The problem with concert tickets...

[El Barto]

Didn't know that.  I've never had to deal with AMEX sales before.

I'll be interested to hear if you get tickets tomorrow at the general onsale.  I'm betting that you do. 

[njdtfan]

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/ticketmaster_scalper_attack_ja.html

This sums it up as well.

[El Barto]

https://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/01/ticketmaster_scalper_attack_ja.html

This sums it up as well.

And the flip side of that:
https://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2012/02/born_too_dumb_the_scalpers_bea.html
The simple truth is that a Springsteen ticket is worth a whole lot more than $49, and he knows it.  But as well as releasing them at a price far below market value,  they limit availability by 80%,  thus creating an even greater demand.  There are things that Bruce could do to improve the situation,  but why should he.  He's getting his money.

[njdtfan]

https://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2012/01/springsteen-paperless-tickets-scalpers-ticketmaster.html

more

[El Barto]

Paperless tickets don't matter.  At best,  they shift the scalping business to TicketsNow,  which is owned by TM.  Regardless,  if you price tickets at 20% of their market value,  and then slash the supply by 80%,  you're going to create a situation where the scalpers will thrive,  and they'll adapt to whatever minor hurdle you put in front of them.  Who wouldn't?

[ZeppelinDT]

Paperless tickets don't matter.  At best,  they shift the scalping business to TicketsNow,  which is owned by TM.  Regardless,  if you price tickets at 20% of their market value,  and then slash the supply by 80%,  you're going to create a situation where the scalpers will thrive,  and they'll adapt to whatever minor hurdle you put in front of them.  Who wouldn't?

Well, not exactly.  They're talking about non-transferrable paper tickets.  How can you scalp a ticket that is non-transferrable?

[El Barto]

Paperless tickets don't matter.  At best,  they shift the scalping business to TicketsNow,  which is owned by TM.  Regardless,  if you price tickets at 20% of their market value,  and then slash the supply by 80%,  you're going to create a situation where the scalpers will thrive,  and they'll adapt to whatever minor hurdle you put in front of them.  Who wouldn't?

Well, not exactly.  They're talking about non-transferrable paper tickets.  How can you scalp a ticket that is non-transferrable?

I didn't know that non-transferable was an option,  but it does appear to be, according to TM.  In that case,  you're correct,  how can you scalp a ticket that is non-transferable?  So why are we blaming the scalpers here, again? 

As I've been saying all along,  the bigger problem is probably that of the 19k seats at Prudential,  TM probably only had 2-3k available for sell.  Blame Bruce and Live Nation for that one.

Just to add,  normally only a percentage of the tickets are sold as paperless; the good seats, normally.  Most of the seats are still sold as paper tickets.  Springsteen might have stipulated that all of them be paperless;  I dunno.

The other thing to add is that some scalpers will actually use prepaid credit cards,  and arrange to meet their buyers at the venue and escort them in.  As you can imagine,  it's both high risk and labor intensive.  While there's certainly some of that going on,  it's not feasible enough to occur on a large scale.  Most brokers would only do that if they could wrangle first five rows or so,  as the enormous markup would make it worth while. If there actually is large scale reselling going on,  it's probably not via the paperless ticketing route.

[ZeppelinDT]

Paperless tickets don't matter.  At best,  they shift the scalping business to TicketsNow,  which is owned by TM.  Regardless,  if you price tickets at 20% of their market value,  and then slash the supply by 80%,  you're going to create a situation where the scalpers will thrive,  and they'll adapt to whatever minor hurdle you put in front of them.  Who wouldn't?

Well, not exactly.  They're talking about non-transferrable paper tickets.  How can you scalp a ticket that is non-transferrable?

I didn't know that non-transferable was an option,  but it does appear to be, according to TM.  In that case,  you're correct,  how can you scalp a ticket that is non-transferable?  So why are we blaming the scalpers here, again? 

Well... it looks like paperless tickets weren't actually used here.  It was just an option.  But tbh, I don't blame the scalpers at all.  They're probably just people trying to make a living just like everybody else.  If fact, if I had the right tools and thought I could turn a profit from it, I'd probably be doing the same thing.  I blame the system that allows the scalping to occur on such a massive scale.  My understanding is that StubHub takes a pretty significant portion of the listing fees, right?  I wouldn't be surprised at all if at least a portion of that somehow ends up back in the pocket of the artist/promoters.  It basically seems like an elaborate way for artists and promoters to set a low face value so that at first glade it looks like they're in favor of the fans, but then still having a way to make more money off of the tickets while putting the blame on third parties.  Everybody makes more money, and they all come out looking clean and innocent because the blame goes to faceless third parties.  I think it's similar with all the "convenience" and "facility" fees that get added on.  They're added on top of the face value, rather than being included in it, so it looks on its face like those are also all just "extra" fees that the artist has no control over.

The whole system is totally fucked.

[El Barto]

How'd you do with the onsale this morning?

Stubhub charges civvies a great deal for ticket resales.  People with large volume get a significant discount on the listing fees,  so yeah,  it certainly favors scalpers.  As for kickbacks,  some promoters will throw tickets to big name brokers in exchange for a piece of the action.  Like I've been saying,  the problem is that tickets are undervalued,  and as such,  everybody in the chain wants a piece of the pie.  It's just that the artists don't want to come out of it looking like greedy swine,  rather than idealists.  In this scenario,  it's like you said,  scalpers and TM take all of the blame.

For years I really despised TM.  Plenty of my rants are still on this forum.  Lately I've come to realize that they're no worse than everybody else in that system,  they're just an easy target because they charge exorbitant fees and give nothing to show for them.

Also worth noting is that on the resell market,  there are probably more civvies than professionals.  People buy extra tickets to offset some of the cost,  or they wind up not using ones they purchased.  I've bought plenty of tickets that people couldn't use due to a change of plans.  Most of my out of state concerts come about that way.

[ZeppelinDT]

I managed to get 2 tickets, so I'm happy.  Pre-sale must have been pretty small.  This is also going to be the third NYC Gotye show in the span of two months, so I guess maybe he's reached max capacity for interest.  Although tbh I don't understand WHY he's so damn popular.  Imo, his album is average at best.  I think he's just gotten a lot of hype in the hipster community.

My real issue this morning was that my g/f wants to go see Death Cab in April, and those tickets went on sale at the exact same time.  But I managed to just have two computers going and got the gotye tickets with my laptop and the Death Cab tickets on my desktop, so all is well.

I'd be curious about the StubHub distribution.  My guess would be that it's more "professionals" just because of the high prices and the fact that so many tickets are listed before they even go on sale.

StubHub does have its benefits though.  I've gotten some pretty good priced tickets on there before.  You just gotta play it right.  Set price alerts and/or wait until the day of the show.  It's great watching how rapidly the prices drop when there are still tickets available on the day of the show.

[El Barto]

Yeah,  I've been learning the trends so I can pounce on Roger Waters tickets.  Roger's greatly overestimated demand for a second swing through Houston.  Prices are more than they were the first time around,  and it's selling poorly.  Not sure why the scalpers didn't see this coming.  TM still has 19th row seats available through normal channels,  and you can expect to see plenty more good seats released.  Prices on Stub Hub are going to hit the basement the week of the show.  I was originally going to pass this time around,  but I'm thinking I'll be able to get great floor seats for half of face value. 

[ytserush]

Paperless tickets don't matter.  At best,  they shift the scalping business to TicketsNow,  which is owned by TM.  Regardless,  if you price tickets at 20% of their market value,  and then slash the supply by 80%,  you're going to create a situation where the scalpers will thrive,  and they'll adapt to whatever minor hurdle you put in front of them.  Who wouldn't?

Well, not exactly.  They're talking about non-transferrable paper tickets.  How can you scalp a ticket that is non-transferrable?

I didn't know that non-transferable was an option,  but it does appear to be, according to TM.  In that case,  you're correct,  how can you scalp a ticket that is non-transferable?  So why are we blaming the scalpers here, again? 

As I've been saying all along,  the bigger problem is probably that of the 19k seats at Prudential,  TM probably only had 2-3k available for sell.  Blame Bruce and Live Nation for that one.

Just to add,  normally only a percentage of the tickets are sold as paperless; the good seats, normally.  Most of the seats are still sold as paper tickets.  Springsteen might have stipulated that all of them be paperless;  I dunno.

The other thing to add is that some scalpers will actually use prepaid credit cards,  and arrange to meet their buyers at the venue and escort them in.  As you can imagine,  it's both high risk and labor intensive.  While there's certainly some of that going on,  it's not feasible enough to occur on a large scale.  Most brokers would only do that if they could wrangle first five rows or so,  as the enormous markup would make it worth while. If there actually is large scale reselling going on,  it's probably not via the paperless ticketing route.

Jive Nation and Ticketbastard are working together. They may even be the same company at this point.

Sounds like it might be a good idea to show up at a Roger Waters concert on the night of the show and wait until the concert starts. (Not something I'd ever do for Rush, but in this case it might make sense to me.)

[El Barto]

TM is a part of Live Nation.  They merged 2 years ago.

The Roger Waters concert is in Houston,  so I wouldn't drive down there without a ticket.  Furthermore,  the first 5 minutes is spectacular.  Without that,  it'd only be worth about half price.  Regardless,  those tickets will be cheap enough the week of the show. 

As an aside,  I've gone to several Rush shows without a ticket and done quite well.  At our local shed,  if a show doesn't sell out,  you can count on 2 for 1 lawn seats almost every time. 

[ytserush]

TM is a part of Live Nation.  They merged 2 years ago.

The Roger Waters concert is in Houston,  so I wouldn't drive down there without a ticket.  Furthermore,  the first 5 minutes is spectacular.  Without that,  it'd only be worth about half price.  Regardless,  those tickets will be cheap enough the week of the show. 

As an aside,  I've gone to several Rush shows without a ticket and done quite well.  At our local shed,  if a show doesn't sell out,  you can count on 2 for 1 lawn seats almost every time.

That's what I thought. I'd be heading to Philly for the Roger Waters concert should I decide to try this. Problem is the higher population density and the probability of more corruption in these parts.

I've never gone to see a Rush show without a ticket. I've threatened to for the last 10 years and I came REALLY close to doing it last year, but it hasn't happened yet even though I've seen the evidence many times that great seats suddenly become available as the show gets closer. This might be the year I get over that -- especially, if it's an arena show.

[El Barto]

Start checking now for Waters tickets and see what things look like.  Down here,  the Austin and OKC shows are selling just fine.  It's the Houston show that's not selling at all,  and that's reflected in Stub Hub's listings.  They're selling front section seats for 40% less in Houston than the other Southern cities. 

What I can tell you is that I wouldn't travel to see a show without a ticket unless it's a guaranteed non sellout.  If I'm traveling more than 45 minutes,  I'd just as soon have a ticket in hand.  When I have traveled expecting to get a scalper ticket at the venue,  I've done real well,  but it's not something I'd want to rely on. 

[El Barto]

This was part of Maiden's press release

“We are trying to ensure that our fans get the tickets they want in the prime positions without paying over the odds to ticket scalpers. Maiden get infuriated with the way fans sometimes have to pay more than the ticket price to get good positions at our shows. So we will, wherever possible (Festivals excluded), with the assistance of the Promoters, arrange a paperless ticketing system at least for the front sections to try to eliminate as much of the ticket scalping and exchanges as we can. We put this into practice on our North American Tour in 2010; it worked well and we received many positive comments back from our fans, so we intend to increase this where feasible. With paperless ticketing, only those who actually pay initially for the tickets will get into the show so scalping is generally avoided (please see the comments from Ticketmaster below). We are also doing everything we can to avoid any drain of prime tickets going to the Secondary Ticketing sites which we feel make unfair profits from music fans.

As we consider all our fans to be VIPs, no tickets will be held specifically for VIP use. At some venues, the Promoter may provide the option for fans to pay extra for “VIP Parking”, early access, access to “VIP Bar” etc. But these will be purely optional for ticket holders only and will not be tied to ticket locations – the ability to get the best tickets should be the same for everybody outside of the usual presales.

Finally, we are of course once again arranging exclusive ticket pre-sales for our fan club members so they can be quick off the mark for great tickets and will also continue to run the contest in appropriate venues for fan club members so they can be ‘First To The Barrier’ prior to the show. We hope that these measures will help our fans as much as possible and ask that they keep checking for details on our website.”

I bought tickets to two shows on that tour, and neither time were the best seats ever made available.  In the case of the Dallas show, the entire front-center section of the shed was held back for VIP fucktards.  That's a helluva lot of seats. We actually bought a membership to the fanclub for the presale, and that was a total ripoff, as well.  While you'll get into the 100 level sections, you're off in the wings. 

I hope they actually manage to improve the situation this time around, but like most people, they fail to recognize what the problem actually is, and therefore won't have much success resolving it.

[emindead]

So yeah, today I bought the most expensive tickets I have every came across with. To what show? Paul McCartney. Damn, I'm sooo broke (but so happy!!!).

[Ben_Jamin]

I had the worse experience trying to buy Drake tickets for my bro. They released the most expensive seats that were in the back of the middle sections, and lawn. No lower prices were released when they went on sale. Fucking rediculous, so I decided to wait a month and see if anything closer pops up.