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Ticketmaster Claims Hacking Over Ticket Resale Site
FlopEJoe writes "Ticketmaster claims that RMG Technologies is providing software to avoid security measures on their website - even to the point of utilizing bots to get large blocks of tickets. RMG says it just 'provides a specialized browser for ticket brokers.' From the New York Times article: 'The fact that tickets to popular events sell out so quickly -- and that brokers and online resellers obtain them with such velocity -- is clouding the business, many in the music industry say. It is enough, some longtime concertgoers say, to make them long for the days when all they had to do to obtain tickets was camp out overnight.'"
1) Lottery
2) Auction
3) Non-transferable tickets
An auction is the most capitalistic approach. Scalpers won't bid much lower than they think they can resell the tickets for later.
A lottery adds some fairness but only if you can limit the number of tickets per buyer and avoid the straw-buyer problem.
Non-transferable tickets that are refundable for 100% of the purchase price will solve the scalpers-buying-up-all-the-tickets problem but they aren't too useful if your target audience is children and others who don't have ID cards.
For popular shows, I'd go with selling non-transferable tickets, where any adult would need an ID that matched the name on the ticket and children would have to be accompanied by someone sitting nearby. If after a few days the promoters realize a given block of seats is not expected to sell out, I would lift the non-transferable restriction and let people sell their tickets on the open market. Anyone needing to return tickets could get their money back less the usual ticket-service charge.
If you show up with a non-transferable ticket in hand that doesn't have your name on it, you are turned away. You can contact the original purchaser to beg him to get you a refund.
I'm not sure how this would work for shows oriented to the 12-15 crowd, as these people usually come without their parents but without any ID other than a school ID.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
I'm assuming ticketmaster isn't implementing the captcha correctly. There is only 3 ways to exploit the system:
1) enter in the captcha before the tickets go on sale, and purchase when available
2) bypass the captcha because its not a requirement to make a purchase
3) the captcha not complex enough to fool a computer for a few minutes
No software should be getting around it without someone typing in the magic letters after the tickets go on sale.
Led Zepplin held a lottery for tickets to an upcoming concert.
They neglected to tell the winners the tickets were non-transferable.
The promoters are telling ticketholders that if their names don't match the names on the credit cards they won't get in.
BBC News has more.
"What we have here is a failure to communicate."
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
You do realize that the promoter for the event negotiates the service fee Ticketmaster will be allowed to collect? TM doesn't get to charge just any old fee they want without the promoter's explicit OK. If the promoter had his way, your ticket would have one figure on it, the face value, and all the fees and extras would be hidden in that single figure, and you'd not know there was anything to complain about. But state and local laws require varying degrees of itemization from place to place, and where disclosure requirements are most stringent, fans are most unhappy about ticket prices. Ignorance really is bliss sometimes.
Edith Keeler Must Die