Counterfeit Concert Tickets at Garth Brooks last nite.

[Medium Rare]

Looks exactly like him. Runs out of Survivor money, goes on to bootlegging tickets? SMH

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by fotze

I think that scammer is Russell hantz

Originally Posted by Regulator75

I didn't know Russel Hantz was in town for Stampede...

Is that going around on facebook or something? It's just weird no one made that comparison the whole time the thread was up, and them Bam, two people within minutes. Usually when that happens it means it's making the rounds on facebook.

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Is that going around on facebook or something? It's just weird no one made that comparison the whole time the thread was up, and them Bam, two people within minutes. Usually when that happens it means it's making the rounds on facebook.

Didn't read the whole thread, just missed Fotze's post.

[Medium Rare]

Just posted this up on Facebook, hope I'm not going out on too much of a limb with it, but I don't think I am.

What an a-hole.

[ken0042]

Originally Posted by fotze

I haven't logged into facebook in months.

It looks like stubhub customers did get scammed.

http://www.calgarysun.com/2012/07/14...s-ticket-fraud

From the article it says Stubhub has refunded their money as well as giving them a $750 credit towards their next purchase. At least they are not out any money; unlike the other people who got scammed.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by ken0042

Would you care to elaborate?

Also- a few people corrected me that scalpers buying tickets does not increase demand. I guess I wasn't making my point clear- may have been typing too quick. What I meant was that if 1/2 the tickets go to scalpers; with supply going down the number of people left wanting tickets goes up. So if there were 40,000 people wanting tickets, now you would have 30,000 people looking for tickets instead of 20,000.

The ironic part in all of this was that Brooks wanted to keep ticket prices low so that anybody could afford to go. But by doing that he just made the scalpers more eager; and more of his fans ended up paying higher prices. He may have been better off selling tickets for $200.

One thing Garth Brooks mentioned during the presser on the day of the show is that the only solution he's found that really works is to out supply demand. EG: Playing multi night stands.

Which sounds great on the one hand because it provides everyone a chance to go, but I imagine becomes a logistical nightmare if trying to book a tour. "Yeah Saddledome, we'll need between 5-8 nights in November, but we're unsure of the first night because we'll be playing between 5-8 shows in Edmonton depending on sales there, oh there's hockey going on as well?"

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by ken0042

From the article it says Stubhub has refunded their money as well as giving them a $750 credit towards their next purchase. At least they are not out any money; unlike the other people who got scammed.

I think Stubhub will also penalize, monetarily, anybody (not sure how) who tries to sell fake tickets. At least that's sort of the threat they make on the website if you are a seller.

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by jaydorn

One thing Garth Brooks mentioned during the presser on the day of the show is that the only solution he's found that really works is to out supply demand. EG: Playing multi night stands.

Which sounds great on the one hand because it provides everyone a chance to go, but I imagine becomes a logistical nightmare if trying to book a tour. "Yeah Saddledome, we'll need between 5-8 nights in November, but we're unsure of the first night because we'll be playing between 5-8 shows in Edmonton depending on sales there, oh there's hockey going on as well?"

I think multiple perfomances per day would ease logistical challenges, similar to what Cirque did when they visit Calgary and do an afternoon and evening show. Guess it depends on the artist and setup issues though, but if fans are coming in from out of town, they probably wouldn't care if the concert started at 1PM and the next was at 8PM or some such thing.

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I think Stubhub will also penalize, monetarily, anybody (not sure how) who tries to sell fake tickets. At least that's sort of the threat they make on the website if you are a seller.

I imagine they'd charge your credit card for their costs. Maybe the scammer used a fake cc to register for stubhub, but that's a lot of work compared to kijiji.

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I think multiple perfomances per day would ease logistical challenges, similar to what Cirque did when they visit Calgary and do an afternoon and evening show. Guess it depends on the artist and setup issues though, but if fans are coming in from out of town, they probably wouldn't care if the concert started at 1PM and the next was at 8PM or some such thing.

I know it works for plays and various productions that have many people involved, but I couldn't see any major recording artist pulling off playing two full shows in one day.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Cowboy89

^ I'm totally cool with a free market. Pure scalping is fine with me. The issue most people probably have is the market manipulation tactics used by promoters in conjunction with scalping websites.

I'm cool with a free market that doesn't have unnecessary middlemen in it. Who, exactly, benefits from scalping? Is it the end consumer? Is it the promoter of the event? Is it the artist/troupe/player's company/etc giving the performance? No, it's someone who has inserted themselves into the process for no purpose other than to extract value while adding no value of their own.

With online ordering of tickets, there isn't even the excuse of convenience anymore - at least in the old days, someone had to stand in line for hours to get tickets to scalp, so if you didn't want to do that, someone would sell you tickets at a mark-up and those tickets actually had added value. Now they use bots and spend no time at all getting the tickets, yet still expect people to be ok with their manipulation of the market to their own unjustified advantage.

Anyone scalping as a means of income is a leeching d-bag; if you sell the occasional ticket to a hockey game because you can't go, or buy 4 tickets to a concert and sell two every now and then, then you aren't doing much wrong. However, if you think it's ok to buy up blocks of tickets to events you have no intention of attending and then re-sell them, you are a useless drag on society adding nothing of value to it whatsoever, and anything that is done to cut down on this practice is IMO justified as long as it doesn't particularly inconvenience the legit consumer.

[Regular_John]

Originally Posted by jammies

I'm cool with a free market that doesn't have unnecessary middlemen in it. Who, exactly, benefits from scalping? Is it the end consumer? Is it the promoter of the event? Is it the artist/troupe/player's company/etc giving the performance? No, it's someone who has inserted themselves into the process for no purpose other than to extract value while adding no value of their own.

With online ordering of tickets, there isn't even the excuse of convenience anymore - at least in the old days, someone had to stand in line for hours to get tickets to scalp, so if you didn't want to do that, someone would sell you tickets at a mark-up and those tickets actually had added value. Now they use bots and spend no time at all getting the tickets, yet still expect people to be ok with their manipulation of the market to their own unjustified advantage.

Anyone scalping as a means of income is a leeching d-bag; if you sell the occasional ticket to a hockey game because you can't go, or buy 4 tickets to a concert and sell two every now and then, then you aren't doing much wrong. However, if you think it's ok to buy up blocks of tickets to events you have no intention of attending and then re-sell them, you are a useless drag on society adding nothing of value to it whatsoever, and anything that is done to cut down on this practice is IMO justified as long as it doesn't particularly inconvenience the legit consumer.

Honestly this is pretty much on par with my own thoughts on scalping at this point. In and of itself it's not a terrible thing, but it can (and does) easily get out of hand. If I'm in another city and I want to catch a game that night then yeah, I'm being provided with a service, mainly last minute tickets to a potentially sold out event. But unfortunately at lot of the time their nothing more than a middleman holding the tickets hostage between the promoter & the public.

It's quite refreshing to see the scalpers taking a bath on UFC149 though, wonder what prices will be like Saturday afternoon?

[Senator Clay Davis]

To be fair, I think for UFC 149 a lot of fans are selling their tickets because it's arguably one of the worst PPV cards the UFC has had in recent history, one thats had its card altered so many times only 2 of the original 10 people scheduled to fight are going to. Scalpers are certainly going to have to eat a lot there, but I think many fans are also dumping their tickets as well.

I also think the artists deserve a lot more blame than the scalpers. Garth Brooks can cry and complain about scalpers all he wants, he simply did not offer enough safeguards to ensure that fans were the ones with the best access to tickets. Many methods have been discussed in this thread, and the Garth chose to go with free-for-all, complete lottery to buy tickets. Of course with no safegaurds, when scalpers can use bots they are going to get a large share of tickets.

[Travis Munroe]

Originally Posted by Wormius

I think multiple perfomances per day would ease logistical challenges, similar to what Cirque did when they visit Calgary and do an afternoon and evening show. Guess it depends on the artist and setup issues though, but if fans are coming in from out of town, they probably wouldn't care if the concert started at 1PM and the next was at 8PM or some such thing.

From what I gather, Garth was lucky he didnt pass out on stage. The guy is getting old and was doing a show he has not done in years. I still would have liked to of seen it at McMahon or wherever the largest venue in Calgary would be. It would have made for a more memorable show/headlines plus decreased demand.
I really hope he sticks to his guns and comes back!

[Travis Munroe]

Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis

To be fair, I think for UFC 149 a lot of fans are selling their tickets because it's arguably one of the worst PPV cards the UFC has had in recent history, one thats had its card altered so many times only 2 of the original 10 people scheduled to fight are going to. Scalpers are certainly going to have to eat a lot there, but I think many fans are also dumping their tickets as well.

I also think the artists deserve a lot more blame than the scalpers. Garth Brooks can cry and complain about scalpers all he wants, he simply did not offer enough safeguards to ensure that fans were the ones with the best access to tickets. Many methods have been discussed in this thread, and the Garth chose to go with free-for-all, complete lottery to buy tickets. Of course with no safegaurds, when scalpers can use bots they are going to get a large share of tickets.

From what I gather, Garth does not have a say in how tickets are sold. Ticketmaster wanted to sell the tickets for more but that was one thing Garth stood his ground on.
If you think he just complains and doesnt do anything about it....go buy a scalpers ticket off ebay for his Vegas show and let me know how it works.

[Northendzone]

let's face it, even if the tickets started at $250 for $300 level - a lot of tickets still would ahve been scooped up by the independent ticket brokers.

seems to me that since ticket sales have moved online it has become harder in some respects to get them. although it is easier to buy them in the reseller market.

seems to me that the artists need to push ticketmaster harder to sort this out - but since TM's core business is selling tickets, what do they care as they are selling all of the tickets

[Senator Clay Davis]

Originally Posted by Realtor 1

From what I gather, Garth does not have a say in how tickets are sold. Ticketmaster wanted to sell the tickets for more but that was one thing Garth stood his ground on.
If you think he just complains and doesnt do anything about it....go buy a scalpers ticket off ebay for his Vegas show and let me know how it works.

Ticketmaster is effectively an independent contractor. Artists and promoters contract Ticketmaster to sell the tickets, and Ticketmaster's only revenue is what they make on the fees they charge (hence why artists, notably Pearl Jam, have had fights with Ticketmaster in the past). The promoter essentially runs the event and makes all the decisions related to the tickets (price, conditions, on sale date, ticket limits etc).

So I guess while maybe blaming Garth specifically is tough, his promoter could and should have done more, but did not.

[getbak]

Doesn't Ticketmaster have contracts with the venues? If you want to have a show at the Saddledome, you have to sell your tickets through Ticketmaster.

That's why Pearl Jam played some weird and obscure venues in the 90s when they didn't want to have to sell their tickets through TM.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by getbak

Doesn't Ticketmaster have contracts with the venues? If you want to have a show at the Saddledome, you have to sell your tickets through Ticketmaster.

That's why Pearl Jam played some weird and obscure venues in the 90s when they didn't want to have to sell their tickets through TM.

I believe this is correct. Pretty much 95% of the venues in NA are tied to ticketmaster and their ridiculous monopoly.

[Senator Clay Davis]

Well besides Ticketmaster having deals with venues, there are really no alternatives whatsoever. When I lived in Victoria Ticketmaster didn't exist, it was a company that owned to Save-on-Foods Arena there who controlled the ticket supply. Beyond that, I've never seen anyone besides Ticketmaster handle major events.

100% agree on Ticketmaster effectively having a monopoly. They are also now owned by LiveNation, the largest event promoter in North America...