Paperless Tickets Flourish Despite 'Grandma Problem' 425
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.'"
An apt choice of words... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
No sympathy whatsoever (Score:4, Informative)
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:ObAutomotiveAnalogy (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:An apt choice of words... (Score:4, Informative)
True, but in the context you quote it actually means "to promote or praise energetically".
</pedantic>
Obligatory Simpsons Quote (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First Sale (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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.)
Re:Too Used to Microsoft EULAs (Score:1, Informative)
I do not have a problem with scalpers (those they buy small set of tickets from a consumer to sell to another consumer, or consumers selling to each other). What is a problem is the ones that took it up a notch, like TicketsNow did. They went out and bought huge blocks of tickets when the box office opened and then turned around and sold them at inflated prices. This was happening to the Miley Cryus tickets, the teenage crazy just wanted tickets and the parents were forced to pay the blood money. I know this for a fact, I helped to install the phone system they used to do this, quite a few years ago.
Tickets need to be a bearable instrument, he who holds it owns it. But there are also needs to be a way to stop someone from cornering a given event or the market in total.
Re:Limited Options (Score:3, Informative)
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:
J Cobb
Owner, Team One Tickets & Sports Tours, Inc. [teamonetickets.com]