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.'"

Comments

Limited Options

[Nerdfest]

Of course they flourish. When these are used, people really aren't given another option in most cases. This is much like saying "Despite outrageous fees, TicketMaster flourishes".

Re:Limited Options

[CastrTroy]

You could always just not go to the show. When concert tickets already cost $100 or even much more, and then Ticket Master adds a $12 "convenience fee", which is mandatory, because there is no other way to get tickets, then I stop going to concerts. When I was in university, and I went to a lot of concerts, they were usually small shows at local bars. We never paid more than $20 for a concert ticket, sometimes as little as $5. And there's a lot of free tickets to interesting bands if you keep your eyes open. Why would I want to pay $100 to go to a venue with terrible sound, and sit 200 ft. from the band and the crowd is just filled with a bunch of people who happen to have a lot of money, but aren't all that interested in the music, when I can go to a smaller venue, pay $10, be 10 ft. from the band, the sound isn't any worse, and the crowd is really into it. I guess there's just too many people with too much money, and that's the reason they can demand outrageous prices, and even stoop to things like paperless tickets that you can't resell. Granted there are more people without money, but that's not important, because as long as there are enough people in each city on the tour to buy the tickets, it doesn't matter how much the real fans can afford.

Re:Limited Options

[HungryHobo]

What I find amusing is how many people in this topic are deluded that this is a good thing.

Sure people hate scalpers but all this will mean is that ticketmaster will do what the scalpers used to do but screw you far harder.
They'll follow the airlines and just charge 10 times as much for a ticket shortly before the show vs the price 6 months before.
They'll up the prices based on how many hits their website gets for that concert.
And finally they won't ever give you a refund or (and this is where they become worse than the scalpers) let you sell the ticket if you find yourself unable to go.

you'll play just as much money to get the tickets as you ever paid to a scalper but the middlemen at ticketmaster will be getting all the cash.(clap your hands and believe, believe real hard if you want the band to get any of the extra income)

I'm with you on the smaller gigs thing.
better atmosphere, better music, better prices.

Re:Limited Options

[Blkdeath]

You could always just not go to the show. When concert tickets already cost $100 or even much more, and then Ticket Master adds a $12 "convenience fee", which is mandatory, because there is no other way to get tickets, then I stop going to concerts.

This I'll agree with. TicketMaster have created a monopoly on the ticket industry and therefore the "convenience" of buying tickets from them is rather akin to a convenience charge to buy Microsoft Windows or gasoline anymore.

When I was in university, and I went to a lot of concerts, they were usually small shows at local bars. We never paid more than $20 for a concert ticket, sometimes as little as $5. And there's a lot of free tickets to interesting bands if you keep your eyes open. Why would I want to pay $100 to go to a venue with terrible sound, and sit 200 ft. from the band and the crowd is just filled with a bunch of people who happen to have a lot of money, but aren't all that interested in the music, when I can go to a smaller venue, pay $10, be 10 ft. from the band, the sound isn't any worse, and the crowd is really into it.

This, however, I will wholeheartedly disagree with. The last rock concert I went to at {$Major_Venue} was phenomenal. The crowd of thousands was entirely into the show to the point where people stood when the band fired some cannon shots to start the show and never sat down again. Screaming, yelling, cheering, chanting and thousands of people belting out lyrics to the more lively songs is something you can never experience at a bar. That and extreme pyrotechnics.

There's vast differences between a show at a bar (I've been to hundreds) and a rock concert. Namely a show at a bar is something you can do because it's Friday. A major concert event is an uncommon special occasion.

I guess there's just too many people with too much money, and that's the reason they can demand outrageous prices,

I've noticed quite a trend of people on Slashdot being anti-money. Is there a problem with people who work hard and earn more than $40k/year (or 50, 60; whatever the waterline may be) or something? Or must one suffer and live in one's parents' basement earning paltry sums in order to maintain credibility?

and even stoop to things like paperless tickets that you can't resell. Granted there are more people without money, but that's not important, because as long as there are enough people in each city on the tour to buy the tickets, it doesn't matter how much the real fans can afford.

It's simple market economics. You price a good at a level the market will bear. If you sell tickets for $100 apiece and the show sells out in 6 minutes, you price the next show at $120. If it also sells out in under 10 minutes you know your good is priced below market value and you make future pricing decisions accordingly.

The notion that "real fans" are people who have no money and must go to shows only on half price pint night is rather insulting. I'm a music lover and I assure you I am not poor.

If you don't like your lot in life, change it. If you don't want to change your lot in life, quit bitching about it.

Re:Limited Options

[BasilBrush]

you'll play just as much money to get the tickets as you ever paid to a scalper but the middlemen at ticketmaster will be getting all the cash.(clap your hands and believe, believe real hard if you want the band to get any of the extra income)

Bands/promoters don't have to use Ticketmaster. They will only do so if Ticketmaster offers a proposition that they like, and better than any competitor. If tickets from Ticketmaster rise, then for sure more money is going to the band or promoter who contracted Ticketmaster. Ticketmaster will be on a percentage; they can't just raise the prices and keep all the extra to themselves.

So yes, if you want as much of the ticket money as possible to go to the band, then it's far better that Ticketmaster gets any extras than scalpers do.

Personally I think scalpers are the scum of the earth, and would make it a criminal offence to sell tickets for greater than face value. With penalties similar to the penalties for prostitution. Have the police put the scalpers in jail for the night, and they'll lose any money from any unsold tickets they have in their possession at the time.

Re:Limited Options

[Blkdeath]

Ok, rich boy.

See, you lost me right there. I never said I was rich, I just said I was far from bring poor. I work a lot of hours and yes, I make a decent living. Your sour grapes go nowhere to further your argument and instead make you appear to be a sad, pathetic retch who would rather complain than change something about their life.

As I said before; If you don't like your lot in life, change it. If you don't want to change your lot in life, quit bitching about it. I didn't like my lot in life so I worked to change it. I worked hard and earned every damned penny. So if you think your tirade against people who have earned their success is going to take anything away from me then you're delusional.

Go sit at a free show and delude yourself into thinking this is the be-all and end-all to music. But always remember that the band you're seeing is most likely doing this so they can ultimately wind up in a large venue playing to thousands of fans. That's what drives musicians and that's what created the music industry and those mega successful bands are where your local, indy bands got their inspiration.

Go sit and suffer in silence in the filth you've created for yourself and let the world be.

Re:Limited Options

[Hatta]

I've noticed quite a trend of people on Slashdot being anti-money. Is there a problem with people who work hard and earn more than $40k/year (or 50, 60; whatever the waterline may be) or something?

No, there's a problem with people who golf 4 days a week, spend the rest of their time in meetings instead of doing actual work, and make more than people who put in an honest 40, 60, or 80 hours of labor. Music executives for instance.

Re:Limited Options

[Dishevel]

You are so right. I say go even further. Kill scalpers on sight. Greedy motherfuckers charging MARKET VALUE for the stuff that they own? WTF?!?!?!

What was that sarcasm tag thingy? Oh well fuck it. Not like the mods would know either.

Re:Limited Options

[nelsonal]

Sure the west stopped it's spread, but Communism failed in almost all the nations it was tried (except a couple small ones) because it corrupted from the inside. Successful communism works only when there are majorly strong ties to the community, that overcome the normal selfish desire everyone has. Otherwise communism becomes little removed from capitalism except political power replaces money as the currency.

Re:Limited Options

[j00r0m4nc3r]

Bands/promoters don't have to use Ticketmaster.

Tell that to Pearl Jam.

Re:Limited Options

[Blkdeath]

I agree with you that the GP's "rich boy" call was out of place, but so is your "change your life" argument.

My statement was meant to be taken as a whole. People need to learn to accept their lot in life. If you don't like it, change your situation. Complaining about it focuses negative energy and generally gets you nowhere but further down in the hole.

I'd never presume to make a judgment about what a person has or earns; however I make judgments all the time about someone who earns X but wants to live the lifestyle of someone who earns X*2. I know many people who have combined household incomes that are well below my own income but who are perfectly happy. Conversely, I know people who's incomes are vastly superior to my own who are miserable.

We live to our means and easy credit and "keep up with the Jones's" syndrome runs rampant in our society.

My argument is to live within your means and be happy with what you have. Individuals are the authors of our own destiny. Hence my statement that if you don't like what you have, work to change it. If you're not willing to take positive steps to change what you have; don't complain about it, and certainly don't rail against someone who has [more|better|different] standard of living than you. It does no good for anybody. Am I wrong?

This isn't a personal attack by the way. I'm just answering your question about "why does mentioning the fact that one has money produce so much hate"

It's not even a case of mentioning money; it seems to be a case where someone mentions something that would require money, and that in and of itself becomes a target of ire.

One of my goals in life was to have stability and financial security. I achieved that some years ago and now I'm working towards the next level. I have my own goals in mind. I also have non monetary goals which I'm also working to achieve. There are people who have other goals in life, many of which are non monetary, which make them happy, and that's great for them.

If you're not happy in what you're doing or where you are, you have to ask yourself why you're doing it or why you're there. If there's a drastic change necessary to alter your situation to the point where you're happy you should consider making it. One area where I draw the line is people who don't feel the need to improve themselves or their personal situations. That's always driven me up the wall.

Back to the topic at hand, if premium concert tickets at major venues is one of your goals in life, you'll prioritize it and find a way to make it happen. If it's not a priority it won't happen. Sometimes it takes sacrifice in other areas of one's life to attain certain other things and that's a choice we all have to make. When I was struggling working 3 jobs to make ends meet, there were times when I decided that I was simply going to have {$X} and there was nothing anybody could to do stand in my way, and I made it happen.

For those who don't like concerts, rock shows, major venues or Ticketmaster; why expend the energy on this thread complaining about it? What good is it accomplishing in their lives?

Re:Limited Options

[Smidge204]

Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone will correct me even if I'm not)...

Counterfeit tickets notwithstanding, don't the scalpers have to buy the tickets in the first place? So even if there is ticket scalping going on, didn't the venue already collect the ticket fee?

If the scalpers don't sell all the tickets they bought, the venue still makes their money.

The only ones who get screwed are the people who buy tickets from the scalpers - which, if you're willing to pay more for the ticket, would you complain if the original ticket price was raised to the scalper's price? It's all the same in the end...
=Smidge=

Re:Limited Options

[nogginthenog]

TicketMaster are in bed with Clear Channel. Clear Channel own most of the large US venues and 90%+ of US radio stations. Also, the price you see on the ticket is not necessarily what goes to the band/promoter. It's common in the ticket business for the promoter/venue pay a kickback to TM.

Re:Limited Options

[Bakkster]

I've noticed quite a trend of people on Slashdot being anti-money. Is there a problem with people who work hard and earn more than $40k/year (or 50, 60; whatever the waterline may be) or something? Or must one suffer and live in one's parents' basement earning paltry sums in order to maintain credibility?

Let me walk you through this douchebag argument as it applies to musicians:

"Musicians are supposed to love the music, not money. That's why they should be happy if they get paid enough to finance their tour bus and a few pop-tarts. That's why $5-10 is the most anyone should pay for a ticket."

You're right, and this argument ignores three very important points:
1) Playing music well is expensive. Equipment to perform at one of these large venues with an acceptable sound (to both the audience and the musician), plus spares in case things break, adds up to a lot (particularly for drummers). In short: the costs are more than that of the tour bus and food.
2) Continuing this line, as a professional musician, there probably isn't a secondary source of income. With the amount of practice required, and that except for teaching music lessons or being a contract-hire studio musician (aka, 'selling out' to some), the skills don't really translate well, a day job may be out of the question. If you want to see a musician, you have to be willing to accept that if you expect them to entertain you for a living, they need to make enough money to make a living themselves (including their dependents and eventual retirement).
3) There are a lot of other people dipping into that pot of money. The venue, promoter, manager, techs, and everyone else involved get some of that money too. There's just no way that each member of a 5-piece band selling $5 tickets will walk away with $1 for each attendee.

That's not to say some musicians aren't gluttons for cash, but the general expectation seems to be that of a vow of poverty.

Re:Limited Options

[TheMeuge]

Being mean spirited, I actually often wish they would get a bit of bad luck and find themselves at the bottom again for a while.

Thanks for confirming everything I've asserted all along.

Your "philosophies" are little more than justification for a jealous hatred of people who are more successful than you.

Given your opinions, it's really no wonder.

Re:Limited Options

[Fnord666]

Individuals are the authors of our own destiny. (...) Am I wrong?

Yes (and no). Unfortunately this view incorporates the false dichotomy that an individual's destiny is completely within his or her control. Reality is somewhat different. Yes, in an ideal world everyone has access to the same educational and occupational opportunities as everyone else and they can make as much or as little of their life as they choose. That's the theory anyway. In practice, that isn't the world we live in today. Everyone doesn't have the same opportunities or background. There is no level playing field and we don't all start out equal.

Re:Limited Options

[crazyj]

Bands/promoters don't have to use Ticketmaster. They will only do so if Ticketmaster offers a proposition that they like, and better than any competitor.

Wrong. TicketMaster signs long term contracts with venues to be the sole provider of ticketing for all events at that venue. The promoters pick venues based upon the size that they think the performer can draw. Therefore, if the promoter picks a venue that is contracted by TicketMaster the show is forced to use TicketMaster as the ticketing platform. If there is no properly sized venue in a city/region that is not under contract with TicketMaster (there rarely is unless you’re talking about small venues) then the promoter/performer has no choice but to use TicketMaster or not perform in that area. (See: Pearl Jam, early 90s) And as for the stupidly named “Convenience Fees,” that is pretty much all the money that TicketMaster makes on that sale (minus their credit card fees). Here’s a rough breakdown of who gets what from your TicketMaster purchase:

Ticket Price This goes to the promoter, sometimes minus a few percent to TicketMaster Convenience Fee Ticketmaster's profit Facility Fee Mostly goes to the promoter. A small percentage may be retained by TicketMaster Ticketfast Fee ($2.50) Pure profit for TicketMaster. Ironically they’ll snail mail your tickets to you for free. Shipping Charges They may charge you $15, $19, etc, but their costs are WAY less, on the order of $4-8 per UPS package. The rest is profit for TicketMaster

J Cobb
Owner, Team One Tickets & Sports Tours, Inc.

Re:Though shit

[jgardia]

or at least you should be able to return it, and get your money back.

An apt choice of words...

[Von Helmet]

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.

Re:An apt choice of words...

[Mr_Silver]

Note for the British English impaired - a tout is what you on the other side of the pond call a scalper.

True, but in the context you quote it actually means "to promote or praise energetically".

</pedantic>

Re:An apt choice of words...

[elrous0]

No, they're called "wankers."

Had this problem myself

[commodore64_love]

Bought tickets to see the show in Seattle and Portland back in March but then got laid-off in April, and sent back home ~2000 miles away. I couldn't sell the tickets on ebay because they were tied to me (had to show ID and credit card to gain entrance). And I couldn't get a refund either.

So basically I got screwed. I ended-up flying across the country rather than waste the tickets. Like downloading games, it takes away your right to resell the used product to someone else

Re:Had this problem myself

[CastrTroy]

Seriously, when I started reading I thought the "Grandma Problem" was going to be, "My grandma died and I can't go to the concert". I think that what really has to change here is to make it so that scalpers can't get a large number of tickets. I'm not sure of the exact mechanism which could accomplish this, but it would solve most of the problems. Since all sales are made online, they could track things such as IP address, credit card numbers, shipping address, captchas and many other things to figure out if somebody is buying too many tickets, or using a computer to buy a lot of tickets. Probably not fool proof, but if they make it hard enough, it could really cut down on scalpers.

Re:Had this problem myself

[qwijibo]

The solution seems really simple:

For those who want to purchase tickets for N specific people and can provide their names to associate with the tickets, sell them however many tickets they want.

For people who want transferable tickets, limit each purchaser to a reasonable number of transferable tickets, like 5. Ticketmaster would probably make the transferable tickets another $5-10 more each. If you have 30 friends who need tickets, don't have names, and you can't come up with 5 other friends with credit cards to also buy tickets, doom on you.

If you want refundable airline tickets, the prices are higher than the non-refundable ones. There's no reason the same model couldn't be used here to make everyone happy enough.

Good luck beating scalpers

[Syberz]

Sure the paperless ticket will beat out scalpers, but it also screws over a bunch of people, not just Grandmas.

Most people, at one point or another, will need to sell or give away a ticket to a show for a bunch of reasons: sickness, gift, won better seats, etc.

With the e-ticket you're stuck. Perhaps offering a way to transfer the ticket (by calling the venue perhaps?) would help the people while still thwarting the mass buying/resale done by scalpers?

Grandma Problem

[maddskillz]

My grandma used to get me really ugly clothes for my birthdays. I don't feel too bad for a kid who can't get a concert ticket anymore

The REAL problem....

[Dr_Barnowl]

Is the perception by the concert organisers that there's action out there they ain't getting a piece of.

They can't raise their ticket prices too high, or they won't sell enough to fill their venues, and face protests from their audiences. But they'd dearly love to be able to do what the scalpers do which is create a sub-segment of their audience who pays a greatly increased price for essentially the same service.

The only idea they have so far is that if they drive the scalpers out of business... well, what? If they already set the ticket prices as high as they dare, the only effect they will achieve is to piss off a few rich people who will not get tickets where previously they could.

You could view it as preparation for the next logical step - a Dutch auction. Non-transferable tickets would prevent scalpers from waiting for the latter stages of the auction where the tickets get cheaper to snap up a bargain. The Dutch auction means that all the seats in the house go for exactly the price that the market will bear, so they finally get the action they are craving.

Re:The REAL problem....

[locallyunscene]

I worked for the secondary brokers for two years and the ticket industry has a lot of problems. TicketMaster was a monopoly before they merged with live nation(who had gained a foothold in a lot of Latin-American venues). StubHub is the first large form of trading market for the industry(Still a secondary broker of course) and it gets to hold ~25% of the value of the ticket basically in escrow while a ticket is posted.

Whether secondary brokers should be allowed to operate depends on how much you believe in the current brand of American-Capitalism. If you think that A.) a free market should be able to "find the true price" of the ticket and, as a corollary, B.) that someone willing to pay more for a ticket should be able to get that ticket then you think there should be secondary brokers.

Personally, I think the lottery system of hitting TicketMaster's servers when there is an on sale is preferable over secondary brokers, but I also think if you want to fix the industry you need to open up the primary market and take away the monopoly enjoyed by TicketMaster. A dutch auction would be great for TicketMaster except the crappier shows would sell for a lot less.

Re:The REAL problem....

[GigsVT]

The scalpers are helping them though.

The ticket companies may not be able to fully exploit price discrimination, but the scalper is taking on the risk that he won't be able to sell all the tickets he buys. As an ad-hoc broker, he carries that inventory risk so that the organizers don't have to. It's really not much different from hotels selling reservation blocks to discount sites at very low prices and the discount sites eat the cost if they can't fill them up.

If I were in the concert business, I'd be fighting to make "scalping" legal in every way I could.

Re:The REAL problem....

[telso]

Actually, Ticketmaster already has Dutch auctions, or at least a seemingly well-designed variant (price doesn't go down, but you input a secret bid and multiple winners pay the same amount, with higher bids getting better seats in the section you bid on), as an option for a way for the event to sell its tickets (not for resellers). This obviously makes a lot of sense, as everyone can input their intrinsic "value" for how much a ticket is worth and those who value it most will win. Assuming perfect information (everyone knows about the auction when it happens (they can lengthen the time of it being open to make this work decently)) and no one's value changes (which clearly won't happen), you have a perfectly efficient market. Because both those conditions will not met, there will be room for resellers to try to make a profit, but for an event that sells out in the first day Ticketmaster would never be able to get any of the reseller market to begin with, so this is clearly the best way to go for events with much fewer seats than potential buyers.

Another possibility is based on an idea a mathematician friend of mine heard at a conference. The speaker claimed that even with different classes, there is generally no way for airlines to make money if prices are fixed (if you raise the price high enough to break even, the plane won't be full). The solution is to change prices all the time, to get each passenger to pay as close to their intrinsic value as possible. People whose time is valuable will do one search, choose the cheapest flight (or even a more expensive yet more convenient one) and be done with it, while people whose time is less so will search and search, day after day, till they feel that given the inherent variability in the price that they would rather lock in now than risk paying (much) more (an expected value and/or gambling/insurance test). Those who want a guaranteed seat will book at whatever the going rate is, while those who will risk it may wait till the last minute. A Dutch auction would be preferable from the airline's perspective, but with multiple routes and multiple companies, you don't have the monopoly that venues do, making it much harder to do well.

I'm not sure why more venues that already sell tickets through Ticketmaster don't use Dutch auctions (makes sense why non-online sales couldn't do it); my guess is venue promoters don't know about it, or are confused and scared of doing things and making money differently than they've done before (sounds like the RIAA).

Too Used to Microsoft EULAs

[hawleyal]

Man, you guys are just too used to Microsoft EULAs.

All this talk of no sympathy for scalpers.

Might as well add used book retailers, music traders, software peddlers, refurbished computer sellers.

Just because it's easy to not like scalpers, you are trying to deny consumer choice.

You're part of the problem, assholes.

Re:Though shit

[Bigbutt]

Oh let's see. When I try to buy tickets as soon as the website "opens" it's virtually impossible. If I do happen to get in, the ticket is in the nosebleed section. Yet scalpers seem to have boatloads of primo seats for sale at some outrageous markup.

The way I fixed it is that I don't go to big name concerts much and will hit the local clubs instead where I don't have to worry so much about some scumbag asswipe with a big pipe slurping up all the great seats.

[John]

No sympathy whatsoever

[digitalhermit]

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.

Re:No sympathy whatsoever

[Yvan256]

Feel free to buy all the new copies of Twilight and just burn them all, though.

Re:No sympathy whatsoever

[thegrassyknowl]

My problem with this is that these scummy brokers make it hard to get seats when they open. They use automated scripts and any number of credit card numbers and ensure they hammer the vendor's servers as hard as possible. They do this because the Internet makes it so easy to do. While they're doing this of course I have to put up with timeouts, dropped connections and a general inability to get tickets.

The Internet has already removed the thrill of waiting in line to get tickets. Perhaps if these ticketing companies simply opened up for physical sales at the ticket booth (say) a day before they opened online sales they'd do far more damage to the professional scalpers. Waiting in line to buy a maximum of 4 tickets is a time consuming and expensive process when you're trying to rapidly buy up the largest number possible.

Die-hard fans will queue up to get tickets if they go online. Other fans will rush to the ticket office to get them at some point very early on in the sale process if that's the only way to get them.

Fuck the scalpers, start selling tickets via face to face transaction again and the problem is reduced.

In theory...

[Max Romantschuk]

An open market where consumers buy tickets and are free to sell them if they can't make it to the show is good for consumers.

But a market where professionals buy tickets to sell at a profit does in no way make it better for consumers.

But can't grandma be allowed to buy credits for her grandchild, who then uses said credits to buy a ticket in his/her own name?

ObAutomotiveAnalogy

[Rogerborg]

This is like buying a car in order to drive to a Miley Cyrus show where she jumps around in hot pants, but then being unable to sell it afterwards.

No, wait... that's a bad analogy. It's like renting a car to watch Miley Cyrus jiggling around in a crop top, but then... uh... maybe it's like buying a tank of gas to go and watch her writhing around glistening with sweat...

Wait - what are we talking about again?

Re:ObAutomotiveAnalogy

[jht]

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.

Empty seats

[Culture20]

With virtual tickets, concerts will end up with a certain amount of empty seats as people's plans change or they become sick and can not give the tickets to a friend. Empty seats are a sign of a bad concert, as anyone knows. Of course they'll soon realize that an old airline trick will fix that with a bonus: oversell concerts, and tell the overflow they're on "standby" until the next concert. Full seats and extra money!

e-Tickets in Switzerland and Germany

[DrYak]

There seem to be two solutions to such a problem :

- A solution I've often found in concerts in Switzerland : (Secutix)
the e-Ticket is simply a 2D-barcode (although it's not "paperless" because most people still print it instead of sending it to smartphones screens) it *is* tied to an identity.
BUT
to enter the concert you are only asked to have a valid barcode. the identity only comes into play if several people attempt to enter the concert using the same barcode (only the one with the matching ID is allowed in).
That doesn't stop you from giving a ticket to a friend.
But that throws distrust on scalper : How do you know the guy is selling you a legitimate ticket and not copying the same single barcode to several clients ? (in which case only the first one can get in before the system detects duplicates).

These e-tickets don't remove your right to resell, but a resell can only happen between trusting friends.

- A solution I've found in German Trains :
the e-Ticket is tied to an identity, but it is not that complicate to refund it and invalidate the barcode, then buy a different ticket.

You can't directly resell a ticket, but you won't lose the ticket.

And the last solution :
Most of those situations still have classic tickets for situations where the e-Ticket doesn't do the trick.

The 'problem' is artificial and easily solved

[Joce640k]

Grandma should be allowed put a different name on the ticket than the one on her credit card. All the grandchild needs is some ID with a matching name on it. Problem solved.

Can I patent this process please?

Right...

[spamuell]

...says Gary Adler, a Washington attorney who represents the National Association of Ticket Brokers. 'An open market is really best for consumers.'

Yeah, and an unguarded forest is much safer for little girls delivering food to their sick grandmothers, says the attorney representing the National Association of Transvestic Wolves.

Re:My heart cries for the scalpers

[Eponymous Coward]

As much as I hate scalpers, I hate Ticketmaster 10x more.

Profiteers

[TexVex]

'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.' This is such a huge conundrum.

An open market is a great idea when built around the basic assumption that all the traders in it are potential consumers of the things being traded. But when entities whose sole motivation is profit enter the market, the game changes. The small consumers get screwed because the huge profiteers buy up enormous quantities of commodities and proceed to engage in arbitrage for the sole purpose of turning a profit.

Money goes to money. Wealthy 'investors' buy something up, creating scarcity, driving up the prices, then re-sell for a profit. Profiteering is the problem.

What needs to happen is the venues need to sell their tickets at auction, instead of setting a price based on what they think the tickets are worth. This would let them make most of the money, because the first-sale price would more closely match the actual value of the tickets, and such a system would be much more fair for everyone from the big resellers to the individual consumer.

IAATM (It's Always About The Money)

[q2k]

From a purely technical standpoint, allowing the buyer to log in and change the owner of the ticket would be trivial. Upon the change, the system sends a new password to the new email address, and that person must log in and add a credit card number that will be used for verification at the venue. Paperless tickets exist for only one reason. Ticketmaster wants to capture the value in increased demand by raising prices instead of seeing it go to the middlemen.

Re:So?

[thegrassyknowl]

I care; I really care. If I buy tickets for a show well in the future and plans change I want to be able to give the ticket to friends or sell it.

Conversely, I don't want to have to pay some ruthless ticketing company some percentage of the sale if I buy a ticket off someone who can no longer go to the show. The original purchaser paid what the promoter deemed the fair price, I'll pay roughly that. Why should they get more than they were prepared to accept initially when they aren't giving any more in return? I guarantee that getting some cut of the secondary sales won't make them put on a better show - it'll just put more money in some ticketing company's bank account.

What is wrong with scalping? Really?

[brunes69]

I am sick and tired of people making a big deal about scalping.

Isn't scalping basically the epitome of free market capitalism?

If I buy 10 of the new Xbox 360 from the local Walmart where there are lots, and sell them on eBay for a profit, is that "scalping" 360s ?

When Exxon drills oil in the middle east and sells it to Europe for a profit where there is none, is that "scalping" oil?

"Scalping" is just taking a gamble, buying something that you think will be in demand (tickets), and re-selling for a (hopefully) profit. There is plenty of potential to lose money for scalpers buying tickets to things and them going unsold, this happens all the time.

What is wrong with this? If you wanted your damn tickets, you should have waited in line like everyone else.

Re:What is wrong with scalping? Really?

[Dr_Barnowl]

You're really just pointing out one of the problems with so-called free market capitalism. The much touted advantage of capitalism is that market competition drives down prices, which increases utility to the consumer. But it doesn't work so well, as in the cases you suggested, where there is a limited supply of non-fungible goods.

Exxon provides value by moving the oil from one place to another where it is more useful. In your example, if Xbox 360s are in short supply in one part of the country but plentiful in your local Walmart, you are providing value by moving the goods to where they are needed. If you are selling them on to locals, the value you are providing is that some people can translate a higher price into getting their Xbox earlier than if they'd had to wait for new stock - an Xbox now is worth more than an Xbox in the future. This is only really true if the demand outstrips the supply - if the demand and supply are similar, then you're just hoarding Xboxes for profit. But the supply chain for Xboxes is such that you can be reasonably sure that some more will be along soon.

In the case of concert tickets, there is no value to geographic translocation (the concert is in a fixed venue), or early acquisition (the concert is at a fixed time). The value the scalper is providing is that you don't have to queue to get your ticket, and you have a higher probability of getting a ticket because fewer people want to pay their higher price.

The problem being that the scalper is part of the reason they provide value ; they quickly buy up large quantities of tickets from the vendor, which artificially increases the scarcity of the goods. That isn't free-market capitalism, because they are distorting their market. If the organizer did their sums right, they should have enough seats for everyone willing to pay their stated ticket price. I'm not saying they do ... but in this case, the scalper is the reason for their own existence - the reason you're willing to pay the scalpers prices for a ticket is because the scalpers have bought them instead of you. They're not adding value and making a fat buck doing it and that annoys people. It's rent-seeking behaviour - they are profiting from the mere ownership of those tickets for a while.

If concert goers didn't have to pay their inflated prices, they'd have more disposable income remaining and organizers might put on more dates in bigger venues to capture that, resulting in money going toward what people actually want, which is live music performances.

Re:First Sale

[jamesh]

If I buy something, I own it. Period. If you want to diddle around and chip away at what you will let me buy, then I will buy from someone else, or not at all.

Fail. You have in your possession a document that will let 'Gothmolly' into an event. You can sell it to someone else (as is your first sale right) but what good to someone else is a document that will let 'Gothmolly' into an event?

The big problem (in Australia at least, but I assume it happens everywhere) is that there are only a limited number of tickets to any concert/festival, and people with the means to get in first are buying up big and then reselling the tickets at ridiculous prices without adding any value at all. Laws have been introduced to try and stop it but they're hard to enforce. So the system was broken, and what do you do with a broken system? (rhetorical question). If you can suggest a better fix then I'm sure the world would be happy to hear it.

The only thing that would bug me is refunds. If they don't give me a refund to a high demand event with reasonable notice (eg enough that they can resell the ticket themselves) then they suck, but otherwise, that's life. Someone else doesn't owe me anything just because I got sick or my grandma died and now I can't go to the concert/festival. These things happen.

Re:First Sale

[CastrTroy]

I'll tell you who cares. The fans who can't get a ticket unless they pay 10 times the original price because all the tickets were bought up by scalpers 45 seconds after they went on sale. In this case, Ticketmaster is actually trying to do something that's good for the people who want to see the show, and isn't good for the people who just want to resell their tickets. Now, there are some downsides, especially for those who wanted to see the show, but something happened, and now they can't see it, and they can't resell the tickets. Which group of people do you think is larger? Maybe Ticketmaster thinks it is better to help the larger number of people who want to see the show see it for the real price, than to worry about the much smaller percentage of people who can't resell their tickets. Maybe they will get that part figured out as well, and nobody will have any reason to complain.

Re:So?

[jonbryce]

That works because one of the friends will have a credit card with an "admit 4" ticket associated with it.

Re:And this is bad, why?

[jargonCCNA]

I can think of worse people than undertakers to describe as “scummy bottom-feeders”&hellip personal-injury lawyers who encourage people to sue their own elderly parents, just for one example. Undertakers provide a fairly valuable service—they work with death on a daily basis, so they can help the bereaved through what has to get done. Anyone who encourages someone to sue family for their own carelessness they need to be introduced to the business end of a hot poker.

Obligatory Simpsons Quote

[MrTripps]

Mr. Burns: (chuckles) And to think, Smithers, you laughed when I bought TicketMaster. "Nobody's going to pay a 100% service charge." Smithers: Well, it's a policy that ensures a healthy mix of the rich and the ignorant, sir.

Re:Though shit

[ukdmbfan]

I've always thought that this was weird, that you're there online as soon as tickets go on sale and it's impossible to get through and when you do you manage to get through you get a few crappy seats. And yet touts somehow are getting hold of loads of tickets, as if they've got peering with Ticketmaster's server and access half an hour beforehand or something equally as ridiculous.

I asked someone "in the know" about this one time, and they said the majority of scalpers and touts get hold of a large number of good seats easily by either going to or knowing someone at the venue box office.

Personally I've not had a problem with the few gigs I've been to where I've had to provide ID instead of a ticket, namely the recent free RATM gig in London, but then I make a habit of just getting a few tickets (or just one) for gigs and always tend to go as I only ever book for stuff I'm really interested in seeing, and if I can't go or have a spare ticket I'm usually going as well, or I'll just take the hit. Best thing would be to make the tickets transferrable still, but make it a lot of effort - you have to phone up, give the credit card details for the new person, make it take a few minutes etc. That way, touts would think twice about selling on a large number of tickets given the time investment required, and it would completely eliminate ticket buying/selling outside venues on the date of the gig.

Re:So?

[ArsenneLupin]

Interestingly, many ticket places don't do this.

For example with ticketpod.nl, if you order 4 tickets, you get 4 separate tickets, each with its own bar-code, rather than one master ticket with a count.

Re:First Sale

[BasilBrush]

The thing you own is the ticket. That ticket may grant you access to a venue on a particular night, or it may not. It depends what it says on the ticket. If there's a name on the ticket and it's not you, then you can indeed keep the ticket you bought second hand, but you have no right of entry to the venue.

Re:First Sale

[BasilBrush]

If tickets are gone in 45 seconds I can tell you that the tickets were very under priced to begin with

That isn't a logical conclusion. If a scalper can be pretty sure that he can average just $1 profit (after expenses) on every ticket he can buy, then it makes sense for him to buy as many tickets as he can. He can write a script that will keep buying for as long as there are tickets available. Lots of scalpers doing the same thing no doubt explains why tickets can be sold out in 45 seconds.

Being sold out quickly only implies that the tickets were underpriced. Not that they were "very under priced".

Re:First Sale

[BasilBrush]

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.)

Do what U2 does: problem solved.

[Tarantura]

U2 initially sell concert tickets based on how long you've been a member of their fan club. Being a long-time member, I have the privilege of easily being able to get the best tickets days before, say, newer fan club members (and even longer than the general public). Scalper issue solved for 'real' fans.

Don't have a long-time fan club membership? Tough shit (sorry, Grandma!).

Purchased $50 tickets for being right up against the front stage, even hours after the tickets go on sale (as in the 97,000 record-breaking sell-out at the Rose Bowl last year).

Want to sell those tickets? No problem. I was quite tempted to sell based on seeing prices on eBay (you simply exchange that ticket for a wristband for those with G.A. admission at the venue).

Brilliant. No fans complained. "Real" U2 fanatics had their tickets for far less than eventual scalper prices.

Could U2 have made much more money, knowing it would sell out by only charging $50 when $250 would have sold just as easily? Well, that's a whole different topic.

fees fees fees

[TheBeardIsRed]

I realize that things of this nature are becoming less and less common, but a ticket should be just that. A bearer instrument which has the ability to be transferred. Many people don't even know what a "bearer bond" is anymore and the ones who do have mainly just watched a few heist movies.

Also, isn't that ostensibly what the "ticketing fee" is for? Actually providing a ticket?