Don't Stand So Close To Me '07

[eggwards]

I'm a little upset that I didn't get tickets to go see The Police in concert. Tickets went on sale this past Saturday and while I was at work, actually working, I forgot to log on and slog through the site to order tickets. There's also that thing about a concert in late June that kind of makes me forgetful about it on a day in March

Comments

[grunter]

Actually I completely agree with this: blame eBay! Since we've unfortunately barreled on by that quaint period of time where waiting in line overnight to get tickets "in person" was the name of the game, eBay is competely complicit in the new e-market for ticket-scalping. They do nothing to curb the practice whatsoever. With the advent of Ticketmaster as solely an online venture, the market for any given marquee show is no longer just local - it's global. Anyone with a computer connection can throw their hat into the ticket lottery and if they come up with a pair of seats, they can instantly turn around and sell their home-printed EZ-tix on eBay for a fast profit. Not only are these ticket "brokers" selling nosebleed seats for quadruple what they paid, but there is currently a serious market for just the unique Best Buy passwords to the presale "events" (which also, coincidentally sell out in nano-seconds and are part of the reason the regular public "on-sale" dates sell out almost as instantaneously.) Any show with any buzz at all in any major metropolitan market "sells out" due to these online, out-of-area "carpetbaggers" scarfing up the tickets to the shows and trying to turn a buck with the lenient resell policies at eBay. For example, the most recent visit of Ryan Adams to Chicago - generally a mid-level act with a relatively low ticket price ($30), playing mid-to-large sized club venues - suddenly sold out in less than 25 minutes. I tried in vain for weeks to find a reasonably priced ticket from a local source and the best I could do was a promise of an e-ticket from someone in Wisconsin who wanted no less than $150 for a single seat. I seriously hate the online ticket-buying experience. As rckdjbear said, it makes major tours a complete hassle.

[eggwards]

I'm looking at the site that rckdjbear linked to. The highest price is almost $4,000! That's insane. How in the world is there a market for that?

I remember back when I went to more shows, back in the eighties, and you would have to go down to the mall and wait in a line, and they would have a lottery before you ever got into the store. it was a pain in the ass, but you certainly had as good of a chance to get tickets as the people the scalpers paid to be in the line with you. I guess now it's much more lucrative and i's certainly easier for one company to round up tickets all over the country and put them up for sale.

I wonder how many tickets are bought on the second-hand market, and how many these guys lose money on? Obviously the second-hand market prices are higher just to try to cover their purchase and try to make a profit.