Pollstar: Lack of transparency and incomplete ticket information makes it impossible for customers to actually know what or from whom they were buying. Huddleston asked: “eBay owns StubHub, and Ticketmaster also owns two secondary ticketing organizations. Doesn’t that just smell odd?” McAndrew replied that the relationship between primary and secondary sellers “does concern us. What we commonly see are primary tickets still available to be purchased, but people buying tickets at inflated prices from the secondary marketplace. And it’s caused by this confusion, and it’s caused by the linkage between the two partners.”
7 comments:
Wow--I didn't realize idiots buying tickets from a different website, other than a primary source, was the governments problem. If you're buying tickets and you don't go directly to a ticket source, like Ticketmaster, then that is your own fault and problem. Not only should you expect to buy fake tickets, but you should probably expect the price of the fake (or real) tickets to be heavily inflated. I do see where they are coming from. Sure, it kind of sucks that people with faster internet speeds can zoom onto a website as soon as tickets go on sale and purchase them before normal people can, and then they go to a second party site and sell the tickets at double or triple the rate... But isn't that just economical intelligence? I want to make some money and I'm not doing anything this Thursday at 2:00PM when tickets go on sale, so I'll buy some and resale them at a higher rate to make some cash so I can buy a new winter coat. Sounds like free enterprise and capitalism to me and there isn't anything wrong with that.
I think it's interesting that we're still understanding the phenomenon. The article seems to understand the problem, though they are yet to find a good solution. I think it’s important to note that one of the proposed solution was to hold the companies to a moral and ethical standards rather than have legal intervention. I would I have thought that if no legal intervention was needed, the problem would have been solved already. I hope the a solution is found, though I’m not sure if there is a good solution. I’m glad that after the hearing Gigantic attempt to remedy it. If more companies start to work with Twickets, the problem might be lessened quickly, before legal action could occur. However, I’m not convinced that this is likely. I believe that legal intervention is necessary to help the resale of tickets. Hopefully, the more exposure that this issue gets the more likely the problem is to get solved.
To John's point, while it may be a legal practice, and one which you condone, or even practice, that doesn't make it any less of an immoral practice, and an all-around shtty act. I personally consider scalpers to be scumbags, profiteering over the I guess unreasonable want that some people have to go see a band that they enjoy, or a play, to entertain themselves. It is Aldo obviously an issue that concerns citizens, and these citizens have made their complaints heard, therefore I do believe that it is the purview of the government to intervene in this matter, since, after all, government is there to serves the people. I hope that new winter coat keeps the scalpers warm while they go on and continue to be a leech and detriment to society.
I am mixed in opinion about this topic. While it is technically free market capitalism, and these companies can do this because of the free market, it is still a really crappy thing for these companies to do. This is a huge regulation grey area--technically what these companies are doing is legal under capitalism, but that doesn't stop it from being a really ethically unsound practice. By beating regular customers to the ticket sale, they are technically undermining the ticket purchasing system set up by the venue, and are basically raising the price of a significant portion of the tickets without the vendor's permission. One could argue that this is legal, but it is a really immoral practice, and some sort of barrier should be placed to prevent this, as it makes life really hard both for the vendor and the consumer.
I think that no matter what, people will always find a way to work the system. even if legislation is put in place, while it might help a little, people will always find loopholes and ways around it. I know when it got to game 7 of the world series, ticket resale price went up through the 10,000s, and while sport is slightly different from what this article is discussing, I think there should be some amount or regulations to how high resale tickets can be inflated past the face value price. I think making sure that the arts especially stays accessible to everyone is one of the reasons something should be done to help people looking for tickets that end up not buying any because of the insane price. When the cost of a ticket is the only reason someone doesn't get to go to something when they could have afforded the face value price in the first place I think something needs to be done.
Ticket scalpers are some of the scummiest businesses out there. They derive profits from people seeking to see their favorite artists or sports teams without providing a real service. Simply skimming off the product created by the artist. This doesn’t seem so bad until you realize tickets are often sold off at 3-4 times the price. This means that they are skimming off nearly 75% of what the consumer is paying in some cases. It addition the unofficial marketplace is filled with fake tickets that the venue and artist must then pay to discover and the fan who bought them is out a concert and hundreds of dollars. It is simply a business model that is anti-consumer and anti-business while not actually contributing a useful service. All of this is completely legal but it doesn’t stop it from leaving a really bad taste in my mouth.
I am not fan of secondary ticket sellers. I do like stub hub though when it comes to seeing baseball game last minute for cheap. Besides that it usually cost more money than the original ticket for anything. I find it really weird that ticketmaster owns two secondary markets. Why do they do this? Also no ticketmaster has their own resale program. I think it is horrible that a website where you should be able to buy tickets at a fair price is now scumming to this. Hopefully in the future they will be able to fit this problem.
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