forward to engaging you in a new kind of Chautauqua Assembly this summer, and to a time when we can all safely be together again. Be safe and well.
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