Executive producer of the children’s performing arts event Ian Millard said they had received calls from parents who had spent up to $179 per ticket through ticket resale website Viagogo.

“Unless you purchase from [the] Ticketmaster Box Office you may risk being in possession of a cancelled ticket and be unable to gain admittance to the WIN Entertainment Centre,” Mr Millard said.

“We have contacted all the schools involved in Southern Stars and asked them to notify families immediately on our behalf.”

On Thursday, Viagogo’s website claimed the first show on August 31 was sold out while the fourth event on September 1 was “selling fast” with their tickets the “cheapest in Wollongong”.

Spokeswoman for the Department of Education Julee Brienen said this was inaccurate as there were still “thousands” of tickets available for all four shows at around $54 each.

She urged people to only purchase from the official ticket seller Ticketmaster – either in person at the Wollongong box office, or online.

NSW Fair Trading received more than 1000 complaints and enquiries about dodgy tickets being issued in 2016-17, with Viagogo named on the Complaints Register every month for the last year.

New ticket scalping laws came into effect on June 1 imposing maximum penalties for selling a ticket at more than 10 per cent above the original cost – $11,000 for an individual, and $22,000 for an organisation.

It comes as Ticketmaster suffered a cyber attack attack in which data of up to 40,000 customers may have been accessed during September 2017 and June 23 this year.

Customers in Australia and the UK whose personal details may have been accessed in a data breach were being contacted by the company.

“Whilst we have no evidence to suggest your data has been compromised, we are notifying you out of an abundance of caution,” they advised in a customer email.

The ticket sales site said that malicious software on third-party customer support product Inbenta Technologies was behind the hack.