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.'"
Limited Options (Score:5, Insightful)
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Good luck beating scalpers (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Re:Limited Options (Score:5, Insightful)
In theory... (Score:3, Insightful)
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?
Empty seats (Score:5, Insightful)
The 'problem' is artificial and easily solved (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:My heart cries for the scalpers (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I hate scalpers, I hate Ticketmaster 10x more.
IAATM (It's Always About The Money) (Score:5, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Limited Options (Score:5, Insightful)
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:First Sale (Score:3, Insightful)
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:The REAL problem.... (Score:3, Insightful)
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:No sympathy whatsoever (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:First Sale (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:An apt choice of words... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:And this is bad, why? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Limited Options (Score:5, Insightful)
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:What is wrong with scalping? Really? (Score:5, Insightful)
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:Limited Options (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
fees fees fees (Score:2, Insightful)
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?
Re:First Sale (Score:2, Insightful)
Its not as simplistic as that. Concert promoters and scalpers do not have the same business model.
Concert promoters make a huge investment on staging a concert. They need to create a scenario where they will sell all tickets, and the price per ticket will add up enough to enough to pay for the cost of the concert plus a profit. They need to set the prices of tickets months in advance, at a level that is sure to sell out.
Note: Promoters need a sell out so as not to devalue the status of the band.
Note: Promoters can't lower the price of tickets later if ticket sales are not going well as it will devalue the status of the band.
Note: Promoters may need ticket sales months in advance in order to supply the cash flow to finance the concert.
Scalpers have a different risk profile. They sell a limited number of tickets for many concerts, rather than all the tickets for a few concerts. They can afford to lose out on a concert, so long as they make profits on other concerts. They can take as little or as much risk on any concert as they like simply by simply deciding how many tickets to buy.
Scalpers don't care about the future status of the band. They don't at any time need to fix the price of tickets. If there is a lot of demand for tickets, they can raise the price instantly. If ticket sales are not doing well they can lower the price. If they are left with too many unsold tickets on the day of the concert they can even sell them for below the face value and take the loss.
Re:Limited Options (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Limited Options (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell that to Pearl Jam.
Re:Limited Options (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Had this problem myself (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
Re:Limited Options (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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:What is wrong with scalping? Really? (Score:1, Insightful)
Most stock owners "profit from the mere ownership of a stock for a while" so I'm not sure what your point was there. It is precisely the time shifting service that scalpers provide. Concert organizers want sellouts and price tickets accordingly. The only way tickets are available the week/day of the performance is that some savvy individuals know that the supply will be exhausted and so buy tickets to allow the availability at that point. It is possible they will not sell all of their tickets above face value, so they are taking a financial risk to allow those of us who are unable to buy in the first hour to still attend.
Re:Limited Options (Score:3, Insightful)
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.