What pissed you off today?

[jingle.boy]

I think the most shocking part of this is there are people who didn't know Andrea Bocelli is basically Taylor Swift (in terms of how big/popular) for his genre (opera).  I mean, he's not a billionaire artist, but he's about as big as they come in opera.

[El Barto]

I think the most shocking part of this is there are people who didn't know Andrea Bocelli is basically Taylor Swift (in terms of how big/popular) for his genre (opera).  I mean, he's not a billionaire artist, but he's about as big as they come in opera.

Interestingly, I've never thought of him as an opera singer at all. He's a tenor with an operatic voice, but I'd call him more of a pop singer, honestly. A quarter of his set will be famous arias, but there will be a ton of movie music, traditionals, pop songs, and famous tunes from musicals. And in truth, the only aria people who go to his concerts are really interested in hearing is Nessun Dorma (which they know because of Pavaratti). 

[ReaperKK]

It's a well known fact that at the original on-sale time only a small percentage of tickets are sold. This was a big scandal 15 years go whenever some other blond haired tart was selling out stadiums. Citibank gets a bunch of them. The promoter gets a bunch of them. The artist gets a bunch of them. Any sponsors get a bunch of them. The venue gets a bunch of them (in this case casino comps). Of the tickets that are left for the public, which could be as low as 33%, half of them will be "platinum" tickets. More still will be sold as part of packages. If there's a presale some will be sold then and some will be held back for the regular sale.

This only further drives up demand since the supply is artificially limited. And as much as people bitch about bots grabbing tickets for the scalpers, in truth it's all of those holdbacks that get resold for beau coup dollaros.

El Barto has it nailed. I worked at a venue in college (so my info is 10+ years old) in the admin office and got a peak into how things worked with ticketing and that's how it was at the time. Banks of tickets get held back for certain promotions/partnerships. Additionally service fees would fluctuate and at times artists would get kickbacks to service fees all while being able to say "OMG TM FEES ARE OUT OF CONTROL". It's a lot more complicated, and frustrating system now .

[Stadler]

Not arguing or saying you're wrong, I'm just genuinely curious. What acts today can get that kind of money show after show? Outside of Taylor Swift, a few one-off reunion shows, or something crazy unique like a residency at The Sphere in Vegas, who else can charge $900+ for every floor seat in the house? With the exception of maybe a half dozen bands/acts. I've all but given up on seeing concerts. I haven't done a whole lot of ticket shopping these last few years.

Who CAN and who DOES are not the same things.   My daughter sold a Harry Styles ticket at MSG for $1000 day of his last show there.  That's scalping, but if a person is going to pay that on Stubhub, presumably they will pay it on the Ticketmaster site.

You all know this, but I'll say it again; there is no industry quite like the ticket industry (and why I don't trust Ticketmaster et al).   NO OTHER business sells their product at such a discount at the point of sale that there's an entire industry in place to take advantage of the arbitrage. 

[cramx3]

Who CAN and who DOES are not the same things.   My daughter sold a Harry Styles ticket at MSG for $1000 day of his last show there.  That's scalping, but if a person is going to pay that on Stubhub, presumably they will pay it on the Ticketmaster site.

You all know this, but I'll say it again; there is no industry quite like the ticket industry (and why I don't trust Ticketmaster et al).   NO OTHER business sells their product at such a discount at the point of sale that there's an entire industry in place to take advantage of the arbitrage.

Sports do it too.

But it comes down to live events really. Promoters aren't perfect at knowing the price points.  I think I have an example of that as well.  My local amphitheater, where I see like 5-10 shows a summer every year, seems like they mispriced a lot of concerts this summer.  I haven't bought a single ticket because of that yet.  The shows are either completely sold out (likely priced it too low) or they are very poorly sold (priced too high).  I went through this morning to check every show I had interest in and noticed this.  There was even one show were none of the seats were sold but the lawn was sold out.  Some of this makes no sense to me, but I think it comes down to promoters getting things wrong and therefore the secondary market kind of corrects that. 

As for my sistuation, Livenation usually does a summer sale so I'll see if I can get tickets for the shows I want that way, and the others just wait till day of for a deal because the face value for a lot of those shows is too ridiculous to pay for me.

[Stadler]

My bad. I'm getting my yankee chums mixed up.    You're looking at Mohegan Sun, and yeah, they're going to scalp you. Most of that's simply the venue. Both Boston Garden and MSG had much more normally priced tickets available. Still stupidly expensive for uppers, but nothing like what the Red Man's gouging you for.

So full disclosure, I know people down there, and yet, for all the shows I see, I RARELY EVER go to Mohegan for a show.  If a band I like is there, I usually skip them or go see them in NY or Boston. I have yet to ever be able to get tickets first run through the Ticketmaster, and the aftermarket down there is insane.  Honestly, other than Keith Urban (read: night out with the wife) I haven't seen a show there since either Extreme's 25th anniversary show for Pornograffiti, or Asia when they played the Wolf's Den.

[El Barto]

Who CAN and who DOES are not the same things.   My daughter sold a Harry Styles ticket at MSG for $1000 day of his last show there.  That's scalping, but if a person is going to pay that on Stubhub, presumably they will pay it on the Ticketmaster site.

You all know this, but I'll say it again; there is no industry quite like the ticket industry (and why I don't trust Ticketmaster et al).   NO OTHER business sells their product at such a discount at the point of sale that there's an entire industry in place to take advantage of the arbitrage.

Yep, which is how the scalpers have defended their model for years. Tickets are undervalued.

Here's the thing. Not only are tickets undervalued in that sense, there's layer upon layer of obfuscation going on. To begin with, you've got two different layers of ticket scalping. The traditional brokers, and the official channel that is TM's dynamic pricing. I just checked tickets for Shakira (and yes, I would have bought some to resell had they been available), and "face" for lowers is $325+TT&L. That's the non-platinum, non-package tickets. If any are left, and they won't be, the day of the show those will sell for ~$100. That's probably about where they start. That's the artist scalping their own tickets (and more power to them, I guess, if only they were honest about it). And nowhere is it actually mentioned. It's just listed as the "standard" price.

As I mentioned there's no longer an actual "Face" value that anybody is allowed to know about, so casual buyers won't know that they're paying scalper prices for them. Then factor in that there are 10 different pricing packages for the good seats. You don't just buy a ticket, but you buy some sort of swag or experience jacking the prices up. If there are standalone tickets available they'll be listed as "platinum," and again because there is no fixed starting price, you have no idea how much of an increase is tacked on. Floors are probably $250 tickets that they're selling for $1000. Again, if there are any left, they'll sell for that $250 the day of the show.

The whole thing really is pretty sleazy, but not in the ways that people assume. "Thirty-three percent fees!" If you're caught by surprise by that then you've already gotten fucked 3 times before getting to that point.

[El Barto]

Sports do it too.

But it comes down to live events really. Promoters aren't perfect at knowing the price points.  I think I have an example of that as well.  My local amphitheater, where I see like 5-10 shows a summer every year, seems like they mispriced a lot of concerts this summer.  I haven't bought a single ticket because of that yet.  The shows are either completely sold out (likely priced it too low) or they are very poorly sold (priced too high).  I went through this morning to check every show I had interest in and noticed this.  There was even one show were none of the seats were sold but the lawn was sold out. Some of this makes no sense to me, but I think it comes down to promoters getting things wrong and therefore the secondary market kind of corrects that. 

As for my sistuation, Livenation usually does a summer sale so I'll see if I can get tickets for the shows I want that way, and the others just wait till day of for a deal because the face value for a lot of those shows is too ridiculous to pay for me.

I saw that yesterday when I was looking at Bocelli tickets. The last 10 rows of the upper balcony were completely sold out, and very little of the front half was. There was a really stark line there. Clearly there was far more demand for $85 nosebleeds than elsewhere.

[Awaken]

I actually reached out to the venue to complain. Not so much about the prices, but more to voice my frustration that half the venue was already unavailable when I was only the 90th person in line. The response I got said Mohegan has absolutely no control over the price of the tickets. Andrea's people basically pay a flat-fee for the venue, and then his people set the prices. 

They dodged the topic of available tickets entirely. My guess is that there's an agreement between the venue and the talent where Mohegan gets 'X' number of seats to give away and comp. If that's the case, maybe Andrea's people have to jack up the prices of the remaining 60% that they're allowed to sell.

I'm in this camp, and while I have no hard proof - I'll use the recent A7X show as an example.  I was in this thread complaining the day tix went on sale re: the ridiculous cost.  Fast forward to a week before the show, and low and behold, I get the email from Mohegan for two comp tix (likely due to the poor sales as a result of inflated prices, at least compared to other 'local' stops on their tour).  I get they want to reward people who drop $1000's of dollars down there but the number of tickets they reserve for this process is obviously too much.  As evidenced by the fact they were comping ME, who has spent all of $50 there outside of food in the past year.

[Awaken]

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[Stadler]

So for the record, the process isn't the same for every act that comes to Mohegan.  Prince, for example, rented the building and handled EVERYTHING, from ticketing to merch, to load out to paying the roadies.  I don't know about concessions, but everything else was handled - and therefore prices set - by the artist.  When Springsteen played there, he was paid a flat fee (and WHAT a fee!) and paid his band and crew, leaving everything else - ticketing, concessions, etc. - to the casino, with the proviso that the most expensive ticket couldn't exceed "$x".   I know the numbers, and I will just say, simple math says the tickets are a loss leader to getting bodies into the casino and buying $12.00 bottles of water.  Most acts are not Prince or Bruce and fall somewhere in between. 

[Awaken]

So for the record, the process isn't the same for every act that comes to Mohegan.  Prince, for example, rented the building and handled EVERYTHING, from ticketing to merch, to load out to paying the roadies.  I don't know about concessions, but everything else was handled - and therefore prices set - by the artist.  When Springsteen played there, he was paid a flat fee (and WHAT a fee!) and paid his band and crew, leaving everything else - ticketing, concessions, etc. - to the casino, with the proviso that the most expensive ticket couldn't exceed "$x".   I know the numbers, and I will just say, simple math says the tickets are a loss leader to getting bodies into the casino and buying $12.00 bottles of water.  Most acts are not Prince or Bruce and fall somewhere in between.

Completely agree.  I'm sure there are exceptions, especially when considering the fan demographic expected to attend.  Springsteen, for example, will draw a more - seasoned (read: aged, haha) - crowd than A7X will bring.  I'm sure they're more willing to take a loss on Springsteen knowing those fans will more likely have more disposable income to leave behind than those attending other shows. 

[cramx3]

Here's what pissed me off this morning...

When you are stuck in traffic on the highway, and the traffic breaks, yet people still drive as if there's a reason for the slow down.

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

Maybe they're just being safe?

[hefdaddy42]

Maybe they're just being safe?

What?

[Stadler]

Maybe they're just being safe?

If by "safe" you mean "have their head up their ass", I'm sure you're right.  There are a LOT of inconsiderate drivers out there, and by that I mean drivers that don't realize how much their actions - or failure to act - impacts other drivers.  I was at a stop light in the middle lane, hoping to turn right.   I was about a car length from the start of the right turn lane. At the red light was a car two up from me that was stopped almost a full car length from the car in front of them.  Texting.  If they had moved up only a couple feet - still within the realm of "safe" - I could have made the turn lane and cut almost five minutes off of my commute time.  Nope. Texting away, oblivious.  I tooted the horn as I went by and they just looked at me, dumbfounded. 

Another car - same road, by the way, but a different time - in the left of the two lanes and few if any cars around them.  I was turning left ahead, and there is a left turn lane.  The turn signal is green and I was hoping to hit the light because it's a long one (four directions, four separate turn signals).  This asshole is cruising like he's in Grease, going barely 20 mph. I tooted again, and got the finger.  Once the turn lane opened, I shot around him, but I missed the light.  As fortune has it, HIS light then turned green and he got to go on his merry way being a menace.  It is what it is; I was more observatory than feeling any emotion about it, but it did make me... is "sad" the word, the way that so many people are just so self-immersed?  Does it make any wonder that we talk about the things we talk about in P/R?

[cramx3]

Maybe they're just being safe?

Going 20 below the speed limit when there is no reason, is the opposite of safe.

I understand there's an adjustment period to the traffic ending and people's cars all accelerate at different speeds, but it's when people aren't acting and paying attention to the fact that the high congestion merge is in the past and you can move at normal speed now.

[TheHoveringSojourn808]

Going 20 below the speed limit when there is no reason, is the opposite of safe.

I understand there's an adjustment period to the traffic ending and people's cars all accelerate at different speeds, but it's when people aren't acting and paying attention to the fact that the high congestion merge is in the past and you can move at normal speed now.

Ah, I think I understand now, I think I misread your original post and thought you meant the moments immediately after the traffic ceased. If it's some time later and they're still driving like that they're probably just oblivious