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The Joker
Hi Paul.
From your last posts on Olé Tour, I understood you were looking much forward to go to Buenos Aires. Maybe you were yesterday at 3 AM trying to score a tix with Titicketek.com.ar just like a bunch of us, which happened to be impossible with regular credit cards out of Argentina, except some Amex.
I personnaly choose to go with Viagogo rather to miss the opportunity, however I agree it's a scam.
You have a plan B?
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paulywaul
Check this out .......... Harvey Goldsmith weighs in to the never-ending debate !!
[www.bbc.co.uk]
Interesting read. Whether the government's 'public consultation' has any impact or not remains to be seen of course. I absolutely share your disgust on this paulywal - wouldn't be a moment too soon if the likes of Seatwave are either shut down or forced to operate in a more ethical way (which would basically mean a 180 degree turn around from how they operate currently).
The thing I don't understand and what really gets my goat - is how the hell do they actually get hold of all these tickets in the first place?! It can't all be speculative selling can it? Is it a case of promoters/ venues/ shadowy people on the 'inside' selling their allocations at an inflated rate to Seatwave etc who then cream their share of the poor fans? If that's the case then surely it's more than just the re-sale sites that need to be clamped down on.
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Dan
Obviously the best way to deter reselling on the secondary market is buyer discipline. As long as people are willing to pay more for concerts, there will be people willing to fill that order.
Sounds like the problem with these South American sites makes you appreciate Ticketmaster more. A lot of times tickets from other ticketing sites do really well on Stubhub only, because the buyer can't figure out who the primary ticketing agent is.
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paulywaulQuote
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paulywaul
Check this out .......... Harvey Goldsmith weighs in to the never-ending debate !!
[www.bbc.co.uk]
Interesting read. Whether the government's 'public consultation' has any impact or not remains to be seen of course. I absolutely share your disgust on this paulywal - wouldn't be a moment too soon if the likes of Seatwave are either shut down or forced to operate in a more ethical way (which would basically mean a 180 degree turn around from how they operate currently).
The thing I don't understand and what really gets my goat - is how the hell do they actually get hold of all these tickets in the first place?! It can't all be speculative selling can it? Is it a case of promoters/ venues/ shadowy people on the 'inside' selling their allocations at an inflated rate to Seatwave etc who then cream their share of the poor fans? If that's the case then surely it's more than just the re-sale sites that need to be clamped down on.
I think it's a combination of things. Some IS speculative. The secondary sites haven't necessarily bought or acquired the tickets before 're-selling them', they're just chancing their luck hoping to enter into an agreement with you to sell you this or that for a horribly inflated price. If they succeed, then they simply go about acquiring (at a much lesser price obviously) whatever it is they've just sold you at a horribly inflated price ...
A proportion of what they're selling, they HAVE actually bought, and the way they go about buying those is by getting their own staff to buy them in the presales and public sales, using multiple credit cards and multiple addresses. That entire business was laid bare in a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary for example ......
[www.youtube.com]
Then there's the good old fashioned scalper, they buy what they can and promptly list them on either SEATWAVE, GETMEIN, VIAGOGO, or STUBHUB for a hugely inflated price.
Finally, even though all parties deny it furiously, the PRIMARY ticket agencies unquestionably allocate large numbers of tickets to the 'secondaries' for resale. Watch the documentary - it explains how that happens in practice !!
So there's lots going on .........
HOWEVER, the real sadness is that in this day and age, the technology exists for the RE-SELLING OF TICKETS AT AN INFLATED PRICE to be so easily thwarted, it would be simplicity itself. As Harvey Goldsmith himself explained, to deter 're-selling', you simply link a buyer's ID to a ticket with a unique number, and you have a mechanism in place at the venue that checks the ID of the person presenting that ticket. If there's no match, the person doesn't get in - f**ing simple !! And if you wish to deter re-selling at an 'inflated price', you simply create a web based mechanism for one person to sell a ticket to another at FACE VALUE, and at the same time make a revised/altered association between a person's ID and the ticket number. Again ... depressingly simple.
On both counts, people who buy to re-sell are deterred, and people who genuinely cannot attend an event and simply wish to sell the ticket to another (without profiteering) are catered for.
It CAN be done, and it can be done EASILY, but it does need to UK government to recognise that a major problem exists, that intervention is required, that existing practices need to be outlawed, and then some of these depressingly simple solutions could be implemented immediately. The result would be that these four a**hole companies that represent the worst excesses of this runaway and out of control phenomenon would be out of business within days.
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Dan
For one thing concerts run on a razor thin profit margin for almost everyone. So venues, promoters and even artists are all too happy to pass along the burden of moving the tickets to other parties. So when someone buys 8 tickets, even in hopes of flipping them, they are glad at least someone is buying the tickets.
Remember, only a small percentage of gigs are high demand instant sellouts. Example, for most shows from Voodoo Lounge thru A Bigger Bang most venues were full by showtime but there were few instant sellouts. In cases like that,
everyone involved is thankful for all tickets sold regardless of intentions of original purchaser. In a thread on another message board about ticket reselling by
participants, the Stones as a money loser comes up quite a few times. My last great deal was Anaheim Stadium for $20 but this was very common 1997 to 2005.
Ticket selling on the primary market as always is inprecise, inept and inefficient.
Two ticket limits for smaller general admission shows are quite common. And ticket limits are easily defeated. Earlier this year I scored 10 tickets to a 2 ticket limit show. The intention was making sure my friends got in but I am sure I could
organize something on a regular basis. The same show was audited by the band afterwards and found the venue withheld and resold about 120 tickets on the secondary market. 500 capacity club.
As always not particulary concerned about passing legislation with the aims of protecting the wallets of the ignorant and the naive. A fool and their money and all that. Especially from years of closely watching the concert industry I know all about the corruption, deceit and taking advantage of consumer naivete by primary agents.
A lot of people I know buy on the secondary market almost exclusively. Whether it's the opportunity to pick just the perfect seat at a particular venue or take advantage of market excesses to grab a good last minute bargain, sometimes it's offers a much better choice than the primary ticketing agent. For years I mainly bought in the parking lot unless a low Ebay bid was accepted.
Also bands scalp their own tickets on broker sites.
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johnh
apologies if this has been mentioned before but Tom Waits got round this on his European Tour a few years back (2008) You could only buy 2 tickets, an email was sent to you a week or so after purchase asking for names for the tickets. On the night you brought i.d. to get in... simple. If a band/artist was that concerned they could easily drive it. Waits did.
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tumbled
Its about time. about 25 years late.