According to the Wall Street Journal, “Ticketmaster has agreed to pay about $265 million for TicketsNow Inc., the country’s second-largest Web site for reselling tickets to concerts and sports events.”
The largest online ticket broker is StubHub, which is owned by eBay.
Apparently, perceptions of ticket “resellers” is changing: “Where resellers once were viewed as shady scalpers, now, thanks largely to the Internet, they are becoming more respectable.” Wrong. They’re still just shady scalpers unfairly raising the price of tickets and keeping real fans from being able to afford to go to shows.
Scalping should be illegal.
More shadiness:
The acquisition raises potentially thorny questions for Ticketmaster, which has previously sued brokers who use automated programs called “bots” to scoop up tickets faster than regular fans can, and then resell them for big profits on sites such as TicketsNow. TicketsNow Chief Executive Cheryl Rosner said her site currently doesn’t make any effort to keep tabs on how its 800 registered sellers acquire the tickets they sell. Mr. Moriarty said Ticketmaster would attempt to root out people who used technology unfairly, although he declined to give specifics. TicketsNow sold $202 million of tickets in 2006, Ms. Rosner said.
Fuck Ticketmaster and fuck scalpers. And people wonder why the concert industry is slumping…
Technology today allows things like Tickets to sell for whatever people will pay for them.
Call it scalping or call it another form of eBay. How is it unfair to take money from someone for something they want?
I used to hate scalping, but I can’t think of a good reason today to “hate” it. I think being PO’d about ticket prices isn’t worth it. Any time demand exceeds supply the price goes up.
Scalpers don’t drive up the price of tickets. Buyers drive up the price of tickets.
On point, Jake.
Scotty, if the original point of purchase for the tickets were an auction, then fine. But I don’t want to pay $500+ for a $75 ticket just because some douchebag can cheat his way through the system. It’s bad enough that TicketMaster adds on bogus service charges of capricious amounts and let’s certain “brokers” have access to tickets before the general public. We shoulda supported Pearl Jam vs TicketMaster when we had the chance.
I’ll admit I sometimes go back and forth on the idea. Free market, supply and demand, etc. But there’s also the concept of gouging…
We’ve struggled with this idea hear at GLONO because brokers are constantly offering to place ads. We have a policy against running ads for things we consider evil.
(The Google ads are automated and we attempt to filter out the brokers. It’s a constant whack-a-mole battle.)
Still, I believe it’s wrong and should be illegal to sell tickets higher than face value. That’s scalping.
I think scalping is well and good if, as Kiko mentioned, people weren’t cheating to snatch up all the tickets to something. If there were a way to filter it, and the aftermarket was more regulated, I wouldn’t see a single problem with it. Personally, I’ve used StubHub a good amount. And I’m well aware of what’s going on, and if I still think the price is too high….I just don’t buy it. Nobody HAS to see a show if the prices don’t allow them to.
I’ve been able to see many events I’d otherwise have missed because I was willing to scalp, and I’m glad I did it.
I’ve said since In Rainbows came out that when Radiohead comes to the NY/NJ area, I will pay whatever it takes to see them. I’ll try to get tickets through the normal channels first, of course, but I’m not optimistic about my chances. I have no problem paying $200-$300 per ticket (as ludicrous as it might sound, Radiohead is the one band I’d pay for) to not miss that show, because I’ve seen them once and that was five years ago.
Again, if they can crack down on the hacks stealing all the tickets, I think the aftermarket is great. People always have a choice. Choose to buy. Choose not to buy.
When I hear that people are paying $300 or more for a concert ticket all I think is that they deserve what they got. Let buyers sell their babies’ formula to buy tickets to see The Killers. I don’t care anymore. It’s the desire to pay “anything” that fuels scalping.
I can, however, agree that the original seller ought to have the right to legally and effectively limit the number of tickets they sell to any one buyer. But once those tickets are sold why should it be illegal to resell them? How is it any different than reselling CDs? Or T Shirts? Or DVDs? Or Wii’s for that matter.
Ultimately, how can selling tickets to entertainment be considered “gouging”? If people are willing to pay insane prices for something that is not a necessity, I don’t care what they pay. I’ll stay the fuck home and bank my money.