For all you haters of Stubhub and other on-line ticket brokers, last night was proof that these outlets offer a valuable option to fans who are patient and determined to get in to the show. If brokers did not exist, if all tickets were somehow restricted for resale, those of you not lucky enough to score tickets at the on-sale would have NO option. None. Instead, I see many here that gladly paid a premium to get seats, some traveling from across the country or the ocean.
And while so many here bitch about the insane ASKING prices, the fact is many resellers took a bath last night and will again while many fans got in below face! I watched Stubhub and prices dropped all afternoon, right up to show time. Many evil and greedy resellers lost money. Ticket brokering is a risky business, just like any business. I say thank goodness for Stubhub, for they serve the public, offering options that would not exist otherwise. And, no, I am not a broker, but I have successfully bought and sold tickets on broker sites. I am glad to be able to easily unload extra seats, sometimes at a profit (never ABB), sometimes not, and glad to be able to go to ANY show I wish and to decide how much I am willing to pay.
Good luck to all of you who do not have tickets. If you want to get in, you WILL get in.
[Edited on 10/22/2014 by mscott]
Sorry not buying into that crap. I look at it this way. For $3000, I could by X tickets at face value if it weren't for the fact that greedy resellers buy up huge allotments of tickets, with only profit in mind. Now if reselling was restricted or even limited in such a way as to help prevent this nonsense, I would be able to go to Y number of shows (Y being greater than X). As it stands today, I was super LUCKY to get some tix for this run via Ticketbastard when they went on sale. If it weren't for all the brokers, some of my friends (serious ABB fans) might have also gotten tix at face value. What if I had trillions of dollars & decided to buy all of the gasoline in the Midwest & then resell it at twice what I paid? These fine folks would string me up & rightfully so. We as intelligent beings overcomplicate just about everything. Most issues are quite simpler than we make them out to be. Brokers should get a real job & stop preying on people with addictions like myself (my addiction being ABB / rock & roll). Buying & selling of goods & services is what makes our economy go round...but there are ways to do things where people aren't getting screwed. There are...trust me. If we all want it, then it is so...
Beacon ticket face values are already pretty expensive, it was years before I was able to splurge and go to multiple shows, so I can't exactly sing the praises of people who purchase tickets and sell them for 5x that amount.
StubHub is nice if you want to sell your tickets, and for those willing to spend anything on tickets. I don't blame StubHub, they are merely the forum to exchange tickets and not get burned by fakes, but just the fact that there were that many tickets that immediately went to the secondary market while fans here were shut out totally sucks - something not right happened. I live in NYC, so I have the luxury of waiting for those prices to drop if I so want, but it sucks for people dropping money just to make the trek out here while HTN spends hours combing through matching emails with pre-sale purchases because douchebags sold or gave away the presale code. I wonder how many tickets didn't get sold at all because it was the 11th hour. I'd rather just buy my tickets at face value from the venue, as much as a pain in the ass as it is.
And full disclosure, I bought tickets to the last show of the March run during the pre-sale. I got shut out of the pre-sale for this run and, after much debate, bought very expensive tickets for the 10/28 show. So while I did decide to buy the tickets, the secondary market decided how much I would pay.
If brokers did not exist, if all tickets were somehow restricted for resale, those of you not lucky enough to score tickets at the on-sale would have NO option. None. Instead, I see many here that gladly paid a premium to get seats, some traveling from across the country or the ocean.
Think about what you are saying for a moment.
If brokers did not exist, if all tickets were somehow restricted for resale, those of you not lucky enough to score tickets at the on-sale would have NO option. None. Instead, I see many here that gladly paid a premium to get seats, some traveling from across the country or the ocean.
Think about what you are saying for a moment.
No kidding. Can we stop calling scalpers "brokers". If tickets were restricted for resale, scalpers wouldn't buy them. No one "gladly" pays a premium. Ever.
If brokers did not exist, if all tickets were somehow restricted for resale, those of you not lucky enough to score tickets at the on-sale would have NO option. None. Instead, I see many here that gladly paid a premium to get seats, some traveling from across the country or the ocean.
Think about what you are saying for a moment.
No kidding. Can we stop calling scalpers "brokers". If tickets were restricted for resale, scalpers wouldn't buy them. No one "gladly" pays a premium. Ever.
And if scalpers didn't buy the tickets then all of those folks that travel across the country or the ocean would be able to get them at face value.
A story I've told often: I met a scalper backstage at an ABB show once who told me that he "provided fans with a service - getting them tickets that they had no access to ...". My reply to him was that without people like him - there would be no need FOR people like him.
mscott, I'm going to allow you to keep wearing those rose colored glasses, but please consider the following:
If ticket sales were completely legit - first come-first serve - when tickets are sold out - they're sold out you'd have the following scenario:
1. EVERY buyer of EVERY ticket would be a FAN who would be attending the show (or gifting a similar fan).
2. The band or act would receive every penny of the ticket cost and sales.
3. In obtaining tickets legitimately (at face cost) out of town fans could also budget for travel, lodging and meals.
4. Out of town fans would provide a boost for the local economy in said lodging, meals, etc. for the host city.
5. These poor scalpers (you can call them brokers if you wish) would not end up "taking a bath" on tickets that they failed to re-sell at exorbitant prices (I'm cryin' some real gator tears right now).
Let me add that with all the disgust that I have for scalpers at every level, I take gigantic offense at outlets like TicketsNow - who basically take tickets that should have remained available to music fans and move them over to resell them at inflated prices. This is about as offensive a business practice that I have ever witnessed.
But congratulations to you! Had I known that tickets WOULD have been on sell at below cost - I would have booked flights and hotel months ago when it was feasible to do so.
While I too think the whole Ticketsnow straight-to-secondary-market move is total BS, I also kind of agree with some of what mscott is saying about the benefits of having a secondary marketplace. I have paid a stiff premium for certain shows and sporting events, but I have also gotten in many doors for steep discounts off face. Come to think of it, I've certainly taken advantage of fans who had an extra they needed to dump for whatever reason and the market at the time was not in their favor. Now I am starting to feel bad as I think about it for not offering them face value aka the arbitrary figure set by the man behind the curtain. Not only have I supported the scalping community with my premium buys, but I have also taken advantage of the little man who got stuck holding an extra to a show with insufficient demand. Damn, I pretty much suck.
Rusty, I understand your frustration. But I don’t follow your logic. If an after-market did not exist (“there would be no need FOR people like him”), it does not follow that there would be no demand from fans who couldn’t get tickets. With limited seats, somebody ALWAYS gets left out. I agree it is wrong for TicketMaster (and the artists/promoters?) to pretend to sell at face value but really only put them up on after-market sites at above-face. They should be transparent. Just say: We’ll sell 70% of the house at face and the rest at a premium. The VIP packages do exactly that. Do you object to those? None of us, as fans, have any special rights to tickets at some magical “low” price. It is a free country and artists/promoters/venues should be free to set prices at whatever they wish. There is no “wrong” or “too high” price if somebody is willing to pay.
And your version of “legit”: first come/first serve, favors only those with the flexibility and resources to be able to be one of the “first come”. What about folks who have to work during the on-sale? Or for whatever reason can’t be “first come”? Shouldn’t they still have a chance through the after-market? I say yes.
It also does not follow that only “real fans” would score on the "first come” face value scenario. On the contrary, many paying the Big Bucks do so precisely because they are “real fans”. There is no relationship between limited funds and fan sincerity. Sure, we have all seen bored idiots talking over the music or staring at their phones in good seats, many as guests or recipients of insider promoter gifts, and I share your frustration that there will always be such know-nothings taking up seats that “should” have gone to a “real” fan. But that has always been the case, even before Stubhub existed.
And, Pete, it is not true that "all those folks" would be able to get face-value tickets. There is ALWAYS limited supply and ALWAYS somebody who gets shut out at face-value.
Porkchop, I respectfully disagree. The choice is NOT "premium" versus "face value". Without brokers/scalpers, the choice would be "you got lucky and scored a face value ticket" versus "Sorry, sold out, you don't get in at any price". I and many I know (and many fans here) have indeed "gladly" paid a premium over face value, grateful for the option, grateful to be able to get in at all, because that is what we are willing to pay.
Rusty, I am sorry you cannot attend. Did you get shut out of the legit on-sale? For future shows requiring travel, if you don’t get a ticket at the on-sale, you could confidently make your travel arrangements, knowing that with "scalpers", there is always a way to get in, very often below face.
I got lucky and scored presale for 27th....but I bought off stubhub for the 28th. don't hate me cause I'm "one of those" . I had to be there would never have forgiven myself if I hadn't spent the $$$
If brokers did not exist
Everyone would have access to tickets at face value, the day they went on sale.
Sorry not buying into that crap.
Me neither.
There is no way to qualify or quantify what a "real fan" of anything is.
There is no way to qualify or quantify what a "real fan" of anything is.
If you couldn't resell the ticket for a profit, I have to assume most everyone buying the ticket is a fan. The Foo Fighters (not a big fan & didn't go) just played a small venue here in Chicago called the Cubby Bear on Sat nite. A buddy tried to buy a ticket off craigslist for 3 times face. But thankfully before he did this, he called the venue. They explained that tix could not be resold. The purchaser must enter the show. If they bought more than 1 ticket, their people had to enter with them. It may not have been perfect, but it worked to some extent because the band & promoters wanted it that way. If that were the norm rather than the exception, I have to believe that the market would adapt & certainly less people would be getting screwed by inflated prices or fake tickets (i.e. control the sale & resale or transfer of tix thru official means only).
People should buy tickets for an event with the intention of attending it.
There should be no place for those who buy tickets speculatively in the hope of making a profit.
The fact that they may make a loss does not justify it.
The idea that we should be grateful to them for getting people in at the last minute is idiotic.
Porkchop, I respectfully disagree. The choice is NOT "premium" versus "face value". Without brokers/scalpers, the choice would be "you got lucky and scored a face value ticket" versus "Sorry, sold out, you don't get in at any price". I and many I know (and many fans here) have indeed "gladly" paid a premium over face value, grateful for the option, grateful to be able to get in at all, because that is what we are willing to pay.
Rusty, I am sorry you cannot attend. Did you get shut out of the legit on-sale? For future shows requiring travel, if you don’t get a ticket at the on-sale, you could confidently make your travel arrangements, knowing that with "scalpers", there is always a way to get in, very often below face.
Your logic is backwards, you are putting the cart before the horse and assuming the inflated scalpers market is open to all. I am all for an open market, but you are talking about a rigged market where some tickets are sold at face value (purchased gladly) and many others are put up for sale at an inflated value by "evil and greedy resellers" (your words). Those who can afford do purchase, but since much of the market is outside of NYC, many who would have gladly purchased cannot, so many tickets remain unsold. A small market of people in the region can buy when ticket prices readjust on the day of the show. A small fraction go completely unsold, which would have been gladly purchased by fans here. If I rent 5 apartments from landlords, and then airbnb them for an inflated market value, that's 5 apartments that go to those financially fortunate enough to "gladly" pay a premium, rather than 5 residents.
No one is saying StubHub is a bad thing, being able to get tickets or sell your tickets with a safety net is a good thing. I have bought NFL and concert tickets there over face value, but never gladly. I'd rather a fan get lucky by getting a ticket in the presale or resale than someone whose sole intent is to gouge someone who wasn't lucky enough. If we talked about real estate market the way you are talking about ticket sales, this country would be homeless except for those who can afford to "gladly" pay premium prices.
In the meantime - 49 still left for tonight.
Down to 39. The guy with 4 tickets, 10th row center won't come off his $699 asking price. There is a single 10th row, Orchestra 1 for less than $200.
