A Disney trip for 6,500 high school students was thrown into turmoil Wednesday when a trailer loaded with Disney California Adventure tickets was stolen from a Central Valley parking lot, authorities say.

The trailer was set to travel from the office of the California Future Farmers of America Foundation, in Galt, to Anaheim, where the 90th annual California FFA leadership conference is taking place next week. The four-day event for high school students includes job skills training, agricultural visits and a private event for attendees at Disney’s California Adventure theme park.

But the foundation’s surveillance camera captured a man entering the group’s parking lot at 3:10 a.m. Wednesday, California Highway Patrol Officer Michael Bradley said. The man cut the lock on the trailer, attached it to his own dark, extended-cab pickup truck and drove away, Bradley said. The stolen trailer is a white, double-axle Wells Cargo trailer with the license plate 4KJ1127, he said.

Disney has voided the 8,000 stolen tickets and reissued new ones for the conference, Disneyland spokeswoman Liz Jaeger said.


It’s not clear that the thief was looking for Disney tickets in particular. Bradley said the man didn’t look inside the trailer before taking it.

The wristbands and tickets — worth about $800,000 before they were voided — were tucked into folders containing registration materials, said Katie Otto, development director for the California FFA Foundation.

The trailer also contained AV equipment worth between $15,000 and $20,000 and FFA-branded merchandise including mugs, sweatshirts, picture frames and shirts worth about $12,000, she said.


The Disney tickets are now worthless, so people should be wary of buying resold admissions to the theme park.

“We recommend that guests purchase tickets only from Disneyland resort or an authorized retailer,” Jaeger said.

The front of the tickets look like any other, Otto said. The back, however, notes that admission is valid only on Tuesday for “1-day after dark in the park event,” and “California FFA Association” is imprinted on them.

Anyone with information on the theft is asked to call the CHP Sacramento-area communication center at (916) 861-1300.


Reach Sonali Kohli at Sonali.Kohli@latimes.com or on Twitter @Sonali_Kohli.