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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

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Automated bots/teams of people buying many tickets purely for the sake of profit doesn't benefit anyone other than the scalpers. He just told you - it benefits people who want to pay more but would otherwise have to rely on luck to buy the tickets - this is the entire reason the system works.

It makes it nearly impossible for anything that isn't a machine to acquire retail tickets. When 496/500 GA tickets go to a bot, the scarcity and price are artificially inflated.

It's not "artificial" any more than the retail price was artifically low. It's a ticket, any price is artificial.

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

#232
post #221

When the Rolling Stones did their last tour in 1981 --those were still the days when rock and rollers hoped to die before their geriatric years and The Who would perform their Final Tour just a year later -- the tickets (at least in the US) were by mail and via lottery. Payment was with cashier's check only and only two tickets per order. [1] It would still work today. For fans with money, it would be less convenient…

Some bands still do this. For example the Dave Matthews Band Warehouse club is pretty much the modern version of this. When you join the Warehouse, you get access to a pool of tickets only made available to Warehouse members. The pool contains a wide variety of tickets, and the quality of tickets a member can get is based on how long they've been in the club. Members can only buy a small number of tickets, I believe…

Long-term members must make a killing reselling their tickets!

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

#233

I'm really surprised to see so many from the HN audience against scalpers, considering how libertarian the site leans. If there's any market where a completely free market approach is applicable and actually desirable, it's this one. I've bought maybe 40-50 tickets for various events (gaming, concerts, sports) over the last 5 years, and 99% of the time, the price of the ticket was negligible next to all the other exp…

Some people are libertarian, some are not. They argue. It's not complicated, it's the free market of ideas.

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

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So start a mailing list when you're a small band. Email your oldest fans a promo code with priority booking and/or first tranche auction option. Give people with an academic email address early options. Give people who like you on social media early options. Include a promo code in sales of online merchandise for future gigs. There are lots of potential ways to do it, while undermining the scalpers. Also gigs seem pr…

as the article mentions, those tactics you described actually helped the scalpers more than an average person.

Do you have any evidence for your claim of what the article mentions?

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

#235

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

Probably because of bad PR. The relation between a band and it's fan is very personal. The fans would feel betrayed if the band was auctioning tickets. I've heard of some venues using a hometeam scalping operation to get around this. They sell the tickets knowing that their scalpers will bot them. Then the venue gets a cut of the proceeds. Could be an urban legend however.

What you have just described is literally Ticketmaster's modern business model. Ticketmaster scalps the tickets and pays a kickback to the venue and/or artist. Ticketmaster takes the heat so the the venue and artist don't have to.

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

#236

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 and, more importantly, minimize risk anyway. Say that a tickets market value is $500. What if they charged $500, then gave a $400 rebate after you walk in the door? They would of course limit the number of rebates per person. A more concrete implementation th…

As the article mentioned, they forward customer credit cards to purchase the tickets, even two levels deep. So the bot can use credit card numbers from the actual fans.

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

#237
post #232
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some bands still do this. For example the Dave Matthews Band Warehouse club is pretty much the modern version of this. When you join the Warehouse, you get access to a pool of tickets only made available to Warehouse members. The pool contains a wide variety of tickets, and the quality of tickets a member can get is based on how long they've been in the club. Members can only buy a small number of tickets, I believe…

Long-term members must make a killing reselling their tickets!

They only get two tickets. And I simplified the explanation a bit. It's a lot like a sports draft. The longer you are a member, the better your odds are of winning the lottery on the better tickets.

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

#238

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,

I have seen such a system. A festival near me has a limited number of tickets available each year (due to site and staff restrictions) with surprisingly high demand. Their solution is to do a lottery that gives people an opportunity to buy tickets, requiring the name of each individual ticket recipient at purchase, then they match the names on each ticket to IDs at the gates. The only way to defeat this system is with fake ids.

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

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's not about deserving in any sort of moral sense. If I offer you $1000 for something you're selling, and someone else offers $2000, who are you going to sell it to? He obviously is willing to give you more, so give it to him. That's fair. That's life. EDIT: And if you sell it to me for $1000, don't be surprised if I turn around and sell it to the $2000 guy. He wants it more than I do, and he's going to get it one…

All the arguments along these lines with respect to scalpers get caught in the "is-ought" problem [1]. You are describing the economic situation and saying "This is the way things are at the moment, therefore this is the way things ought to be". It is a leap that you don't really justify.

If people want to take a libertarian approach, why don't you say it is the person selling the tickets prerogative to do every legal thing in their power to limit prices. It is their show after all.

It would be as if I started selling piggy back rides to my friends for $10. When some random guy realizes my friends really like piggy back rides (for whatever strange reason), so he buys all my piggy back rides. I'm all booked. He then turns around and tries to sell them to my friends for $20. What the scalper apologist arguments are saying is that any attempt by me to tell this scalper to get lost is somehow wrong, because I am disturbing the natural order of things. It doesn't take into account that I care who I carry.

To be clear, I'm not saying artists only selling to "poor people" is the sole right way or something of that sort. I'm just arguing against saying that second price auction is the only way to do things.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is%E2%80%93ought_problem

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

#240

I've wondered if you could price tickets with an algorihm where they start out high and then over time or volume get cheaper and cheaper. If a scalper jumped in first they would pay a high price, later buyers could get tickets much more cheaply, if they come in later they won't have the desirable tickets which sold early.

How would this be in the best interest of the venue/artist who want to move tickets quickly and reduce risk? Seems like this would favor only those concerts destined to sell out or be popular.

True, but it does seem like a good idea for the type of events that everybody knows will sell out, mainly to scalpers, in a matter of minutes.
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