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A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

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Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#21

Post by jstanley »

jkoebler wrote: post #16
jstanley wrote: post #8

> The scourge of ticket bots and the immorality of the shady ticket scalpers using them is conventional wisdom I very much disagree. If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. If it weren't for ticket-scalpers, die-hard f…

I was saying that artists and ticketmaster and politicians are happy to sell the narrative that "ticket bots and scalpers are the problem and we can't do anything about it" when that is very much not the case. Lots of fans buy this, because they don't know any better. As a journalist, the writing I've seen about the ticket industry the last year has been so, so bad and so simplistic and so infuriating, so I decided t…

I'm glad you wrote it!

I was in quite a heated debate about this a few weeks ago, where everyone else in the room disagreed with me. Hopefully public opinion will start to reflect market reality in time :)

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#22

Post by austenallred »

I spent some of my formidable years scalping and brokering event (mostly broadway) tickets in various forms. The company I co-founded made a few million and I learned an expensive lesson in equity at age 18 (I opted instead for the $14/hr salary).

We worked in broadway (meaning the style of show, not just the street), and I met the Wiseguys folks at secondary market trade shows, but I had no idea they were this big, and to be honest didn't care.

We always got tickets long before they ever went on sale, as does almost anyone who has been in the game a while. We would buy tickets up to 18 months in advance, and we're a security blanket of guaranteed sales for the artists and venues. We thought the retail sales were always a losing bet (except for, ironically, the artists and venues that tried to fight scalpers).

When we started figuring out how to circumvent the safeguards (deciding deliberately not to use bots or "spinners" as they used to be called), we realized we didn't need to because most of the venues loved us. Just like the wiseguys, they didn't want to be in the business of scalping and arbitrage, they just wanted to move all of their tickets quickly and efficiently with as little loss as possible. So if we wanted to buy 5,000 of 10,000 seats for a show they were thrilled, and we'd get a discount. When a show was about to go on sale they'd call us. Then thy may turn around and say "sorry tickets are on the secondary market, we don't like scalpers" but usually that was PR-style BS. They wanted someone to absorb that risk.

There are certainly artists and venues (e.g. Metallica) that hate scalpers and try to fight them. But we noticed that really only eliminates the "beer money" scalpers and leaves all of the money to the more sophisticated one. I have never yet seen a system that cannot be beat by scalpers, including paperless ticketing, and I find that most venues and artists want to maximize profits and, more importantly, minimize risk anyway.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#23

Post by jstanley »

NLips wrote: post #20
jstanley wrote: post #8

> The scourge of ticket bots and the immorality of the shady ticket scalpers using them is conventional wisdom I very much disagree. If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. If it weren't for ticket-scalpers, die-hard f…

This is incorrect. There's a false equivalence between the fans who want to see the gig the most and the fans who are willing to spend the most. The current system means that people with lots of money who aren't super interested will out compete raging fans on low incomes. I'm not suggesting that basing it on first come, first served is ideal, but I think it's probably fairer. If an event organiser/ticketer wants to…

> There's a false equivalence between the fans who want to see the gig the most and the fans who are willing to spend the most.

This is how scarce resources are allocated. There is no fairer way to decide who wants something the most than to ask who is willing to give up the most to acquire it.

> If an event organiser/ticketer wants to use dynamic pricing, that's up to them.

Absolutely. And if a third party wants to buy tickets at the offered price, that's up to them.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#24

Post by rawTruthHurts »

jstanley wrote: post #8

> The scourge of ticket bots and the immorality of the shady ticket scalpers using them is conventional wisdom I very much disagree. If I am willing to pay the asking price for tickets, I should be able to buy them. If you're offering them so cheaply that I will happily buy all of the tickets then you're offering them too cheap and you can't really complain if I buy them. If it weren't for ticket-scalpers, die-hard f…

I completely agree. Only those with money should have the right to enjoy life. Or education. Or health services. Or their favourite bands, if that's the case.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#25

Post by vertex-four »

jstanley wrote: post #17
tomtoise wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone's a winner. Except perhaps those die-hard fans who do not have the extra money available to see what may be a once-in-a-lifetime show. Perhaps a more correct ending would be "Everyone who has enough disposable income is a winner."

Sure, but some fan wasn't going to make it either way. Why should the fan who is willing to pay more money have to miss out, in favour of a fan who is paying less money?

Why not? The only reason to believe this is to believe that having more money means you're inherently more deserving of things, no matter the wishes of the people providing those things.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#26

Post by tomtoise »

jstanley wrote: post #17
tomtoise wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone's a winner. Except perhaps those die-hard fans who do not have the extra money available to see what may be a once-in-a-lifetime show. Perhaps a more correct ending would be "Everyone who has enough disposable income is a winner."

Sure, but some fan wasn't going to make it either way. Why should the fan who is willing to pay more money have to miss out, in favour of a fan who is paying less money?

Well, why should the fan who is able to pay less money miss out in favor of the fan who has more? Are people fundamentally more deserving for having more disposable income?

The Artist (ie the provider of the 'value') is not making more profit, they have set what they feel their work is worth. Scalpers add no value and simply take. Automation of scalping is bad for everybody involved (edit: except of course the scalpers themselves), as typically bots will buy out tickets to popular events extremely quickly, leaving legitimate fans out in the cold.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#27

Post by tomtoise »

OJFord wrote: post #15
tomtoise wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Everyone's a winner. Except perhaps those die-hard fans who do not have the extra money available to see what may be a once-in-a-lifetime show. Perhaps a more correct ending would be "Everyone who has enough disposable income is a winner."

If they're too cheap, then it would be everyone with enough disposable time to sit in queue and grab them before they sell out.

This is another reason scalpers are bad. Botting the process gives an edge in both speed and tenacity over legitimate fans sitting in the queue. Ticket allotment limits are only affecting legitimate users, as those scalpers who use bots can get around this with multiple sessions.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#28

Post by number6 »

conjectures wrote: post #10

I'm still trying to understand why they don't just auction tickets.

How would this work? Would you have to enter a number an wait till let's say 24 hours before the gig? Could work and could minimize the problem. The buyer wouldn't know til x hours before if he hand won. But the scalpers would know: " were payed average of x for similar gigs." So they knew how much to bet and still scrape of most of the tickets. And the sell them at a high rate as last minute tickets for a sold out gig and you could be sure to get a ticket.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#29

Post by tomtoise »

jstanley wrote: post #23
NLips wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is incorrect. There's a false equivalence between the fans who want to see the gig the most and the fans who are willing to spend the most. The current system means that people with lots of money who aren't super interested will out compete raging fans on low incomes. I'm not suggesting that basing it on first come, first served is ideal, but I think it's probably fairer. If an event organiser/ticketer wants to…

> There's a false equivalence between the fans who want to see the gig the most and the fans who are willing to spend the most. This is how scarce resources are allocated. There is no fairer way to decide who wants something the most than to ask who is willing to give up the most to acquire it. > If an event organiser/ticketer wants to use dynamic pricing, that's up to them. Absolutely. And if a third party wants to…

> There is no fairer way to decide who wants something the most than to ask who is willing to give up the most to acquire it.

What is 'the most' for one may be pocket change for another.

Re: A scalper who used bots to buy millions of tickets, now wants to stop them

#30

Post by koolba »

austenallred wrote: post #22

I spent some of my formidable years scalping and brokering event (mostly broadway) tickets in various forms. The company I co-founded made a few million and I learned an expensive lesson in equity at age 18 (I opted instead for the $14/hr salary). We worked in broadway (meaning the style of show, not just the street), and I met the Wiseguys folks at secondary market trade shows, but I had no idea they were this big,…

> I have never yet seen a system that cannot be beat by scalpers, including paperless ticketing, and I find that most venues and artists want to maximize profits anyway.

How would a scalper get around ticketing that requires presenting ID that matches the name of the person on the ticket?

I've been to a few shows that were like that for pickup up tickets at the will call booth. I suppose you could get them there and hand them off to the true purchaser but that would require boots on the ground at each show.

Also, not sure how do deal with ID presented at the door to get into the venue if it has to match the ticket purchaser.

(All of this assumes no resales to rename the ticket owner)

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