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Paperless Tickets Flourish Despite 'Grandma Problem'
Hugh Pickens writes "Is a concert ticket a piece of property that its holder has the right to buy and sell as he sees fit, or is it merely a seat-rental contract subject to restrictions determined by its issuer? The Washington Post reports that in an effort to thwart scalpers and dampen ticket reselling on the so-called secondary market, musicians as diverse as Bruce Springsteen, Miley Cyrus, and Metallica have adopted 'paperless ticketing' for some or all of the seats at their live shows. Ticket issuers Ticketmaster and Veritix tout paperless tickets as a way to eliminate worries about lost, stolen, or counterfeit tickets, and to banish long will-call lines. But paperless tickets aren't really tickets at all, but essentially personal seat reservations, secured electronically like airline tickets. Fans buy tickets with a credit card and must then go to the venue with the same credit card and a photo ID to gain admittance. The problem is that Ticketmaster's paperless tickets can't be transferred from a buyer to a second party. The inability to pass along a seat creates what has become known in the industry as the 'grandma problem': it's almost impossible for a grandma living at one end of the country to buy a paperless ticket to giver to a grandchild living at the other end. Without the ability to transfer virtual tickets, brokers and dealers fear being run out of business, and consumers have a harder time selling unwanted tickets. 'People should be free to give away or sell their tickets to whomever they want, whenever they want,' says Gary Adler, a Washington attorney who represents the National Association of Ticket Brokers. 'An open market is really best for consumers.'"
Ticket issuers Ticketmaster and Veritix tout paperless tickets as a way to eliminate worries about lost, stolen, or counterfeit tickets, and to banish long will-call lines.
Note for the British English impaired - a tout is what you on the other side of the pond call a scalper.
There were some reports that say that 30% - 50% of tickets were bought by brokers. They lock out fans from the best seats. They then resell those seats at a premium. Their excuse is that the open market will decide the price of the ticket. This logic falls down because the brokers artificially inflate the price of the seats that would normally go to the biggest fans.
I don't mind paying a small premium, waiting in line, hovering over the phone to get a good seat -- and I have before -- but the brokers now make even those things impossible. Now it's $2,500 a ticket for some shows with tickets of $100 face value.
I'd mod that as funny if I had any points right now. In fact, even Chris Hansen would mod that as funny.
Then he'd show up at your house with a camera crew.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
That's not enough. Wimbledon for example prevent people from buying more than two tickets. But there are still scalpers in operation. They put adverts in the classified adds to buy Wimbledon tickets at something above face value. Then they re-sell them for a much greater price outside the venue.
(At least that was the case, going back a few years, I'm not sure what they do now.)