Yeah, but if I am holding an event that I want to be able to target a specific demographic for, then it hurts my business if I charge a rate that excludes a segment of that demographic.
With NHL games for example, teams set prices that bring in revenue, but hopefully do not isolate a large portion of their fans or make the product inaccessible. Business isn't always about the immediate bottom line. There is an investment aspect to charging less than the market will bear.
Fair enough. If the event really wants to get rid of scalping they should be able to start by having the credit card holder required to pick up the tickets in person. This would eliminate a large portion of the national/international scalpers who are currently able to setup an office of people in India whose sole job is to buy tickets faster than the public.
You could also link the tickets to their ID so that ID has to be scanned like at the bar to gain admittance.
Convenience will be lost though. What would happen to companies that buy season tickets and hand them out to employees. They aren't scalping, but technically the person who bought the tickets isn't attending.
The easiest way to get rid of scalping is to charge what the market will bear for an event.
If people can buy the tickets from outside the country safe in the knowledge that people will pay them a profit on the resale market it signals that the price point is too low. I don't understand why the band is willing to hand all of that potential revenue over to a secondary group.
That said, I like scalping as it allows you to change your mind and attend an event without much notice. As an example, I will be in Edmonton next weekend and want to introduce a client from the area to a coworker. I bought Oilers/Flames tickets through an online reseller that was far easier and simpler than buying through sold out Ticketmaster. It sucks paying so much, but the alternative is not getting tickets at all.
The artists are starting to get onto the 'scalping' bandwagon. A lot of the big names will now sell ridiculously marked up 'vip' tickets that come with a t-shirt or some other terrible perks.
If I remember correctly, there were almost 5,000 tickets gone before Garth Brooks tickets went to the public. I think I remember reading a certain section of Flames Season Ticket holders (Avison Young club maybe) get first crack at event tickets, in addition to promotional tickets (radio giveaways and such) as well as to the VIPs who are connected enough to score tickets early.
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If I remember correctly, there were almost 5,000 tickets gone before Garth Brooks tickets went to the public. I think I remember reading a certain section of Flames Season Ticket holders (Avison Young club maybe) get first crack at event tickets, in addition to promotional tickets (radio giveaways and such) as well as to the VIPs who are connected enough to score tickets early.
Mumford and Sons had a pre-sale lottery through their website on Tuesday, which sold a lot of tickets as well. Probably added to the scarcity of tickets today.
I was lucky enough to get through on the pre-sale but I ended way the hell up in 216, but people who got tickets after me ended up on the floor. Bizzare.
People shouldnt blame scalpers for the reason they cant get good or any seats. The real problem is too high of demand and limited supply. If anything scalpers actually reduce demand by raising the price. Regardless of scalping being present or not the same number of people get tickets.
I also have never been shut out of getting tickets. I got garth tickets, bieber tickets (for a neice), and now munford and sons. I was very surprised there was this level of demand for them.
As for scalping I dont really have an issue with it and it is up to the artist to prevent. The easiest way might be to issue tickets to specific cell phones and only that phone could access the tickets to get scanned. That would reduce lines at venues. I like the fan club based presales like pearl jam has to limit scalping and ensure fans get seats and lower costs. Garth did a terrible job of preventing scalping. He let people by six dirt cheap tickets. It would have been stupid not to get 6. Another option would be to make all tickets will call as it would eliminate all out of town scalpers.
The problem with legislation is that enforcement is not possible and would be a waste of resources. There is negligable societal benefit to getting rid of scalping.
I have scalped tickets in the past, mainly to premium flames games. Now for flames games I dont even see it as scalping anymore as no one wants to pay the season ticket holder price for nashville on Tuesday so why should they face for Edmonton on a Saturday. Average value these days works out to around even.
For me, the 3 biggest problems are; the ticketmaster site blow chunks. The search feature is garbage, it's ridiculously slow and it constantly gets stuck spinning it's wheels while it "loads results", that ticketmaster owns stub hub, so they block off a huge amount of tickets so they can make even more money and ticketmaster fees are ridiculous, i'm surprised Mumford & Sons even went through them as more and more bands are using other methods of selling/promoting concerts these days.
The artists are starting to get onto the 'scalping' bandwagon. A lot of the big names will now sell ridiculously marked up 'vip' tickets that come with a t-shirt or some other terrible perks.
Yeah but who doesnt want to be a member of the "fan club" for only $199.99, its a sweet deal
Probably the time has come to just straight sell all the tickets through stub hub for market value. The most annoying part of scalping is giving profits to the middle men who provide no value. So few of the cheaper than market value tickets get in the hands of fans anyway, so what's the point. The way it works now, some lucky fans get cheap tickets, and the rest are left paying waying more, and the money doesn't even go to the artist.
Mumford and Sons had a pre-sale lottery through their website on Tuesday, which sold a lot of tickets as well. Probably added to the scarcity of tickets today.
I was lucky enough to get through on the pre-sale but I ended way the hell up in 216, but people who got tickets after me ended up on the floor. Bizzare.
It's not bizarre at all, it's in the way tickets are strategically released. They don't all come out at once, with first logging in getting the best seats. Yes there are some floor seats right away, but the worst seats are released first. This is to get rid of bad seats, to eager customers, who are just happy to be in the stadium for the show. Shortly after the better seats will start to come out. They know that they can always sell out the floor, even if they release those tickets a few hours before a show. They also know that if it's a few hours before the show, and all that's left are bleeders, then those tickets might go unsold.
There are tickets held back until the day of the concert for promoters, friends and family, etc. similar to the Flames games for players. They also don't have the final configuration of the stage until the concert day, so they release a few more when they have the correct site lines.
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Any way back to the subject of scalpers, if you will restrict yourself to watching large corporate entities play what passes for music in large corporate barns you take your chances, if you went down the road to some dingy bar you would almost certainly find a better band playing for 10 bucks and the beer would be better and 4 dollars a pint
