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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

#271

Post by austenallred »

digler999 wrote: post #253
notliketherest wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I have never yet seen a system that cannot be beat by scalpers" easy, ID linked tickets that you pick up after entering the venue and get transacted at that point, and you cannot reenter.

You'd then need to have some nontrivial anti-counterfeit technology on the ticket. Otherwise, the name is just a label, and the barcode is a UUID that actually means it's a valid ticket. Someone could make a high quality copy of the ticket, keep the UUID and put new persons name over it. What I would try is a "credit card required at entry", so at the gate the only person who gets is the one who inserts the (valid) C…

Gift debit cards (some are technically indistinguishable from normal) mapped to fake addresses, escort people in and leave.

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

#272

Post by ams6110 »

TwiztidK wrote: post #238
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, 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 t…

Sell by auction. Let buyers bid up to the natural market value. Avoid sniping by running it like a real auction: having no fixed ending time and only finalizing a sale when there have been no bids for a period of time to be sure everyone has a chance to bid up to whatever it's worth to them.

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

#273

Post by habosa »

My favorite band is Wilco, and they have effectively eliminated scalping of their tickets. Here's how:

When you buy a ticket you can only buy 2 at a time and you must provide your name. To attend the show, you show your ID at the venue and they find you the the ticket(s) that match your name. At this point you and your guest must enter immediately and there are no "ins and outs".

So to scalp a ticket, you'd have to bring the person you sold it to into the show with you. That's a lot of effort!

Are there downsides to this? Sure. The first is that I'd gladly pay more to see Wilco but I can't but my way into the show. The second is if I buy tickets and something comes up I can't easily transfer them to another fan. Is all of this probably worth it to make sure that they can have an intimate connection with their fans and nobody else profits off their shows? Yeah, I think so.

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

#275

Post by cgag »

ams6110 wrote: post #272
TwiztidK wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 t…

Sell by auction. Let buyers bid up to the natural market value. Avoid sniping by running it like a real auction: having no fixed ending time and only finalizing a sale when there have been no bids for a period of time to be sure everyone has a chance to bid up to whatever it's worth to them.

But I want tickets below market value. It's only fair I should have them.

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

#276

Post by lathiat »

Arizhel wrote: post #163
mattnewton wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ticket scalping hurts artist exposure by finding an equilibrium point on price alone, where many artists may really want to maximize audience size and not earnings from tickets. Concerts are like promotional events for their brand and many people buy albums, swag, post on social media about the event, and that's all beneficial to the artist. Ticket scalping removes the ability of the artist to maximize attendance (an…

>Concerts are like promotional events for their brand and many people buy albums, swag, post on social media about the event, and that's all beneficial to the artist. This isn't true. These days, musicians make the vast majority of their money in touring, from both ticket sales and merchandise (t-shirts) at the venue. They don't make squat from album sales. Notice how many old 70s-80s-era classic rock bands are out t…

you'd also be surprised how much venues charge, worse than rent.

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

#277

Post by candiodari »

vacri wrote: post #268
candiodari wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that ? They neither increase nor decrease the available places.

Ever try to buy a ticket from the proper vendor 10m after the tickets have been released? Saying that they maintain ticket availability for longer, it's a zero-sum game. The only reason those tickets are around longer than they otherwise would be, is because alternate purchasers were unable to get them. Put another way, if 100 tickets at $50 sell out in a day, and scalped at $500 sell out in a month, yes, the same am…

> Put another way, if 100 tickets at $50 sell out in a day, and scalped at $500 sell out in a month, yes, the same amount of tickets is sold. But 'ticket availability lasting for a month' is only there because the scalper has removed the ticket availability for the $50 purchasers.

Economic theory say that this isn't true. They should sell out at similar speed regardless of reselling happening or not.

And from personal experience: efficient markets are better than inefficient markets. I've seen quite a few inefficient markets and they're ... well they're stupid. They impose ridiculous costs (like having to F5 continuously so you can "deal" with the shortage, but that's quite a trivial one).

And yes, scalpers make the market more efficient.

The presence or absence of scalpers does not change the basic problem : not enough spaces for everyone who wants to go. That cannot be solved by introducing rules against scalpers. In fact, the opposite is true. Seriously, the opposite approach would likely improve matters far more : create a large-scale scalping company that would pre-purchase large amounts of tickets as an investment and resell them later. The presence of this company would massively improve ticket availability by enabling and incentivizing artists to make more spaces available, and this would make everyone's life better.

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

#278

Post by bogomipz »

metaphorm wrote: post #264
bogomipz wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, because its concert tickets its less of a violation? So price gouging and depriving people of a good or service is OK as long as its not life essential? Where does that line stop? Tell that to someone who was shut out of seeing their favorite band because 492 of the total 496 tickets that were put on sale went to this guy. Is that the little perspective that would help?

> Wait, because its concert tickets its less of a violation? yes, exactly that. what's so hard to understand? price gouging on essentials is clearly a worse thing to do than price gouging on leisure items.

So by your logic it is OK because there are worse things?

Do you use that metric in all aspects of your judgement?

If so you must be able rationalize a lot of questionable behavior because you can always think of something 'worse" that you "could" be doing instead.

What's so hard to understand is that your logic is pretty twisted.

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

#279

Post by DrScump »

cb21 wrote: post #209
koolba wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

The scalper could "sell" their front-row ticket to someone else who buys a cheap nosebleed. Then they get in with the cheap seat and go sit at the better spot. Clumsy but it would work.

This is one of many downsides of PDF ticketing. Fraudster buys a nosebleed, edits the PDF to fake a great seat. Ticket scans just fine at the door, since it has a legit barcode. (If the scanner displays the real section/row/seat for that barcode, the person working the door could cross-check it, but I've never seen that happen.)

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

#280

Post by jvz »

knodi123 wrote: post #39
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…

> 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. And if I'm an artist who wants to ensure that fans without a lot of money can see me? Should I be allowed to offer a concert where tickets cost 20% of market value, or should "…

It's not a question of "should". You can't beat the market. You can fight it, but you will lose. And so will your customers, most likely.
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