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The Man Who Broke Ticketmaster (vice.com)
Jason Koebler quotes a report from Motherboard: The scourge of ticket bots and the immorality of the shady ticket scalpers using them is conventional wisdom that's so ingrained in the public consciousness and so politically safe that a law to ban automated ticket bots passed both houses of Congress unanimously late last year, in part thanks to a high-profile public relations campaign spearheaded by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. But no one actually involved in the ticket scalping industry thinks that banning bots will do much to slow down the secondary market. Seven years after his Los Angeles office was raided by shotgun-wielding FBI agents, Ken Lowson, the man who invented ticket bots, told Motherboard's Jason Koebler he's switched teams. Now, he's out to expose the secrets of the ticket industry in a bid to make sure tickets are sold directly to their fans.
No. You got scalpers and bots because:
1) People refuse to let the free market set prices. Some events are worth more than the ticket price, otherwise no one would ever buy via a scalper. Instead they insist on a communist "Let everyone watch for the same price" method.
2) The people running the system do not suffer from the scalping, so they do not bother to institute simple methods to stop it.
For example, simply set it up so that you can only buy tickets either a) an hour before the show using cash abd getting your hand stamped, or b) with a credit card - that must be shown to pick up the tickets upto an hour before the show.
So take your pick of solution - either make let the free market price the tickets (with time affecting the price today's tickets are more expensive than ones for next year). Or use real security to ensure that the purchaser watches the show.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
If a specific venue wants to reduce the problem of ticket bots, they could simply have ticket purchases to be at the box office only. After all, if you are physically going to the show, you are physically capable of going there to buy tickets.
Edge cases: the venue is not in your current city; you have a physical limitation that greatly increases the inconvenience of going there to get the tickets (e.g., in a wheelchair); I'm sure people can think of others. Possible solution? For these cases, purchase over the phone.
(Note that the added fees that Ticketmaster and their ilk charges would disappear. ("Convenience fee" my ass))
What obvious problem with this idea did I miss, thus proving that I am an idiot?
"Don't blame the log for the fire." --Andrew Ratshin
Option "A" is how it use to work pre-internet. Not hours before, but months before the event.
People would go line up at that various music stores that were authorized Ticketmaster resellers. You'd get a numbered wristband and wait (similar to how people line up for Black Friday Sales now). You were allowed to buy up to a certain amount (usually 4) tickets.
The pro scalpers would just pay young adults to stand in line for them and buy the maximum allowed ticket amount.
They would then post ads in news papers and the like for "Event Tickets" and people would call to get the 2nd hand price.
Not much different than how it works today except, surprise, it use to require more actual humans to do before automation.
I know this may be a bit off topic, but idiotic games are just part for the course.
I wanted to buy tickets to see Steve Martin at Boston Symphony Hall a few years back, and visited the TicketMaster web site. I wasn't surprised to find I had an offer for a front-row seat, since I was very early and this wasn't exactly AC/DC or some massively popular band. However, the web site insisted I needed to buy the tickets within 10 minutes, or I'd most likely lose my seats to another buyer. I messed around for a bit to see what the rates were for other seats, and sure enough, once the 10 minute timer was up, the front-row seats were no longer available and I was offered a new selection a few rows back. Rinse and repeat a few times, and I soon found myself in the middle of the venue, with all the front row seats having sold out, and the site urging me to buy RIGHT NOW before I risk losing out and every seat has been sold. No matter what I did, the web site wouldn't give me a decent seat again.
I knew very well the seats weren't selling out, so I simply cleared my web browser cookies, and... found myself in the front row again.
Another lovely bonus is how they offered to mail me the tickets for free, but they would charge (if I remember correctly) a $17 convenience fee for electronic tickets I could print myself. They employ e-book logic, apparently.
This type of bologna is why I stopped going to major concerts entirely. Also, it was surprisingly fun to visit a local race track (Seekonk Speedway in MA) for a mere $20, rather than one of the regional NASCAR races. Small shows may not have as much spectacle, but they're still lots of fun and you don't have to put up with all this ticket gouging nonsense
The fix is simple
Not everyone believes that anything needs to be "fixed", or that scalping is a problem at all.
Make it illegal to sell tickets for higher than face value. It has worked amazingly well here.
Why should the police and courts get involved in supporting and subsidizing a broken business model?
Should the police also arrest people that resell used cars for prices not approved by the auto manufacturers?