141–150 of 328 posts
> The government's case hinged mostly on whether Wiseguy had "circumvented" Ticketmaster's system. While I hate scalpers, I have to ask: why is this illegal? Is using a screen reader "circumventing the system" if I get rid of all font and graphics? Is using an adblocker "circumventing the system" ?
The site might (and hopefully does) have an explicit TOS/EULA prohibiting scraping for the purpose of scalping.
...wow that sounds like an awesome problem to solve! Like play 10 dates, or if that is too tiring, maybe they could let a lot of people watch live on VR headsets for a much cheaper rate (like $10 or something) - I am always hearing the global number of Gear VR sales is large and getting larger and larger.
I understand this problem is different to normal computer problems, but I'm used to it being the case that you don't need to worry too much about scalability - because if you are in the position that you do, you should have the resources to be able to find a nice way to solve it!
Maybe some sort of bitcoin/blockchain + verifiable ID, so on the door you can prove:
1. You are the person who paid the ticket 2. The price you paid for the ticket, is the price on the ticket
He seems proud of this, this person has zero morals. He's scum.
>"We pulled so many tickets that really we had to choose which seats we didn't want," he said."
This is just unbridled greed. It wasn't enough to do this for handful of tickets, it had to be done for all of them.
I'm always suspicious of people that want to do the right thing only once their own morally questionable practices have run out of steam. I don't think what he's doing now is motivated by any sense of concern or common good.
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 spent some of my formidable years scalping I think you mean formative years. Did you ever get hit buying lots of tickets for a show and then unable to sell them?
Nah, when we bought big sets we knew they would sell. We had a model that could predict it somewhat accurately. Worst case scenario we'd sell for face.
In the early days when we had no data things were much more difficult, at a few $200 tickets, but wasn't a huge deal.
"Wiseguy learned that Ticketmaster's CAPTCHA system had only loaded 30,000 unique images into its database, rather than millions. So Lowson's team downloaded every image they could find as a .jpeg file, stayed up all night typing them out, and taught their bot how to match the images." Wow. I had the impression Ticketmaster had invested a lot of thought into anti bot tech. Apparently not.
Ticketmaster celebrates scalpers.
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…
And I agree that access to affordable shows isn't as important as housing or healthcare, but I think you are very much underestimating the value and importance of the arts in many peoples' lives.
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…
All of the convoluted reasons why scalping must be stomped out have never made sense to me. If people would let the market handle it, things would sort themselves out naturally. If scalpers have to spend more money buying tickets than they can make by selling them, they'll stop buying so many tickets. Also, maybe venues should have some method of selling unredeemed tickets at the door. For example, if a ticked hasn't…
Big artists, that have gigs where tickets cost the best part of $100 (I'm UK based and I'm converting what we'd pay for big name artists gigs from GBP to USD) are saying they have 10X the demand of people wanting to see them than the stadiums can take.... ...wow that sounds like an awesome problem to solve! Like play 10 dates, or if that is too tiring, maybe they could let a lot of people watch live on VR headsets fo…
The ticket problem needs to be solved but it won't when you have the biggest ticket sellers (Ticketmaster) owning marketplaces for second-hand tickets. I recently read one of these companies was buying tickets and then putting them on the secondary marketplace themselves at a huge markup.
As for booking extra shows - I don't know why this doesn't happen. Maybe they don't have the data? Much better for an artists brand if they sell out 2 nights than have 3 nights with none of them sold out.
NB: The biggest artists (selling out places like the O2 Arena in London for multiple nights) rarely charge over $60/£50 for general admission. The only people I see charging $100 are well established older acts (Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, etc.).
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 spent some of my formidable years scalping I think you mean formative years. Did you ever get hit buying lots of tickets for a show and then unable to sell them?
This happens, but it's not too common. More common by far is selling at under cost. it's a market like any other, and brokers absorb some of the risk for the hope that it pays out.
Put it this way, you may not want to spend $60+ per ticket to see an artist you are interested in, but at $50 a ticket? or $30? At some point, you can usually move them, and depending on how many you have, the trick is moving them while not crashing the market at the same time (not to imply huge amounts of tickets, for events not selling well there may not be much on the market to begin with).
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…
Not everybody that sells tickets has as their goal maximizing revenue. For example, lots of bands work very hard to put on shows that are affordable for their fans. Scalpers taking advantage of the situation is an example of this-is-why-we-can't-have-nice-things . And I agree that access to affordable shows isn't as important as housing or healthcare, but I think you are very much underestimating the value and import…
I am not doubting that but there's enough blame to go around on ticket prices. Bands no longer make money selling records. The model of the touring business back when the public bought records was that the tours were used to sell records and except for a small handful of acts artists mostly didn't make money from touring. A concert would generate sales of records in that market, it was a tool to sell records. Now that there is no longer money in records the bands themselves have increased ticket prices extortionately so in many acts cases because this their source of income now and not album sales.