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"There is an ancient celtic axiom that says 'Good people drink good beer.' which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public bar-room, and you will quickly see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it."
this only addresses the scalper issue, not the exorbitant extra fees, but they ought to allow outlets and the actual venue to start selling and hour or so before online sales start.
"There is an ancient celtic axiom that says 'Good people drink good beer.' which is true, then as now. Just look around you in any public bar-room, and you will quickly see: Bad people drink bad beer. Think about it."
Post by rooconteur on Mar 27, 2009 13:17:02 GMT -5
the first step is to make it illegal to sell tickets above face value for anybody. until this happens, boycotting will only put more tix in the hands of scalpers, so ticketmaster will double quack you, since they own (at least partially) stubhub. then they get to charege fees for the original purchase, charge fees for that person to sell on stubhub, then charge fees to the person who buys the tickets off stubhub. stubhub charges 15% on both sides of the transaction. Bend over and spread'em.
the first step is to make it illegal to sell tickets above face value for anybody. until this happens, boycotting will only put more tix in the hands of scalpers, so ticketmaster will double quack you, since they own (at least partially) stubhub. then they get to charege fees for the original purchase, charge fees for that person to sell on stubhub, then charge fees to the person who buys the tickets off stubhub. stubhub charges 15% on both sides of the transaction. Bend over and spread'em.
its not ticketmaster's fault or scalpers fault that tickets can be sold for above face value, its the person who buys the "overpriced" ticket who is to blame. making it illegal won't help solve the problem, it never does. the only way the problem will be solved is when the market decides that a ticket isn't worth more than face value. also, sometimes tickets sell for under face value because of scalpers, should that be made illegal too?
its not ticketmaster's fault or scalpers fault that tickets can be sold for above face value, its the person who buys the "overpriced" ticket who is to blame.
making it illegal won't help solve the problem, it never does. the only way the problem will be solved is when the market decides that a ticket isn't worth more than face value.
There are plenty of people out there with moeny to burn that $500, $1000 isnt going to stop them from buying a ticket. Supply and demand dictates the market, and the scalpers control a large portion of the supply. Simply telling people not to buy tickets theoretically is a good idea, but for every 100 people that boycott, there's a person with money to burn that is going to drop a grand on tickets. Using Phish as an example, the market will never decide that a ticket is worth less than face ($50). Phish could sell all thier seats with a face of 100 and would still sell out the tour. The market should be decided by how many are willing to pay face for the show. With brokers controlling the supply, demand (and therefore price) goes up. People will always pay. By making it illegal on a federal, the big ticket brokers (stubhub, acetickets, etc.) would go out of business.
These brokers are the ones with the computer macro's that allow them to scoop up half the tickets while regular people bang their heads against their keyboards trying to get tickets.
On 60 minutes, they had a guy that runs on of the major brokers. He didn't say which co. he worked for, I don't think, but they have an office in India with like 50 employees. Their only job is to type in the security word on the ticketmaster site (the thing that is supposed to prevent computer programs from purchasing the tickets). The entire thing is computer automated, except for that piece, so they pay people peanuts over in India, and they end up with half the total tickets.
^Making selling above face value illegal would eliminate these "legit", well financed, brokers, and theyre would be twice as many tickets available at face to the genral public.
its not ticketmaster's fault or scalpers fault that tickets can be sold for above face value, its the person who buys the "overpriced" ticket who is to blame. making it illegal won't help solve the problem, it never does. the only way the problem will be solved is when the market decides that a ticket isn't worth more than face value. also, sometimes tickets sell for under face value because of scalpers, should that be made illegal too?
if scalpers didn't sell the tickets for different prices - nobody would be able to buy them.......................
seriously tho, the whole thing could be solved easily......but everyone (venues, ticketmaster, stubhub etc.) would lose out on money....so they aren't gonna fix it. trent reznor is like the voice of reason.....this is from nine inch nails site:
As we approach on-sale dates for the upcoming tour, I've noticed lots of you are curious / concerned / outraged at the plethora of tickets that somehow appear on all these reseller sites at inflated prices - even before the pre-sale dates. I'll do my best to explain the situation as I see it, as well as clarify my organization's stance in the matter.
NIN decides to tour this summer. We arrive at the conclusion outdoor amphitheaters are the right venue for this outing, for a variety of reasons we've throughly considered*. In the past, NIN would sell the shows in each market to local promoters, who then "buy" the show from us to sell to you. Live Nation happens to own all the amphitheaters and bought most of the local promoters - so if you want to play those venues, you're being promoted by Live Nation. Live Nation has had an exclusive deal with TicketMaster that has just expired, so Live Nation launched their own ticketing service. Most of the dates on this tour are through Live Nation, some are through TicketMaster - this is determined by the promoter (Live Nation), not us. Now we get into the issue of secondary markets for tickets, which is the hot issue here. The ticketing marketplace for rock concerts shows a real lack of sophistication, meaning this: the true market value of some tickets for some concerts is much higher than what the act wants to be perceived as charging. For example, there are some people who would be willing to pay $1,000 and up to be in the best seats for various shows, but MOST acts in the rock / pop world don't want to come off as greedy pricks asking that much, even though the market says its value is that high. The acts know this, the venue knows this, the promoters know this, the ticketing company knows this and the scalpers really know this. So...
The venue, the promoter, the ticketing agency and often the artist camp (artist, management and agent) take tickets from the pool of available seats and feed them directly to the re-seller (which from this point on will be referred to by their true name: SCALPER). I am not saying every one of the above entities all do this, nor am I saying they do it for all shows but this is a very common practice that happens more often than not. There is money to be made and they feel they should participate in it. There are a number of scams they employ to pull this off which is beyond the scope of this note.
StubHub.com is an example of a re-seller / scalper. So is TicketsNow.com.
Here's the rub: TicketMaster has essentially been a monopoly for many years - certainly up until Live Nation's exclusive deal ran out. They could have (and can right now) stop the secondary market dead in its tracks by doing the following: limit the amount of sales per customer, print names on the tickets and require ID / ticket matches at the venue. We know this works because we do it for our pre-sales. Why don't THEY do it? It's obvious - they make a lot of money fueling the secondary market. TicketMaster even bought a re-seller site and often bounces you over to that site to buy tickets (TicketsNow.com)!
NIN gets 10% of the available seats for our own pre-sale. We won a tough (and I mean TOUGH) battle to get the best seats. We require you to sign up at our site (for free) to get tickets. We limit the amount you can buy, we print your name on the tickets and we have our own person let you in a separate entrance where we check your ID to match the ticket. We charge you a surcharge that has been less than TicketMaster's or Live Nation's in all cases so far to pay for the costs of doing this - it's not a profit center for us. We have essentially stopped scalping by doing these things - because we want true fans to be able to get great seats and not get ripped off by these parasites.
I assure you nobody in the NIN camp supplies or supports the practice of supplying tickets to these re-sellers because it's not something we morally feel is the right thing to do. We are leaving money on the table here but it's not always about money. Being completely honest, it IS something I've had to consider. If people are willing to pay a lot of money to sit up front AND ARE GOING TO ANYWAY thanks to the rigged system, why let that money go into the hands of the scalpers? I'm the one busting my ass up there every night. The conclusion really came down to it not feeling like the right thing to do - simple as that.
My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and TicketMaster merges is that they'll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme - which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show. They will simply BECOME the scalper, eliminating them from the mix.
Nothing's going to change until the ticketing entity gets serious about stopping the problem - which of course they don't see as a problem. The ultimate way to hurt scalpers is to not support them. Leave them holding the merchandise. If this subject interests you, check out the following links. Don't buy from scalpers, and be suspect of artists singing the praises of the Live Nation / TicketMaster merger. What's in it for them?
its not ticketmaster's fault or scalpers fault that tickets can be sold for above face value, its the person who buys the "overpriced" ticket who is to blame.
making it illegal won't help solve the problem, it never does. the only way the problem will be solved is when the market decides that a ticket isn't worth more than face value.
There are plenty of people out there with moeny to burn that $500, $1000 isnt going to stop them from buying a ticket. Supply and demand dictates the market, and the scalpers control a large portion of the supply. Simply telling people not to buy tickets theoretically is a good idea, but for every 100 people that boycott, there's a person with money to burn that is going to drop a grand on tickets. Using Phish as an example, the market will never decide that a ticket is worth less than face ($50). Phish could sell all thier seats with a face of 100 and would still sell out the tour. The market should be decided by how many are willing to pay face for the show. With brokers controlling the supply, demand (and therefore price) goes up. People will always pay. By making it illegal on a federal, the big ticket brokers (stubhub, acetickets, etc.) would go out of business.
These brokers are the ones with the computer macro's that allow them to scoop up half the tickets while regular people bang their heads against their keyboards trying to get tickets.
On 60 minutes, they had a guy that runs on of the major brokers. He didn't say which co. he worked for, I don't think, but they have an office in India with like 50 employees. Their only job is to type in the security word on the ticketmaster site (the thing that is supposed to prevent computer programs from purchasing the tickets). The entire thing is computer automated, except for that piece, so they pay people peanuts over in India, and they end up with half the total tickets.
^Making selling above face value illegal would eliminate these "legit", well financed, brokers, and theyre would be twice as many tickets available at face to the genral public.
the buyer determines the price, if phish wants to sell a ticket for less then market value than they can't bitch about people re-selling. if a ticket is priced too high then no one will buy, so someone has $1000 to blow on a ticket? good for them! i'm not going to point the finger at them and say that's not fair, there's other people who can't afford the $50 a ticket yet they aren't complaining asking for $1 seats
the first step is to make it illegal to sell tickets above face value for anybody. until this happens, boycotting will only put more tix in the hands of scalpers, so ticketmaster will double quack you, since they own (at least partially) stubhub. then they get to charege fees for the original purchase, charge fees for that person to sell on stubhub, then charge fees to the person who buys the tickets off stubhub. stubhub charges 15% on both sides of the transaction. Bend over and spread'em.
its not ticketmaster's fault or scalpers fault that tickets can be sold for above face value, its the person who buys the "overpriced" ticket who is to blame. making it illegal won't help solve the problem, it never does. the only way the problem will be solved is when the market decides that a ticket isn't worth more than face value. also, sometimes tickets sell for under face value because of scalpers, should that be made illegal too?
Post by rooconteur on Mar 27, 2009 14:14:50 GMT -5
^^(2posts up) you just contradicted yourself. your first post says the person who buys the overpriced ticket is to blame, now you're saying good for them.
and demand determines the price, not the buyer. For any Phish or similar big act show, there are going to be more people looking for tickets than there are tickets. Supply and demand dictates these will rise. It's a law of economics. Having people just stop buying doesn't work unless you have mind control over the entire population.
Boycotting will just leave you at home, while others are enjoying concerts. By making the practice illegal, more people have access to affordably priced tickets.
its not ticketmaster's fault or scalpers fault that tickets can be sold for above face value, its the person who buys the "overpriced" ticket who is to blame. making it illegal won't help solve the problem, it never does. the only way the problem will be solved is when the market decides that a ticket isn't worth more than face value. also, sometimes tickets sell for under face value because of scalpers, should that be made illegal too?
Selling tickets under face value isn't scalping.
i guess it depends on your definition of scalping, if re-selling is the same as scalping then yes. if not then no its not scalping. but scalpers make bad investments sometimes too and buy tickets at face value and when they go to make a profit the end up at a loss because the market price turns out to be lower than face value for whatever reason (over-priced face value, when the tickets are sold, etc...)
i guess it depends on your definition of scalping, if re-selling is the same as scalping then yes. if not then no its not scalping. but scalpers make bad investments sometimes too and buy tickets at face value and when they go to make a profit the end up at a loss because the market price turns out to be lower than face value for whatever reason (over-priced face value, when the tickets are sold, etc...)
Ya occasionally they take a loss. 9 out of 10 times theyre making a (huge) profit. And the shows they take a loss on are ones people don't want to see anyway.
I said re-selling above face value should be illegal, not reselling in general.
^^(2posts up) you just contradicted yourself. your first post says the person who buys the overpriced ticket is to blame, now you're saying good for them.
and demand determines the price, not the buyer. For any Phish or similar big act show, there are going to be more people looking for tickets than there are tickets. Supply and demand dictates these will rise. It's a law of economics. Having people just stop buying doesn't work unless you have mind control over the entire population.
Boycotting will just leave you at home, while others are enjoying concerts. By making the practice illegal, more people have access to affordably priced tickets.
yea, i dont really see it as wrong for people to buy over face value, but if no one did then the price would be lower (less demand). buyers determine demand which determine the price. boycotting is just as unrealistic as making it illegal, i have to go now. and i realize i'm not being very articulate
Post by pondo ROCKS on Mar 29, 2009 21:17:05 GMT -5
i agree with the fact that if you wait at the box office for hours on end that you should get front row or near the front if that is what you want. Having the box office available for 45 minutes prior to online purchases would help, but the real issue is lots of time, these tickets are unavailable to start with.
They are handed out/reserved for local stations, certain "fan clubs" and others. I hope that these factors get reduced in the future.
I also agree with location being a big part of tickets "overpriced". For example, if I wanted front row seats at the Ryman in Nashville to see an act and bought overpriced/scalped tickets, I would not expect to pay the same price for as a front row seat at Madison Square garden in NYC. Totally different market and venue, thus the MSG ticket should be signifigantly higher.
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Just depends on the show, when Neil Young did his tour that became the Harvest movie you could have gotten 1000 or more for front row, had anybody been selling them.
Post by autumnsredtears on Mar 30, 2009 14:32:04 GMT -5
i know i never buy tickets if they are more than 25 bucks than the original... which kind of sucks even though i have the money for it, for instance the mars volta came through, original tickets went on sale for 35 dollars, i tried to buy tickets a few days later, sold out, cheapest i could find were 65 to 100 bucks, nope. nobody deserves that cash except the venue and band, not some fuck who grabbed a ticket first and wants to make a quick buck off me, not happening
^^(2posts up) you just contradicted yourself. your first post says the person who buys the overpriced ticket is to blame, now you're saying good for them.
and demand determines the price, not the buyer. For any Phish or similar big act show, there are going to be more people looking for tickets than there are tickets. Supply and demand dictates these will rise. It's a law of economics. Having people just stop buying doesn't work unless you have mind control over the entire population.
Boycotting will just leave you at home, while others are enjoying concerts. By making the practice illegal, more people have access to affordably priced tickets.
This is partially true, the buyers dictate demand.
With what NIN said, by auctioning off the seats ticketmaster would be sucking every last cent possible out of any show. another alternative would be to raise the price to an equilibrium so that they are getting the most money. greater security against scalpers would be added to this. this is potentially bad for some people, but more people would be satisfied than the current arrangment.
We live in a day and age where people expect to be able to have absolutely anything they want as long as they have the money for it. Hence ticketmaster makes sure there is no such thing as a sold out show. It sucks but what are ya gonna do
