What the hell is up with the concert ticket racket these days?

[Tedster]

So, this happens to be a concert for kids, especially aimed at pre-teen girls. It shouldn't matter. Someone's raking in the bucks. Not just for this show.

 

Someone needs to be castrated for this {censored}...

 

Sprint Center show in KC sells out in under a minute

[Billster]

Last week's concert ticket thread.

[bbach]

I'm doing my part to put a stop to scalpers (and that's exactly what it all is). I simply will not purchase resale tickets over face value. I love concerts and sporting events, but I have this personal boycott going on. Too bad all other humans are not on the same bandwagon.

About a dozen guys from my work place are heading to KC this weekend to take in the Chiefs/Vikings game. They were willing to pay whatever it took to get enough tickets. I think they went through ticketmaster and it wasn't too awful bad.

There was a day though, when I did not understand the harm in scalping and I stood outside the Metrodome in Mpls looking for a ticket scalper so I could get into a Rams game.

[coyote-1]

IMO there is NO harm in scalping - provided the scalper is taking the risk of losing his investment.

 

I do, however, object strenuously to the current practice (as I described in last week's thread). To me it smacks of racketeering, of conspiracy to commit fraud.

 

I'm doing my part to put a stop to scalpers (and that's exactly what it all is). I simply will not purchase resale tickets over face value. I love concerts and sporting events, but I have this personal boycott going on. Too bad all other humans are not on the same bandwagon. About a dozen guys from my work place are heading to KC this weekend to take in the Chiefs/Vikings game. They were willing to pay whatever it took to get enough tickets. I think they went through ticketmaster and it wasn't too awful bad. There was a day though, when I did not understand the harm in scalping and I stood outside the Metrodome in Mpls looking for a ticket scalper so I could get into a Rams game.

 

note:edited for spelling

[Phil O'Keefe]

[ryan7585]

 

IMO there is NO harm in scalping

 

 

are you kidding?

 

these people deserve to get the {censored} kicked out of them, then sent to jail. theyre ruining the one avenue where musicians actually still get some respect.

 

it's absolutely horrifying that theyre able to get away with this.

[coyote-1]

Please try reading past the point that gets your emotions stirring... I've reprinted it below for your perusal.

 

are you kidding? these people deserve to get the {censored} kicked out of them, then sent to jail. theyre ruining the one avenue where musicians actually still get some respect. it's absolutely horrifying that theyre able to get away with this.

 

IMO there is NO harm in scalping - provided the scalper is taking the risk of losing his investment.

 

I do, however, onject strenuously to the current practice (as I described in last week's thread). To me it smacks of racketeering, of conspiracy to commit fraud. NOTE TO RYAN: Read the link and what I said about it.

[Tedster]

 

Last week's concert ticket thread.

 

 

Thanks, Bill...I didn't get on here much last week.

 

Personally, the shows I go to see (with the possible exception of someone like McCartney or the Eagles) are pretty small shows. Guys like John Hiatt aren't going to fetch scalpers megabucks.

 

I think a picket of events where scalpers have scored all the tickets would be in order.

[MikeRivers]

Sometimes I hate the basic Law of Supply and Demand, but that's how it goes. It really frosted me recently when someone on the Mackie forum announced the eBay sale of a word clock I/O card (a rather rare bird) with a starting bid of $500, $100 more than the card sold for new. But you can't buy a new one so I guess he has a right to scalp owners who need one.

 

Then after being fussed at a lot about not helping his fellow d8b users by selling the card at a fair price, he came back and bragged that he got more than his starting bid, and the card came out of a console that he was given for free, from which he sold a few other cards and cleared a grand and a half. Opportunism at its best.

 

So I guess if someone wants to invest in some limited quantity concert tickets, while it might not be moral, it's certainly legitimate business to sell them for a profit. Isn't that what businesses do? I don't like it, and I don't buy tickets from scalpers, but I guess I can't get too upset about it. Unfortunately, it does price some people who would really like to attend a concert out of the market. Best you can say is "hope the sound was terrible."

 

Much as I'd like to support live music, I hardly ever go to a concert any more, just because they're, as a rule, too expensive and too loud, to say nothing of too crowded.

 

Don't want to pay a scalper? Support your local musicians at a small club. They're usually still nice.

[Billster]

To Mike Rivers: These guys aren't risking their investment. Tickets that aren't sold on the gouger market get returned to the venue and the venue releases them at the last minute. As ranted upon last week and here above, it smells of a racketeering conspiracy between the venues, promoters, and re-seller agencies. If the re-sellers couldn't return unsold tickets, OK. But who is allowing these bulk refunds?

[nat whilk II]

The rigged instant sellouts should come under some sort of criminal investigation I would think....but not being an expert in the law, I don't know how that would go down exactly.

 

I'm also not a believer in the absolute reign of the free market. As Bruce Cockburn says in his tune You've Never Seen Everything,

 

But the market has no brain

It doesn't love it's not God

All it knows is the price of lunch

 

I feel a gut-level unfairness when tickets are "resold" at incredible prices right before the event. Free market or no...the concert is the same concert, the same goods purchased, whether a month in advance or at the door. Sure, discount early purchases - that's the time value of money, etc.

 

I also feel a gut-level inequity when the bulk of the money goes to useless middlemen traders, and not to the artists and show promoters. The middlemen traders serve no function except their own opportunism.

 

Call me a dreaming liberal, but even if it's "free market" to let scalpers scalp, I say it stinks, and at some juncture in the process, there should be some mechanism to at least hamper it.

 

nat whilk ii

[MikeRivers]

To Mike Rivers: These guys aren't risking their investment. Tickets that aren't sold on the gouger market get returned to the venue and the venue releases them at the last minute.

Yeah, I suppose that's the case with professional scalpers. I was thinking about the eBay scalpers who hold out until the last minute, or the guys who go along the line of those waiting for tickets.

 

Hey, isn't music supposed to be free anyway? Knock 'em down and take their tickets.

[MikeRivers]

 

The rigged instant sellouts should come under some sort of criminal investigation

Are they really rigged, or are they just sold out to resellers? I don't know if it's still the case, but at one time there used to be a limit to the number of tickets you could get with one purchase, usually six, figuring that would cover a reasonable sized family or group of friends.

 

Resellers would line up people to buy the maximum number of tickets and would pay them a small fee, or let them keep a ticket. But if an entrepreneur could buy 500 tickets as soon as they went on sale, particularly knowing that he could turn back any that he didn't sell before show time, that would make for a pretty quick sellout.

[Rabid]

A lot of mad ladies at work this week because the shows in Kentucky sold out in a minute. Two that I work with sat at the computer and kept submitting over and over for tickets and the site immediately jumped from "Not yet time" to "Sold out". Either they are not allotting tickets to the public or the reseller sites are using high speed connections and programming to automatically buy large amounts of tickets.

 

I would like to see Hanna Montana cancel the concert and start over, but I am sure Disney will not allow that.

[Super 8]

$850 plus $15 for s/h, but you gotta hurry up.

http://cgi.ebay.com/4-HANNAH-MONTANA-MILEY-CYRUS-TICKETS-SPRINT-KANSAS-CITY_W0QQitemZ110170700643QQihZ001QQcategoryZ16122QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

Prices like these ensure a healthy mix of the wealthy and the stupid.

[Tedster]

 

I would like to see Hanna Montana cancel the concert and start over, but I am sure Disney will not allow that.

 

 

I think she should (or her managers should). I guess she's really the daughter of country one-hit wonder Billy Ray "Achy Breaky" Cyrus.

 

If nothing else...a picket of these shows (or any such show like that) is in order, urging everyone not to buy tickets...a boycott. Or, considering Hannah's apparent fan base, a girlcott.