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[March of the Crabs]

It was illegal here in Ontario, Canada too, until Ticketmaster and the resellers lobbied our government to change the laws.

I Made A Scalper Drive From Mississauga To St. Catharines!




Too bad they only had to drive an hour.

Normally I despise radio DJs but this made me so happy. What a great idea. Nothing like getting some parasite all riled up.

On a side note, Louis CK has found ways to avoid scalpers in recent years. I'm hoping his model catches on and we can put an end to this garbage.

 

[FalsettoVibe]

This is a complete guide to scalping and ticket prices:

https://theringer.com/ticket-industry-problem-solution-e4b3b71fdff6#.wsrqzpq88

Tldr: the artists are complicit, the scalping industry lobbies to protect any attempts to tie purchases to id, you don't have a chance.

Good article...messed up though.

 

[EYEL1NER]

I just want to point out that Pearl Jam tried to get ahead of this over 20 years ago, but congress told them to fuck off.

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/pearl-jam-taking-on-ticketmaster-19951228

Yeah. It didn't amount to much and they eventually had to fold, but they still fought against Ticketmaster. I was glad that the article from The Ringer that has been linked ITT at least name-dropped Pearl Jam.

 

[nocode]

Yeah. It didn't amount to much and they eventually had to fold, but they still fought against Ticketmaster. I was glad that the article from The Ringer that has been linked ITT at least name-dropped Pearl Jam.

Nice, I didn't see that article. At least they're still a footnote in the story. It's a shame that they couldn't make a change, and that almost nobody in the music industry stood behind them.

 

[Clockwork5]

If you go to the venue you can always find tickets from the street scalpers for face-value or cheaper about 15 minutes after the event starts.

It sucks to be late but it's one way to work around the price hikes.

 

[nocode]

If you go to the venue you can always find tickets from the street scalpers for face-value or cheaper about 15 minutes after the event starts.

It sucks to be late but it's one way to work around the price hikes.

Those are fake almost as often as the Craigs List tickets are. Shitty situation all around.

 

[Burai]

ITT I learned that some people call scalpers scalpels.

But, yeah, it sucks. I've been to so many half empty "sold out" gigs because the scalpers overestimated demand. It ruins the atmosphere and the true fans don't get to see their bands.

 

[devilhawk]

Yeah, but it's in Ticketmaster's best interest to let bots buy all the tickets. Especially if the resale is on a Ticketmaster affiliated site (like most sports tickets are). Why would they change the system when they're making more money right now?

They don't even bother with the bots. They skip the middle man(bot) entirely. Ticketmaster just puts tickets up on the secondary market that were never sold in the first place. It works great for them as it drives up demand and they get more money per ticket.

 

[krae_man]

As annoying as that is, there's a bigger problem.

Scalpers have decided that buying tickets to sold out shows isn't enough. There's an growing market for tricking people into paying over face value for stuff that isn't even sold out.

They pay to come up first in Google searches, list every show that exists with vague seat locations(Floor A-ZZ) at 4x face value, sucker in people who don't pay attention to what they click on and pay their crazy prices. Then they just buy the tickets from the primary seller and pocket the difference.

Zero risk involved since they have zero inventory to start with.

There needs to be comprehensive North America wide agreed upon rules but that will probably never happen.

This also has another side effect of costing artists/venues sales because for every person with bad Google skills who gets suckered in and pays insane prices needlessly there's probably 2 or 3 who go "$300 a ticket? I'm not paying that!" And doesn't know the tickets are actually only $50 each and still readily available from the primary seller.

 

[Flynn77]

There's been docs about this in the UK. Ticketmaster immediately puts blocks of tickets to its affiliate sites at time of sale. It's a rigged system.

 

[PROh1bited]

To avoid this I just will not see any show where this happens, also I refuse to do business with ticket master.
You would be surprised how things turn around when fans let the artists know. Plenty of other companies that help sell tickets for shows.

But I feel your pain, it's sad.

EDIT: NIN did a fan pre sale that was very effective. You had to follow a emailed link to buy tickets, then on the night of the show you queued up at the will call window, showed ID and the card used to buy tickets and were let inside before the doors opened for everyone else.

Yep, this is probably the only effective way of defeating scalpers. But it would be a pain to do this for 10-20k a concert. It's unbelievable in this day and age how there isn't some sort of system to combat scalpers.

 

[shira]

There's been docs about this in the UK. Ticketmaster immediately puts blocks of tickets to its affiliate sites at time of sale. It's a rigged system.

With VR concerts, scalpers are going to be done.

 

[User 479360]

I think I went to that NIN tour, and did the presale. Got great floor tickets.

This all sucks, though. Fuck the scalping industry. I'm glad I don't really go to events anymore, and that the CBC will likely air the final show.

 

[jstevenson]

With VR concerts, scalpers are going to be done.

If that was true concert videos would've eliminated real concert scalping years ago

 

[shadowkat]

But will it really be the last

Yes? The lead singer, Gord Downie, has terminal brain cancer. There is a good possibility they won't finish the tour.

I didn't bother to try to get tickets but I hope the CBC shows their last show.

 

[black_13]

Isn't Stubhub and a bunch of those resellers owned by Ticketmaster? I remember hearing about this and that's why they basically sell out instantly.

Ticketmaster is just a giant monopoly. And artists can't really avoid them as they have the rights to many big concert stadiums and locations. Whole system is fucked and that's why I mostly avoid major concerts.

 

[shira]

Haha just read this from former Ticketmaster CEO

https://t.co/GCL1LfQN9q

So the biggest artists sign contracts that guarantee them money every time they step on the stage, and that guaranteed amount is usually more than 100 percent of the revenue if every ticket is sold at face value. Which means that if every ticket in the venue “sells out” at the face value printed on the ticket, that wouldn’t be enough to pay the artist what they are contractually guaranteed by the promoter for the performance.

Getty Images
How does the promoter make up the difference? You guessed it: by selling some of the best seats directly in the secondary market, so that artists don’t get flack from you for pricing them high right out of the gate. That means the artist is either directly complicit, or that the artist is taking a massive check for the performance while looking the other way.

 

[Takamura-San]

As someone that tried to buy Radiohead tickets to no success.

Fuck ticketmaster and fuck scalpers.

 

[Fluffhead14]

If you're just worried about getting in the door and not the best seat in the house, use the automated phone line. Always works. You just need to make sure to call about 5 minutes before the on-sale and keep the phone line going by having it repeat the dates.

 

[stolin]

Haha just read this from former Ticketmaster CEO

https://t.co/GCL1LfQN9q

Thank you very much for posting this... we always knew it was a corrupt business. This is a must read for any live event ticket purchasers.

 

[AyaisMUsikWhore]

Haha just read this from former Ticketmaster CEO

https://t.co/GCL1LfQN9q

Bookmarking this. I explained this to one of my co-workers who was complaining about the secondary marketplace as well and I knew that TM has a lot more to do with it than just being the primary. Wow..

 

[mattiewheels]

I usually refuse to deal with a corporate ticket seller, always stick with small venues. Luckily most acts I like play the small places. Everything about ticketmaster makes my skin crawl.