What can we do about them?
It's so frustrating!

groetjes,
Mirella

I think the only way is for the official tickets sellers to have them take tickets back that were bought too many, and resell them. And in the worst cases choose for named tickets, even though that is more expensive.

groetjes,
Mirella

we should probably pass a bunch of draconian laws preventing the exploitation of honest concert-goers of limited means by the soulless merchants of profit who take advantage of their situations, amirite?

True story: I scalped tickets as a full time job earlier this decade (around 2002) for about 9 months when I was in between jobs.

I do not see anything ethically wrong with it.

The only issue I have is brokers getting tickets illegally.

If I wasn't lazy, I could convince you why scalpers are not only ethically ok, but actually good for hardcore fans.

arbitrage should really be made illegal.

OK, I will give one example why scalping is good for hardcore fans. Though, if the reader has a problem with understanding utility or with the basic fact that a poor college student might not be able to get in to an extremely difficult show they should probably stop reading.

Suppose U2 plays a small club. 1000 people. Suppose tickets are $25, will call only, and the person who buys the ticket has to go to the show. Therefor, only the +1 can be scalped. Finally, suppose 500,000 people would actually like to go to this show (not unreasonable if it was in NYC, for example.)

That means the odds of you getting in to this show are 1:500 (or 1:1000 in getting a pair, but put that aside for now). Now, suppose 50,000 "scalpers" try to get tickets to broker them. That number seems rather high but I will use it. Now, your odds of getting into the show are 1:550. However, 100 tickets (or 50 pairs) are in the hands of scalpers. Those 50 (+1s) will probably sell for $2000-$3000 a ticket, maybe more. If I am a hard core U2 fan, so much that I simply would sell my soul to see this show, I am thankful that those brokers gave me the chance to get into the show. After all, out of the 500,000 people who want to see this show, clearly they all don't want it equally. There is the casual fan, the hard core fan, etc. Just about everyone would want to see U2 in a small club for $25.

The point is the broker barely effects your chance of getting tickets, which is already extremely low. What he does it give a fan a choice to see any concert, even if it's extremely expensive.

I like choices.

*makes popcorn*

Yah, if we really wanted to have fun you should move this to the PJ Chat forum Synergy.

OK, let me ask you guys a question. This is a true story of why I started scalping tickets.

Suppose Coldplay (circa 2002) was playing a small club in NYC. Now, suppose, you liked Coldplay. You decide to try to get 2 tickets for the show. The tickets are $20. You score. Good for you!

A week goes by and you see those tickets are selling for $400 a pair. You are unemployed. You decide that you would never pay $200 a ticket to see Coldplay even though you would and did pay $20.

You bought the tickets with the intention of going to the show. However, the market price is now $200 a ticket. You decide to scalp your ticket.

What is ethically wrong with this decision? The utility is not worth it at $200. For someone else, it is.

matt, there is no basis for logic on this issue.

paying more than face value just feels wrong, okay?

I forgot to add this old link: http://forum.nin.com/bb/read.php?9,548515

groetjes,
Mirella

Online only ticket sales, limit one pair per credit card.

That's it? No controversy? Hope you didn't make a lot of popcorn, Nick.

yeah, it's supply and demand 101. i hate it if i'm shut out of tix for something i wanna see, but what are you gonna do? if scalpers resell tickets at exorbitant prices, it's because someone's willing to pay for it.

and g2t is right, it separates hardcore fans from non-hardcore. if there's a show i really wanna see, i will do almost whatever i can to avoid buying from a reseller (presales, join fan club, newsletters, whatever), or i will pay as much as i can in the end just to get in. i'm sure many times money and circumstances will prevent very hardcore fans to get tix, but most of the time it will work in keeping the nonhardcores from going.

the only way would be to put sensible measures in place. like selling a low number of tickets per credit card, will call only, maybe bracelets that can't be transferred from one person to another instead of tickets, stuff like that.

Maybe they should just set the price correctly to begin with, and they wouldn't have this problem.

Eh, just because something can be explained using the laws of supply and demand doesn't make it right. Far from it actually.

Actually, I disagree with this and agree with BH. If I was in a band, I wouldn't want only the richest people to be able to see me play. I commend bands who put in procedures to make it difficult for scalpers to operate AND keep prices below market levels. Not everything in life should be market based. If only 1 company owned the water rights for Earth, well, according to supply and demand, they could charge anything for that water as we all need to to survive. That doesn't make it right.

That doesn't mean scalping is as horrible as most people make it out to be, however.

But, Brawndo is what plants CRAVE.

actually, what's wrong is that the premium goes to scalpers/resellers instead of the people actually performing the entertainment/providing the service (the artists, promoters, venues, whatever).

i guess they should be more pissed off about this than fans, unless they're already getting a cut of it somehow.

Good reference. The first 5 minutes of idiocracy are the best. Goes downhill from there.