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yorkshirestoneQuote
paulywaulQuote
yorkshirestone
Sounds good, fan to fan platform. I think arctic monkeys made a point of it being their only official resale channel (sheeran too I think). The 10% covers the booking fee the original purchaser paid. It’s a great option for a fan who can no longer make it (but hopefully they have measured in place to stop touts buying in bulk from there then sticking them on viagogo?)
You might want to check out this thread on the subject of the despicable Viagogo ......
[iorr.org]
Yeah can’t stand viagogo. Even uk government ministers have public ally said ‘don’t use viagogo’
Like the sounds of twickets tho
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peoplewitheyes
Well, the ticket I bought on Tuesday afternoon arrived at my place this morning and is now in my sweaty palm.
It has the name of the original purchaser on it, but by bringing a copy of the Twickets confirmation email to the show, and my ID, all should be good (according to the Twickets site).
So far I have been very impressed with the friendly, transparent and fairly priced process.
Will keep you updated.
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paulywaul
Even with decades of experience, DiGiusto says it has become much more difficult for anyone to procure good seats for shows.
“They have all the power to do whatever they want — hold back, change the price, do anything. Regular people have no chance.”
Says it all really, doesn't it ?
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grzegorz67Quote
paulywaul
Even with decades of experience, DiGiusto says it has become much more difficult for anyone to procure good seats for shows.
“They have all the power to do whatever they want — hold back, change the price, do anything. Regular people have no chance.”
Says it all really, doesn't it ?
Your posts on this subject are fair comment, I agree with them all and they amuse me . However, you might need some blood pressure tablets soon Careful!
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paulywaulQuote
grzegorz67Quote
paulywaul
Even with decades of experience, DiGiusto says it has become much more difficult for anyone to procure good seats for shows.
“They have all the power to do whatever they want — hold back, change the price, do anything. Regular people have no chance.”
Says it all really, doesn't it ?
Your posts on this subject are fair comment, I agree with them all and they amuse me . However, you might need some blood pressure tablets soon Careful!
Nah, more important things in life to get excited about ... I don't lose any sleep over it, but thanks very much for your concern !
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grzegorz67Quote
paulywaulQuote
grzegorz67Quote
paulywaul
Even with decades of experience, DiGiusto says it has become much more difficult for anyone to procure good seats for shows.
“They have all the power to do whatever they want — hold back, change the price, do anything. Regular people have no chance.”
Says it all really, doesn't it ?
Your posts on this subject are fair comment, I agree with them all and they amuse me . However, you might need some blood pressure tablets soon Careful!
Nah, more important things in life to get excited about ... I don't lose any sleep over it, but thanks very much for your concern !
I was joking Though tone is hard to convey in print. I've met you before 2 or 3 times and you didn't seem the type to blow a 50 Amp fuse despite all your posts about this
Seriously though it really would not take complicated legislation and controls to deal with the whole issue. We've discussed plenty of them here. Why no effective action has been taken is soooo frustrating.
For shows where this ends up happening that I really want to go to, I'll simply turn up on the day, wait for prices to drop, which they always do and buy last gasp. But I'd prefer not to have to in the 1st place.
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gotdablouse
An interesting article that sums up what's been posted here over time based on more random data.
The "verified resale" business is really what gets me...TM are just enabling scalping (and collecting a fee on it!) it should be illegal to do that months in advance.
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peoplewitheyes
To finish up my Twickets experience...
I got to the show, with the confirmation email on my phone, ready to show why it was not my name on the ticket. Entering the venue they just scanned the ticket, no one asked anything about names etc.
Taking my seat in the arena, the young woman in the next seat turned to me - 'are you R****y?' she asked, confirming that yes, I was, she explained that her friend had had to go to hospital, hence selling the ticket. I thanked her, and passed on my best wished and appreciation to her friend.
The show was great.
Final conclusion: Twickets was a very nice, fairly priced, smooth, fast and personal way of getting a ticket. Far better (and cheaper) than dealing with the smoke and mirrors nonsense (and costs) of viagogo etc.
I would definitely recommend Twickets!
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In a 2007 written submission to a U.K. House of Commons committee examining ticket scalping, Ticketmaster U.K. argued that the “unauthorized resale of tickets for profit does not promote fair and equitable distribution of tickets, and drains tickets away from the primary market, thus restricting the opportunity for genuine fans to purchase them legitimately.”
The company urged British lawmakers to make the marked-up resale of event tickets a criminal offence.
That didn’t happen.
Early the next year, in an apparent effort to join the resellers if it couldn’t beat them, Ticketmaster purchased two online resale websites, TicketsNow (Canada/U.S.) and Get Me In! (U.K.).
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paulywaul
<<< without any real information on what really goes on >>>
As a mere consumer who (like many I imagine) has indeed thrown tickets back several times whilst in search of better ones - and subsequently been 'blocked' by Ticketmaster for the default period of 24 hours, it is very difficult to reconcile that kind of working practice with some of the more nefarious practices pursued by the company, as outlined in that article posted by SomeTorontoGirl.
For example:
<<< Ticketmaster wants to share in the profits of the resale market by facilitating the mass scalping of its tickets — in direct violation of its own terms of use >>>
We obviously have very different interpretations of exactly what 'Trade Desk' is and the function it performs. I am inclined to go with the above interpretation, whereby you as usual choose to interpret it as basically being something that 'just links point of sale systems to the Ticketmaster resale platform so you can sell on TM and other platforms simultaneously without risk of double sale' ........
In other words, you proffer your usual level of support and enthusiasm for an 'industry' (and that is far too kind of a term) that has historically and persistently deceived the concert going public, manipulated the concert going public, and nowadays is increasingly being recognised by artists and promoters alike as doing not only the public a monumental disservice - but also them too. Hence TM's decision to close GETMEIN and SEATWAVE. But as the article so accurately explains, substituting the closure of these platforms with Trade Desk effectively changes nothing. The ONLY upside (if I have fully understood one particular aspect of what they're doing) is that they have seemingly imposed a cap on the 'mark-up' over the original 'face value' price of a ticket. That at least in some measure goes towards curbing the completely ridiculous excesses that have been a persistent feature of the secondary market over the years, and that nowadays - the likes of Viagogo continue to exemplify !
And so back to the quotation at the top of this post. Exactly what 'information do you have about what really goes on' that the rest of us don't ? Don't tell me, you work for Ticketmaster ......... ?
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gotdablouseQuote
In a 2007 written submission to a U.K. House of Commons committee examining ticket scalping, Ticketmaster U.K. argued that the “unauthorized resale of tickets for profit does not promote fair and equitable distribution of tickets, and drains tickets away from the primary market, thus restricting the opportunity for genuine fans to purchase them legitimately.”
The company urged British lawmakers to make the marked-up resale of event tickets a criminal offence.
That didn’t happen.
Early the next year, in an apparent effort to join the resellers if it couldn’t beat them, Ticketmaster purchased two online resale websites, TicketsNow (Canada/U.S.) and Get Me In! (U.K.).
So it seems TM just adapted and decided to at least get a 25% commission on resales, it's not right but they're driven by profit, so why not...What are the US and the UK waiting for to make the resale of tickets above face value illegal like it already is in France ? That would of course kill the scalper business, who's going to complain ? TM could still list "verified resale" tickets on their website but of course there would be much less motivation to cheat out honest people and there you would indeed have genuine "fan resales" when you find out close to the show that you finally can't make it.
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gotdablouse
Interesting...your relentless defending of the scalpers is very "perplexing" (to say the least) as it's obvious to anyone with a brain or even the tiniest amount of moral sense that reselling tickets for a huge profit with zero added value is just plain wrong. It's a purely parasitic business and the earlier an end is put to it, the better.
@paulywaul - where did you see that TM are putting some kind of "cap" on the resale value ? Looking at some McCartney shows I'm seeing some 10x markups !
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gotdablouse
Interesting...your relentless defending of the scalpers is very "perplexing" (to say the least) as it's obvious to anyone with a brain or even the tiniest amount of moral sense that reselling tickets for a huge profit with zero added value is just plain wrong. It's a purely parasitic business and the earlier an end is put to it, the better.
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@paulywaul - where did you see that TM are putting some kind of "cap" on the resale value ? Looking at some McCartney shows I'm seeing some 10x markups !
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DanQuote
gotdablouse
Interesting...your relentless defending of the scalpers is very "perplexing" (to say the least) as it's obvious to anyone with a brain or even the tiniest amount of moral sense that reselling tickets for a huge profit with zero added value is just plain wrong. It's a purely parasitic business and the earlier an end is put to it, the better.
I prefer a free market. In this market, there is no "face value," just the price the ticket is worth at any particular time.
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Happy24Quote
DanQuote
gotdablouse
Interesting...your relentless defending of the scalpers is very "perplexing" (to say the least) as it's obvious to anyone with a brain or even the tiniest amount of moral sense that reselling tickets for a huge profit with zero added value is just plain wrong. It's a purely parasitic business and the earlier an end is put to it, the better.
I prefer a free market. In this market, there is no "face value," just the price the ticket is worth at any particular time.
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bye bye johnny
Bob Lefsetz's take on the Ticketmaster kerfuffle:
The Ticketmaster Nightmare
"'A public relations nightmare': Ticketmaster recruits pros for secret scalper program": [bit.ly]
The pubic doesn't understand ticketing. People believe they're entitled to a front row seat for face price to all shows. Furthermore, they've been abused. They used to line up and now they've got to get up in the morning to find out they can't buy tickets and all the seats are bought by bots. Those damn scalpers, they're the problem!
Only they're not. First, blame the acts. Second, blame Ticketmaster.
Music is opaque. The most immediate medium, only the song is for real. After that... Well, there's studio trickery and lies. But this is an industry built on hype and image, and no one wants to mess with that. They say the show is sold out when it isn't. They say the act has reached a milestone when it hasn't. Meanwhile, you still want to go and experience your favorite act live.
Recorded music distribution has been worked out, with streaming. But acts HATE IT! Because it reveals truth. I.e. nobody is listening to your music. Used to be you could fake it, with radio play and artificial statistics. Now you're not in the top fifty, not even in the top hundred, and people cherry-pick the hits and you're not making what you used to and somehow it's the streaming service's fault.
But the streaming services are run by youngsters praying to a different god. Tech is all about transparency, there's a different playing field. I'm not saying there are not shenanigans, but much fewer, and the music business HATES THIS!
Music has been a thug business. Based on intimidation forever. Music wants no light shined upon it the same way Trump doesn't want you to see his tax returns. If you saw how the sausage was made you'd be horrified. And heads would roll.
Will heads roll at Ticketmaster?
Now what you have to know is all the money is in ticketing. Once Clear Channel became Live Nation and Michael Rapino failed in trying to get the acts to take a haircut, promoters have overpaid the acts, given them all the ticket revenue, the profit is in the ticketing itself.
The fees. Those don't all go to Ticketmaster. They're shared with the building, the promoter, sometimes the act itself. But almost all the profit is in selling the ticket itself. That's the essence of the CBC article, one people will miss while they rail at the damn scalpers.
"...resale tickets are particularly lucrative for Ticketmaster because the company charges fees twice on the same ticket.
So, for example, if Ticketmaster collects $25.75 on a $209.50 ticket on the initial sale, when the owner posts it for resale for $400 on the site, the company stands to collect an additional $76 on the same ticket."
That's all you need to know.
All this Verified Fan hogwash, all these paeans to the customer, they're all secondary to the bottom line. It's very simple, this is a business, Ticketmaster is part of Live Nation, and the company is public and the numbers have to go up. How can they?
Well, via festivals and sponsorships. Festivals are owned by promoters and there's tons of money left over after paying the acts, assuming the gig is successful. And sponsorship is the hidden profit center. But really, it's about those fees. All those shows promoted by Live Nation, think of all those profits on those resold tickets, that's GOLD!
So what happens now?
The acts are afraid of looking greedy. They don't want to charge what the ticket is worth. There's been some improvement, with gold circle/I Love All Access, great seats for their true market value. But the rest of the house?
Then there's flex pricing. Works for the Stones, but they're in a league of their own, and they've been seen as mercenary for decades. As for Taylor Swift... The grosses were high, but fans were pissed off at the prices and sales were soft, especially in the U.K.
So what's the solution?
Either sell the tickets for what they're worth or go paperless.
But no one likes these options. Ticketmaster makes less money, the act is seen as ripping-fans off and these same fans want transferability, they don't want to be tied to the ticket, in some cases the fans are trying to resell the tickets themselves, although this is a fool's errand in today's bot culture.
But, once again, all the blame is put upon the scalpers. The bad guys. Who are giving people what they want, the ability to pay fair price to attend shows. The scalpers are not going away as long as tickets are underpriced. And now that Ticketmaster has integrated the scalped tickets with the primary scalping has been institutionalized.
You might see this as an inability to stop technology, but really it's nothing of the sort. This is all about making MONEY!
Will there be a Congressional hearing? Will there be laws? Elected officials can't understand the ticketing business and the laws always get it wrong.
Since Live Nation is a public company will heads roll?
Possibly, look what happened after the #MeToo movement.
Furthermore, especially in this era where experience is king, don't expect fans to hold back, they want to go.
So I don't expect any real change.
But there could be.
[lefsetz.com]