Ticketmaster Recruits Pros for Secret Scalper Program

In a better world, companies like Ticketmaster would get taken down and disbanded for stuff like this. In reality, they may not even see any dip in purchasing since there's so few alternative companies that come close to matching their size. Glad that i don't seek out the size of events that have to use them that often.

 

That's infuriating

 

Mother fuckers. Not surprised at all.

 

Especially aggravating that our new premier in Ontario (where the article was written) who is the brother of our famous deceased crack-using mayor of Toronto, used his first week in office to among other (more important) things, cancel legislation that would have capped the % above face value tickets could be resold for. "Government for the people" my ***.

 

I realize this will be an unpopular opinion but tickets need to start being sold at more accurate market prices. The idea that front row and the back row of an arena can all be the same price is absurd. This is why we're starting to see more "VIP Packages" and what not since they're basically the ticket at market value plus a few cheap add-ons. Otherwise, expect to still see back-hand deals being done by not only Ticketmaster but promoters and the bands themselves, a fact that everyone conveniently forgets.

 

The problem with allowing double-dipping on service fees is that it incentivizes Ticketmaster to artificially restrict supply and enlarge the black market. Sadly I don't expect governments to intervene with legislation any time soon.

 

this company is a tentacle of satan instantiated in physical reality but one day every power chord on planet earth will reverberate with titanic love and slice it right at the base and it'll convulse in the street whimpering for a soul it never had as all the dollar bills it lapped up into darkness spew from the ground like a hydrant of redemption and we will cheer and dance to the sound of death, free of charge

 

But hey, at least he brought us back those buck-a-beers that no one asked for, or wants to produce.

 

Could you elaborate on the deals done by promoters and bands bit? I'm well aware of how Ticketmaster is fucking me, but not as informed when it comes to the other two parties.

 

It's been uncovered that a lot of large acts have clauses in their riders saying they have the right to reserve a certain amount of tickets to feed directly to the secondary market. I believe Katy Perry's rider posted on Snopes have that. Ticketmaster, while not a perfect company, is often just a face for people to take out their rage on when in reality it's the band/promoter. The LCD Soundsystem MSG show fiasco was due to the fact that the band/promoter held too many tickets back from the public to put onto the secondary markets.

 

Wow. That’s gross.

 

Interesting that this report originated from Toronto. In my history of trying to get tickets for events in Toronto, it's easily ground zero for these scalpers. They buy up tickets to every event there.

However, it sometimes works in the consumers favor if the event itself doesn't have a huge draw. You can usually find tickets to arena shows in Toronto below face in the hours before an event due to the large inventory the scalpers have and them not wanting to get stuck with unused tickets.

 

We were talking about this in another thread and this episode of Freakonomics was mentioned. I just listened to it and it's definitely worth your time if you're interesting in how this all works.

 

Think you may have missed link here...what episode of Freakonomics?

 

http://freakonomics.com/podcast/live-event-ticket-market-screwed/