Let's talk about ticket scalping

[taffeyb]

as mentioned above, Mumford&Sons are supposedly electronic tickets. That is, the credit card that you used to buy the ticket is your ticket....you need to present your credit card to scan plus photo id that matches the card. Just like ordering tickets on Ticketmaster and then going to pick up hard copies. The FAQ on ticketmaster is pretty clear.

I wonder how many people picked up their max allowed tickets to scalp? They may get stuck...

[Maritime Q-Scout]

Scalping is just the market economy.

Is it scalping for Future Shop to sell an HDMI cable that cost them $3 to you for $79.99? No.

It makes no sense to only be able to resell things at your cost, even if others had the opportunity to get it at your cost.

As was mentioned "reselling" happens all the time. Look at the Red Sox. They sell the tickets at Fenway. Release so many to season ticket holders and the general public. Then they release so many to StubHub and a ton to Ace Tickets. Ace Tickets is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Boston Red Sox. It's a game to get fans to pay more in line what the tickets are actually worth.

Eliminating "scalping" doesn't mean you get your seats for cheaper. It means the illusion of reasonably priced tickets is gone.

What SHOULD be done is all tickets are bid on auction style. Once you win you get to pick your seat. No scalping and will virtually eliminate the market for it while the vendor maximizes sales.

Scalping should be legal. It is in Nova Scotia. What a bunch of hippie lefties you guys are out there!

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by longsuffering

Real contribution to the discussion. Well done!

It sure was. I see several people who agreed with me.

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by taffeyb

as mentioned above, Mumford&Sons are supposedly electronic tickets. That is, the credit card that you used to buy the ticket is your ticket....you need to present your credit card to scan plus photo id that matches the card. Just like ordering tickets on Ticketmaster and then going to pick up hard copies. The FAQ on ticketmaster is pretty clear.

I wonder how many people picked up their max allowed tickets to scalp? They may get stuck...

Only the floor/GA seats were the paperless tickets. Actual seats in the dome are as per normal (and hence why the most tickets being posted on stubhub, etc. are actual seats, not GA).

[jar_e]

Originally Posted by Regulator75

It sure was. I see several people who agreed with me.

Wow taste in music is subjective?!!?!!?!? Shocking.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by fotze

Come on, it's banjos and the same formula every song. It's like taking the same skyscraper upshot for the 8762nd time.

Oh no you didn't. Yes you did.

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by fotze

Come on, it's banjos and the same formula every song. It's like taking the same skyscraper upshot for the 8762nd time.

8762? Wow, I guess that is a lot.

Spoiler!

[Smartcar]

Originally Posted by East Coast Flame

How is this still legal in Alberta? Ontario and Saskatchewan have pretty strict anti-scalping policies (I have no idea the effectiveness of these), while Quebec has a bit of legislation to help combat scalping, Alberta has nothing

Actually Alberta did have a law against scalping until the Amusements Act was repealed. I think it was in 2009. If you look at the first sticky posts on the Ticket Exchange, they were posted when scalping was illegal. I don't know why it was repealed but if I had to guess, anti-scalping laws seem a bit anti-free market so it might have been an ideological thing.

[Zarley]

I have no problem with it. There would be no scalping if they charged the market price for concert/sport tickets in the first place.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Maritime Q-Scout

Scalping is just the market economy.

More like a distortion of the market economy by people who insert themselves into a buyer/seller transaction to no one's benefit but their own. Some guy selling a couple tickets he can't use is one thing, companies that buy blocks of tickets and resell them are nothing more than parasites that drag the "market economy" down by creating, maintaining or facilitating nothing.

"But you can get tickets from scalpers you couldn't otherwise obtain!" Yeah, because the scalpers are the ones creating the artificial shortage.

[FlamesAddiction]

I don't buy the "free market" argument. If someone is selling a product, they should have the right to decide what the appropriate price is for their target consumers. Since repeat business is the staple of any good business and getting a bargain is one of the best marketing tactics for many businesses, scalpers are directly hurting these businesses. Charging the extreme of what the market can bear is not in their best interests (and hence why they don't do it).

And as jammies mentioned, scalpers create an artificial shortage. Businesses are the ones that should be in charge of the supply for their products.

[Yakbutter]

Most bands will give their fanclub members the opportunity to get tickets before they are released to the public. (any band selling out arenas will have some type of fanclub)

If people are willing to shell out several hundreds of $$ to see a band play for 90 minutes all the power to them. For me personally, any ticket over 60ish bucks is usually to expensive for me. If I spend 100 bucks on a ticket, 40 for a shirt, 20 bucks on beer, 10 for parking it starts to add up. Even if I am a huge fan of the band I just feel ripped off.

and the the most fun I've ever had at concerts are ones when the tickets were cheap anyways.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

I don't buy the "free market" argument. If someone is selling a product, they should have the right to decide what the appropriate price is for their target consumers. Since repeat business is the staple of any good business and getting a bargain is one of the best marketing tactics for many businesses, scalpers are directly hurting these businesses. Charging the extreme of what the market can bear is not in their best interests (and hence why they don't do it).

And as jammies mentioned, scalpers create an artificial shortage. Businesses are the ones that should be in charge of the supply for their products.

But between ticketmaster, the artist and the venue scalping could be virtually eliminated. This means these entities either dont care, are stupid, or are getting a cut of the action. They allow scalping to occur.

A good example is the NFL. They have an arrangement where ticket exchange is the official reseller (SCALPER) for the NFL. I think artist, promoters and venues all benefit from scalping but just want the public to keep blaming Denver Broncos guy and not ticketmasters subsidiarys. I dont even believe that ticket master cheats, they just provide a service.

The first time a ticket is sold they get about 10-15%. When it gets resold they get another 25. Venues dont want to bother fighting it as it would cost them money to do it and artist benifit buying having an increase in demand when tickets are initially sold. Once you here a band sells out instantly scalpers and regular people will buy instantly so even if their is only demand for 12000, 15000 tickets will sell.

Everyone in the business benefits from scalping. Now ticketmaster might make more from an auction but then they give up multiple commissions from the same tickets.

[jayswin]

Wow, check out the Mumford and Sons official website forum. Under the "Tour, Gigs and Announcements" section, almost every thread is "fans in Calgary dissapointed" "Fans in BC shut out of tickets" "Fans in Edmonton disspointed". Looks like very few people were able to get tickets.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by GGG

But between ticketmaster, the artist and the venue scalping could be virtually eliminated. This means these entities either dont care, are stupid, or are getting a cut of the action. They allow scalping to occur.

They don't allow it, but like you said, it would cost money for them to fight it.

I can go to the bulk section of the grocery store and load my pockets with candies. It's right out in the open and they aren't paying for extra security to stop me from doing it, but that doesn't make it right.

A good example is the NFL. They have an arrangement where ticket exchange is the official reseller (SCALPER) for the NFL. I think artist, promoters and venues all benefit from scalping but just want the public to keep blaming Denver Broncos guy and not ticketmasters subsidiarys. I dont even believe that ticket master cheats, they just provide a service.

The first time a ticket is sold they get about 10-15%. When it gets resold they get another 25. Venues dont want to bother fighting it as it would cost them money to do it and artist benifit buying having an increase in demand when tickets are initially sold. Once you here a band sells out instantly scalpers and regular people will buy instantly so even if their is only demand for 12000, 15000 tickets will sell.

Everyone in the business benefits from scalping. Now ticketmaster might make more from an auction but then they give up multiple commissions from the same tickets.

I can't see how any of this is beneficial. The consumer ultimately gets screwed and the people holding the event still only make the same amount of money.

Having an auction isn't an option if the whole point is to keep their product accessible to those who can afford it. You're assuming that the people holding the event would charge what the market would bear if they had the time and resources, but I honestly don't think they would do that as they already could charge more if they wanted in most cases.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Wow, check out the Mumford and Sons official website forum. Under the "Tour, Gigs and Announcements" section, almost every thread is "fans in Calgary dissapointed" "Fans in BC shut out of tickets" "Fans in Edmonton disspointed". Looks like very few people were able to get tickets.

In calgary only 15,000 or so got tickets even if there is no scalping all of those threads exist.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

They don't allow it, but like you said, it would cost money for them to fight it.

I can go to the bulk section of the grocery store and load my pockets with candies. It's right out in the open and they aren't paying for extra security to stop me from doing it, but that doesn't make it right.



I can't see how any of this is beneficial. The consumer ultimately gets screwed and the people holding the event still only make the same amount of money.

Having an auction isn't an option if the whole point is to keep their product accessible to those who can afford it. You're assuming that the people holding the event would charge what the market would bear if they had the time and resource, but I honestly don't think they would do that.

Ticketmaster and its subsidiarys make more money with scalping. A promoter makes more money from ticketmaster by negotiating a better cut or a cur of the resale market. The artist guarentees early sell outs because demand for concert tickets is more intense.

To stop scalping all you need is tickets that are issued to cell phones.

So it comes back to are they complicit, stupid or dont care. The argument that scalping distorts what the band wants charge for tickes is false.

[Paladium]

I don't think scalping is the problem the real problem is that these (scalpers) have bot programs that can buy 100's and 100's of tickets at a crack. I mean if one guy had to call 1,000 times to buy the tickets and then sell them well good for him. But the competition is tilted in their favour by the time you get in to buy 2 someone has bough 100 or more - that's the problem.

[InglewoodFan]

The promoter (Union events) was on CBC on Friday, and indicated that ~40% of the tickets were allocated to pre-sale invites. Basically you signed up on their website ahead of time and they drew names and sent out single use codes to get up to 4 tickets ahead of time. Fiancee and I both signed up, and she ended up getting drawn. I'd say out of the folks we knew who signed up over half got drawn. The promoter gave a pretty good explanation of why they think the single use codes are a good way to try to keep tickets out of the re-sale market. Also said they purposely set the limit at 4 tickets to cut down on scalping.

So the remaining 60% is ~ 10k tickets, and if everyone took 4 tickets that's 2500 people got to buy. In a city of 1 million plus (admittedly not even remotely all fans) that's not great odds.

It seems to be an arms race, the scalpers always seem to find a way to get the tickets. Even in the "good old days" when you could only buy in person, scalpers would pay people to stand in line for them.

[GP_Matt]

If bands really don't like scalpels there is a simple way to crush a lot of them. Scalpers make money because more people want to attend then there are seats available.

They need to announce a show and sell out. The next day they just announce a second date and a third date if necessary. Suddenly the Scalpers are left holding the bag for a ton of seats that are now worth less than they paid. If they started doing that randomly throughout a tour Scalpers would wise up really quickly or go bankrupt.