Box-Office Giant Ticketmaster Recruits Pros For Secret Scalper Program (www.cbc.ca) 143
Box-office giant Ticketmaster is recruiting professional scalpers who cheat its own system to expand its resale business and squeeze more money out of fans, a CBC News/Toronto Star investigation reveals. The report adds: In July, the news outlets sent a pair of reporters undercover to Ticket Summit 2018, a ticketing and live entertainment convention at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. Posing as scalpers and equipped with hidden cameras, the journalists were pitched on Ticketmaster's professional reseller program. Company representatives told them Ticketmaster's resale division turns a blind eye to scalpers who use ticket-buying bots and fake identities to snatch up tickets and then resell them on the site for inflated prices. Those pricey resale tickets include extra fees for Ticketmaster. "I have brokers that have literally a couple of hundred accounts," one sales representative said. "It's not something that we look at or report." CBC shared its findings with Alan Cross, a veteran music journalist and host of the radio program The Ongoing History of New Music, who suspects the ticket-buying public will be far from impressed: "This is going to be a public relations nightmare." He said there have been "whispers of this in the ticket-selling community, but it's never been outlined quite like this before."
Ticketmaster is like... (Score:5, Insightful)
Ticketmaster is like the Devil fucked himself, had a child, and that child grew up without any toys reading only out of context Scrooge McDuck comic panels.
If at all possible I try not to buy tickets from them, and don't go to many concerts any more because that is becoming increasingly harder to avoid.
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I recently bought some tickets and needed to get rid of a few legitimately.
What ticketmaster now does is force people who are not "professional resellers" into mobile only tickets that are harder to sell. On top of that they won't let you resell under the retail price, only higher. This way if they have extra tickets, they can sell theirs for cheaper before anyone in their right mind would by yours. The only way I was able to sell my ticket was by going to Stubhub where I was allowed to sell them at a di
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Weird. I sold a pair of tickets to Ozzy in Dallas, (something came up, I won't be able to go, :() for under retail, (by $11/ticket,) using their mobile app, just last week.
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If you don't like Ticketmaster's ways, don't buy from them.
Since Ticket Bastard has a lock on concert tickets, that means don't go to any more concerts.
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AXS, Etix, Eventbrite, and especially Ticketfly. I rarely buy from Ticketmaster, (although, as mentioned above, I did recently buy tickets from them.)
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Ticketmaster isn't doing anything wrong other than responding to customer demand.
Wouldn't it at least qualify as false advertising if they're complicit in snatching tickets for low advertised prices and enabling reselling them at much higher prices?
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Pearl Jam tried to go after them a long time back, and lost
http://ultimateclassicrock.com... [ultimateclassicrock.com]
Assholes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems to me that Ticketmaster should put in for a corporate name change to East India Company. Then they can call their payrolled scalpers 'privateers'.
Isn't this that they're doing illegal? If not it should be. I hope they go bankrupt over this.
F Them (Score:4, Insightful)
Ticketmaster is the reason I never go to concerts.
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Ticketmaster is the reason I never go to concerts.
Ticketmaster and scalpers... You know that if a large concert is sold out within an hour that the scalpers have figured out how to game the system. Now we find out that some scalpers are officially given an inside track by Ticketmaster. I guess that no one should be surprised by the corporate greed on display, but the fact that this is legal is what bugs me the most.
Re:F Them (Score:4, Informative)
Based on the article you shouldn't be differentiating the scalpers and ticketmaster because according to the article they are working together.
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It's not necessarily legal, fraud = obtaining money with deception. It sounds to me that if they're getting money from scalpers then they could potentially be defrauding the event managers.
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When I was a kid there was this company that would high young people to drive around in an unmarked white van and approach strangers. In the van would be some merchandise... electronics or such, that the driver would claim was "lost" in shipment and they'd sell to you for a discount.
I called the police on them once, and I was told they knew about them and it wasn't illegal.
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And the goods were sold new, with usual warranty? Company had actual headquarters, contact information?
Talking up the fantastic warranty wasn't part of the sales pitch.
Does this surprise anyone? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ticketmaster is an evil monopoly just *begging* to be regulated or broken up.
That they create and monetize the secondary market is hardly surprising.
Re:Does this surprise anyone? (Score:4, Interesting)
Yet the regulators had no problem with them and Live Nation (another spawn of the devil) merging. Who didn't see this coming with no competition?
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Though I won't argue them being evil, they're hardly a monopoly. The last four concerts I went to, two of them the ticket sales were handled by Altitude, one was AXS and the last, we were in the area of the venue so we just went directly to their box office and avoided these peoples fees entirely.
Another PR nightmare that doesn't matter (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, the public will not be happy, but what are we going to do? TicketBastard pretty much has a monopoly on concert tickets. It's not like I can go to another ticket vendor to get tickets, if they are selling them they are the only one selling them. And it's not like bands have a lot of options because so many venues are owned by TicketBastard. Unless the government steps in and starts regulating shitty, scammy business practices (not likely, especially not with this administration) there is no consequences to being a shitty company.
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They'll be fined $millions, then ticket prices will triple.
They'll be fined and customers will be given worthless discounts on future ticket purchases [slashdot.org]. And Ticketmaster wins again.
Re:Another PR nightmare that doesn't matter (Score:4, Interesting)
Maybe Amazon will one day getting into the ticket business.
Watch Out Ticketmaster: Amazon In Talks To Offer Event Ticketing In US [slashdot.org]
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Yes, then I'm sure everything will be unicorns and rainbows.
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>Yes, the public will not be happy, but what are we going to do?
Unlikely to happen, but if everyone refused to buy scalped, or re-sold tickets of any form, the pre-scalped concerts would stand empty and some change might result.
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Yeah, this. Why do so many people put up with TicketBastard? It's like music fans are so fanatic they'd submit to being raped, literally raped not just "wallet raped", if that meant they got tickets to that concert they're just dying to see. They're like freshmen who let fraternities and sororities haze them within an inch of their lives. The people have the power to stop this insanity, but enough choose to live with it for TicketBastard to survive.
I can count on one hand the number of concerts I've a
TM is the perfect example of the dark side (Score:5, Interesting)
..of free markets, corporate greed and (most importantly) lack of accountability.
I wonder what would happen if the Sherman Anti-trust Act was aimed at Ticketmaster. They have a virtual monopoly on their business model.
Re:TM is the perfect example of the dark side (Score:5, Insightful)
TM is the perfect example of a monopoly, and what happens once one is allowed to exist. It is most definitely NOT an example of a free market. A market that is dominated by a monopoly is the opposite of a free market. In order for a market to qualify as free, there must be no barriers to entry. A market owned by a monopoly has impenetrable barriers to entry.
So, there is your lesson in economic for the day.
Forcing a breakup of TM would go a long way to making that specific market free again.
Re:TM is the perfect example of the dark side (Score:5, Insightful)
You wrote all that without even once using the phrase "Market Failure." However, neither side in our dual party has any interest in imposing regulations or forcing competition (forcing competition is little more than creating market conditions that allow competitors to arise, thus promoting a free market; not being in opposition to it).
One side feels that the magic of the market is all that is needed. The other side sees these tickets as nothing more than a luxury item, in no need of being addressed. Applying the sacrificial lamb principal, someone will have to die before it is on the screen of anyone in a position to address it. Frankly, I don't see that happening soon, after all, they are just concert tickets.
Re:TM is the perfect example of the dark side (Score:5, Insightful)
...The other side sees these tickets as nothing more than a luxury item, in no need of being addressed.
And also, the entertainment industry is an important contributor to the party, equivalent to what oil and military contractors are to the Republicans. That's why Ticketmaster, RIAA and copyright unto the heat death of the universe get so much love from the Party Of The People.
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The latest copyright updates were just passed unanimously by Congress. The Republicans are pushing copyright (and patents) in NAFTA and wishing they'd stuck with the TPP. I'd say both your parties are in thrall to the entertainment industry.
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Re: TM is the perfect example of the dark side (Score:1)
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And which one led to Ticketmaster's monopoly? Enforcing contracts?
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TM is the perfect example of a monopoly, and what happens once one is allowed to exist.
Not quite. Remember these guys [slashdot.org]? Not saying they're better, but you've got to pick your poison.
Re:TM is the perfect example of the dark side (Score:5, Interesting)
In addition to what the AC said about barriers to entry, a free market also requires (reasonably) equal information available to all parties. The existence of a secret scalpers' support program was not known by the end customers.
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I wonder what would happen if the Sherman Anti-trust Act was aimed at Ticketmaster. They have a virtual monopoly on their business model.
Ticketmaster was allowed to merge with Live Nation in 2010. [wikipedia.org] So their virtual monopoly has the blessing of the US Justice Department.
TicketMaster, some kinda cheezy he-man villian? (Score:2)
Nothing. Because they control a large swath of the market, that doesn't make them a monopoly. You can (and many have) started their own ticket selling business. It is only when they use their market dominance to run you out of business that you have a case. Until the start doing something like blacklisting artists that use your service, you got nothing on them legally.
Edit button would be nice... (Score:2)
that doesn't make them an illegal monopoly.
Slashdot, grow the fuck up and add an edit button on posts like every other site on the internet.....
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Until the start doing something like blacklisting artists that use your service, you got nothing on them legally.
They own or have exclusive deals with venues. Artists either use them or don't use the venues.
Convert to Auction (Score:4, Insightful)
1. Open bidding
2. Everybody bids what they are willing to pay for tickets
3. Close bidding
4. Starting with highest bid, in descending order:
4a. Collect bid amount
4b. Allow bidder to choose seat or request bid refund
5. Repeat from 4 until all seats are sold
Scalpers? Everybody already bid what they would have paid. By bidding higher, the scalper is pricing themselves out of their own market.
Bots? It's either useless scalping (see previous line), or uselessly holding a spot only to request a bid refund.
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Why don't the artists perform for more days if there is more demand? Instead of performing 2 days, perform for 5 days.
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It's been done. Particularly to break the back of Ticketmaster. Keep adding shows until they don't sell out. Leave the first two shows empty and TM tholding worthless tickets, for which the act go PAID.
But the acts don't really care that much.
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There's no good reason I can think of that doesn't boil down to artificially generated demand and marketing perception.
But even this doesn't make sense. How does a bunch of disappointed fans who can't see the show due to shortage-driven ticket price inflation improve their fan experience?
Are there really people who want to see Taylor Swift or some other pop star mostly because tickets are hard to get? "I really wanted to see her but the tickets were easy to get, so now I don't want to go" -- I mean that
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Have you seen an actual tour schedule? They may just do 1 or two shows in your town, but that's out of 6 months or longer touring. Then they need to find time to recover and then compose and record their next album.
Re:Convert to Auction (Score:4, Interesting)
Actually, I think there is a more appropriate auction style for concert tickets -- the "Dutch" auction style.
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Yup, the good old reverse auction is a simple solution to this problem.
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While that sounds good at first, there will always be an opportunity to make money to sell tickets for something when the event is close at hand, rather than when tickets first go on sale...
You can't wait to hold the auction until close to the time of the event because then no-one can book travel not being sure if they have a ticket or not.
I'm not sure there is a great answer for scalpers other than doing whatever you can to make sure no-one can buy large quantities of tickets without careful vetting (you s
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An auction style process for selling tickets makes the most sense, keeping the price very high initially and only dropping prices once demand falls below some threshold.
The real market failure here is that ticket face values are too cheap, the actual price many people are willing too pay is much higher than what the face value says. Scalping and resale markets wouldn't exist if the face value was the market equilibrium price.
What I don't understand is why *artists* let this happen and give away much of the
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Sometimes bands want to sell their tickets to their fans (relatively) cheap.The other year here, the Tragically Hip's lead singer/writer came down with brain cancer and did a farewell tour. They were quite pissed off at Ticketmaster as they wanted to sell the tickets for a reasonable amount to allow their average fan to buy them.
Also when you have brain cancer and 6 months to live, and want to hit a bunch of cities, you can't really just keep adding shows. Even the average band that is not terminal still is
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They wanted to price their product below market demand and limit market supply and wondered why they had problems with scalping? I mean the lack of fundamental economics is as much a problem with these artists as anything else.
200+ cities? That's a global tour for a major artist who may not hit all 50 states and will often only hit 1 city in many states.
Only smaller bands with more cult followings would realistically try to hit 200 cities in the US, and even then that's 4x per state -- how many cities are
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Not everything is about money. Your last paragraph is a good idea though it is weather dependent, which doesn't always co-operate up here in Canada.
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Everything being sold for currency just happens to be mostly about money.
Those circus tents can be heated with forced air heaters. They set them up here in Minnesota, and we're as cold as most of populated Canada.
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What I don't understand is why *artists* let this happen and give away much of the profit to scalpers or ticketmaster.
The artists are under the false impression that if they lower their ticket prices below equilibrium, then their fans who cannot pay equilibrium will be able to buy the tickets allowing the artist to gain goodwill. In practice they are just transferring their profits to unofficial and now official scalpers.
The goodwill argument as merit and sometimes shows up in other industries. Smith & Wesson for instance sold .44 magnum model 29 revolvers below equilibrium because they believed that selling them for
And how many will go to jail? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nearly all states have anti-scalping laws on the books
How do those stand up against Right of First Sale, anyway?
I bought it, it should be mine to do with as I please.
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Lying or just forgot to read your link? (Score:2)
Nearly all states have anti-scalping laws on the books.
His link says...
There is no federal law against scalping, but, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), 15 states ban the practice in some way, most labeling it as a misdemeanor with penalties including fines and/or up to a year in jail. States that restrict scalping include: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.
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I was under impression that it was illegal in nearly all states. I posted the link AFTER to clear up my statement.
Therein lies the difference between you and me. You lie, troll, and AC constantly. I make mistakes, but clear them up and admit it. You OTH, continue to lie and just BS upon BS upon BS. Of course, that is what you are paid to do, in china.
Here you go just bullshitting agin (Score:2)
I was under impression that it was illegal in nearly all states. I posted the link AFTER to clear up my statement.
Therein lies the difference between you and me.
No, the difference between you and me is I check first.
You pretend you know things. State them as facts, (often when you have already previously been shown you are wrong). And basically just lie constantly.
Even on the occasion you have a valid point, you still exaggerate it and manage to turn it into a lie as well. [slashdot.org]
You lie, troll, and AC constantly.
You claim that all the time, but have still failed on every occasion to show any. Care to try again?
I make mistakes, but clear them up and admit it.
You posted a link, with absolutely nothing else.
Is that supposed to be an example of you adm
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Many of the scalpers will likely go to jail, BUT, this was a program being admined by Ticketmaster itself. Nearly all states have anti-scalping laws on the books. As such, Ticketmaster employees that KNEW about this should be going to prison (aiding/abetting or participating). BUT, I am guessing that not a ONE will see prison, esp the executives, even though they were almost certainly in on it.
Not everything that is illegal is punishable by prison time. And I would not expect scalping concert tickets to carry a penalty of prison time, nor would I want the tax payers to bear the costs associated with imprisoning someone convicted of scalping.
Ideally, this crime would be punished by levying a hefty fine against Ticketmaster, and investing that money into something which benefits society as a whole.
Re: And how many will go to jail? (Score:2)
They have a convention? (Score:3)
This sounds like just a charade they put on to try to convince people that there is competition in this market or that consumers have choice.
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Without reading the article, etc...
Conventions have more than one purpose. Sometimes, the entire purpose of a convention is to pad pockets. To show people a good time, while also receiving deductions as it is advertising/business cost.
Think -- little gifts when you show. Free rooms. Free food. Free shows, etc. Even cash in the form of gift cards.
It's a way to KEEP business, year after year, because "the little guy" can't compete / come close to the show you put on...
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The way I heard it on the CBC today, it was a scalpers convention that Ticketmaster attended, not a Ticketmaster convention that scalpers attended.
The surprising thing is that scalpers are organized enough to have a convention.
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Why does Ticketmaster have a convention? They control something north of 90% of the ticket market in the US; it is nearly impossible to go to a concert or professional sporting event anywhere in this country without them making money off of you. Who are they having a convention with?
Do you mean why do they control so many venues? Ticketmaster controls the market so well that the venues have to deal with them if they want to remain in business.
Edwards Theaters in California did the same thing. Within the area they controlled, they required film distributors to sell new releases only to them. Competing theaters in their area had to wait weeks and over time, Edwards bought them for low prices as they went out of business.
And yet you people keep paying (Score:3, Insightful)
OMG, I better pay $300 a cheapo ticket to see some fat 50 year olds sing songs from my childhood
these people were fun when my mom hated them, now they are just like all other old people
Scalper? (Score:2)
I thought the s-word was as insensitive as the n-word.
But anyway, Ticketmaster is no sensitivity champion.
All TicketMaster needs to do.... (Score:3)
.... is rename themselves TicketParent [slashdot.org], and all will be forgiven by us, the TicketChildren, I'm sure.
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Double-dipping on fees (Score:2)
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Artists and labels don't have that much recourse. Most big venues in the US are owned by LiveNation, the parent company of Ticketmaster. You play at a Ticketmaster venue, Ticketmaster gets to sell the tickets.
Disencorporation is the ONLY solution. (Score:1)
Nuke them from orbit. Teach the rest of those fuckers something..
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It's the only way to be sure.
StubHub (Score:5, Interesting)
So i canceled that offer and switched the tickets over to StubHub, which had a much better UI and let me lower the ticket prices to whatever i wanted. (I ended up managing to sell them about an hour before the concert for about $200 less than i originally paid for them after getting into a negative bidding war with someone else =P)
I'd strongly recommend checking out StubHub and any other ticket resellers before resorting to TicketMaster, especially after hearing this news.
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Silly question perhaps, but couldn't you just put them up on eBay?
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1: from what i understand it can be hard to gain traction in ebay if you don't have an established account with some good reviews. With StubHub if you're going with the electronic option (which most people do) then the buyer knows that something at least resembling a real ticket has already been uploaded and they have some recourse if it turns out to be invalid.
And 2: discoverability in ebay seems rather poor. StubHub has listings for most big concerts already and has seating charts for
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You can go ahead and quote the parts of the communist manifesto that talk about promotion of violence and monarchy.
The last concert I went to (Score:2)
There'$ a very good rea$on why that'$ the la$t concert I buy a ticket for.
I used to consult for a scalping company... (Score:2)
Let me play devils advocate for a moment... (Score:2)
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So.. why not make tickets non-transferrable (like airline tickets) and also refundable? If you can't make it to the game/concert, return the ticket for a refund (less a nominal fee). Those returned tickets go back into the pool and can be sold again. On the day of, at least one person on the order must have appropriate ID to enter the venue.
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So.. why not make tickets non-transferrable (like airline tickets) and also refundable? If you can't make it to the game/concert, return the ticket for a refund (less a nominal fee). Those returned tickets go back into the pool and can be sold again. On the day of, at least one person on the order must have appropriate ID to enter the venue.
Because the one who decides is Ticketmaster
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Why would TM do *anything* other than tricks to increase their profit? They have no competition and a captive audience.
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Not no risk.
There are some states with very capable scalping laws that would make it possible to go after employees of ticketmaster with knowledge of what's happening. This undercover recording is going to be quite the prize in those states and I wouldn't be surprised to see law enforcement move in and make deals with lower level employees to get the executives.
Ticketmaster executive staff should be hiring lawyers and working out a strategy to mitigate liability or they might end up in jail.
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I'm fairly confident that the contract Ticketmaster has with the acts and producers allows them to sell tickets directly or through business partnerships. That sort of boilerplate would be required for cases like a small concert sponsored by your local Chamber of Commerce where you can get tickets
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If enough big headliners with enough clout demand all of that extra revenue, you'll see Ticketmaster drop those policies PDQ.
Good one. There are a few instances of artists challenging TM, the most visible of which was Pearl Jam. The artist always loses.
Time to ban scalping (Score:2)
Its way past time to ban scalping completly. And not just penalties for the scalpers but penalties for the sites that allow scalping to take place like Viagogo and others.