Defend the indefensible: Ticket touting

This isn't an "is stephen an asshole" thread

he has a crazy knack of making any thread he appears in one of these though.

On the subject of it being impossible to return unwanted tickets, I've had very good luck in the past (both buying and selling) with this:

http://www.scarletmist.com/default.asp

Yeah scarlet mist I can get behind. But being happy to get tickets off ebay 'cause the show sold out - well perhaps shows wouldn't sell out so fast if people didn't a) buy tickets for the express purpose of touting, which I think is indefensible, or ii) buy "half a dozen for me and my mates and if I can't find five friends who want to go then I'll just shift them on ebay", which never happened before ebay, is now widespread, and is almost as annoying as straightforward honest asshole touting.

he has a crazy knack of making any thread he appears in one of these though.

yeah right, go fuck yourself.

Yes, this urgent and key. You actually took their $40 dollar refund. This is beyond assholism, and verging on criminal. If it isn't criminal, regulation should be brought in to make it so.

Get to know your seller before you buy an item. Here are some simple precautions to help your purchase go smoothly.

Review the seller’s policies

Returns – Examine the seller's return policy carefully before you bid. Contact the seller before you bid with any questions about the return policy. Some questions you might want to ask include:

Does the seller accept returns, or is the item sold "as is"? <-------OMG WAHT R U TALKIN BOUT!!1 ITS CRIMANAL TO SELL UR ITEM ""AS IS"" I BELEIVE :'-(
Under what circumstances can you return the item?
Do you have to return the item to the seller within a certain time period?
What kind of refund does the seller provide?
Who pays for return shipping and handling?
Does the seller charge a restocking fee?

That's a butchering of Kant btw.

what-evah, what-evah, i do what i want.

Stephen - well done, you are very clever.

You admit that you 'felt like a bastard', what's your problem with other people who concur with your own judgment?

because that's not the point of this thread.

it's off topic for everyone to keep going about me, personally, when we're supposed to be talking about ticket reselling in general, not a specific instance in which i resold tickets and whether i was an asshole or not.

I will now make fun of Stephen for taking his loot from Stripes tickets and spending it on Smashing Pumpkins tickets.

^^ although if y'all are going to keep insulting me, i'd like to see more of these types of insults please. as fuel for the fire: i'm seeing the Pumpkins twice on this tour, once in Austin last week and now in Dallas tonight, last show of the tour.

You expecting sympathy?

Poor Stephen....some people are character assassinating him on a messageboard. How hurtful.

Cunning, legally acceptable mugging is still morally mugging in my book.

well perhaps shows wouldn't sell out so fast if people didn't a) buy tickets for the express purpose of touting, which I think is indefensible, or ii) buy "half a dozen for me and my mates and if I can't find five friends who want to go then I'll just shift them on ebay", which never happened before ebay, is now widespread, and is almost as annoying as straightforward honest asshole touting.

well perhaps - but at least my experience has been that the only shows i've had to resort to buying tickets off ebay have been ones that i'm pretty sure would have sold out quickly in any case (eg with NIN, i found out about the show several weeks after tickets went on sale).

it's also generally been my experience that with a few exceptions (being shows that are clearly massively oversubscribed) there is absolutely no need to buy tickets off ebay at all - the market tends to collapse a few days before the show, and there are always people who can't go at the last minute and need to shift their ticket for face value (or less). buying tickets from ebay the moment they've sold out is v dumb, in fact - you're paying the most that anyone will pay.

i'm seeing the Pumpkins twice on this tour, once in Austin last week and now in Dallas tonight, last show of the tour.

-- stephen, Sunday, November 18, 2007 4:29 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

unlucky son.

a) buy tickets for the express purpose of touting, which I think is indefensible

i guess i can see how this is annoying, but not how it is indefensible. as people have said above, do you think the same about people buying limited edition records and selling them on, for example?

Toby, perhaps if they buy 3 or 4 copies with the express intention of selling some on to make money.

because that's not the point of this thread.

it's off topic for everyone to keep going about me, personally, when we're supposed to be talking about ticket reselling in general, not a specific instance in which i resold tickets and whether i was an asshole or not.

Hahahaha, what's the success rate on ILX for attempts by a single poster to try to dictate what a thread should be about?

You expecting sympathy? Poor Stephen....some people are character assassinating him on a messageboard. How hurtful.

ha ha very funny. i said i have a problem with your "character assassination" strictly cause it's off topic here, and anyway, if i was afraid of being Interhurt i wouldn't post to ILM in the first place. now fuck off.

there is absolutely no need to buy tickets off ebay at all - the market tends to collapse a few days before the show, and there are always people who can't go at the last minute and need to shift their ticket for face value (or less). buying tickets from ebay the moment they've sold out is v dumb, in fact - you're paying the most that anyone will pay.

easily the most OTM thing that's been said so far on this thread.

Hahahaha, what's the success rate on ILX for attempts by a single poster to try to dictate what a thread should be about?

quite possibly the Radiohead - In Rainbows thread next door.

the In Rainbows poll thread, that is.

(How many people have you told to fuck off on this thread? I'm losing count)

How did you go about getting a refund from the promoter?

there is absolutely no need to buy tickets off ebay at all - the market tends to collapse a few days before the show, and there are always people who can't go at the last minute and need to shift their ticket for face value (or less). buying tickets from ebay the moment they've sold out is v dumb, in fact - you're paying the most that anyone will pay.

otoh i guess morally exploiting stupid people isn't so good - but then is playing poker online any better? etc etc.

How did you go about getting a refund from the promoter?

in this particular case - it was refunded automatically to my credit card.

When it comes to making a thread all about him, stephen is like early LJ without the charm.

(stephen: if you disagree with this then the best way to prove it is not to post to this thread again, since you've made your views on touting clear.)

for the record, i'm entirely okay with discussion shifting back to the original question. i'm not trying to seek attention here, it's just that admitting to reselling tickets on an anti-reselling thread is like a magnet for personal criticism and insults.

Shut up.

do you think the same about people buying limited edition records and selling them on, for example?

Depending on the circumstances, yeah why not? Ok if you're just crate digging and come across some rare vinyl that otherwise would have gone undiscovered then sure, coin it in. That's to a large extent what the whole antiques trade is based on. But if some limited commodity is initally readily available to everyone, and you pull it out of circulation just to line your pockets - asshole. Fuck a free market.

HAHA thanks dom (xpost)

I started a thread on hoarding limited records a few weeks back which got roundly ignored: How much of a dick move is it, in the grand scheme of things, to buy records with a view to selling them in the future at higher prices? but it's all good. Was quite surprised to see ESOJ being that blithely accepting actually

stephen, to gleefully take way over the odds off people then make even more back again and NOT refund the difference makes you a total cock. it's not that difficult to comprehend - you'd still end up quids in but you'd soften the blow for these people you skanked. to not do that and to brag on a message board *and* quote ebay selling rules makes you a shit, a real dirty toerag. but you know this already, right?

Was quite surprised to see ESOJ being that blithely accepting actually

well i wouldn't say it was blithe acceptance, it's just one of the "evils" i've had to learn to deal with as a collector/fan.. i gave up getting shitty about it a long time ago

http://music.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2222013,00.html

I see bands want a slice of that ticket-touting moolah now. Fuck's sake. Heaven forbid they don't want fans ripped off, no they just want their cut.

cuntscuntscuntscunts

Radiohead, Robbie Williams and Arctic Monkeys joined calls yesterday for a levy to be added to tickets resold on the web to allow musicians to claw back some of the profits made by touts and fans.

The acts' managers, together with about 400 other artists, including KT Tunstall and the Verve, said the move was vital to bring some regulation and rigour to a market they described as "the wild west".

They proposed the creation of a Resale Rights Society, which would collect a fee from each ticket sold on eBay and other websites such as Seatwave, Viagogo and GetMeIn.com that have sprung up to satisfy the demand to trade concert tickets.

Wait till blogger Lefsetz sees this. Actually, wait to the major labels now pushing 360 degree deals with bands (where they share in all of the revenue for everything supposedly in exchange for marketing efforts) see it. But yea, not much concern show for consumers here with this proposal.

This is just Radiohead getting their revenge on fans who paid 1p for In Rainbows.

Jeez, why don't the promoters just sell all the tickets by auction themselves? Stagger the availibility for maximum profit incentive? Bet it's legal.

i just heard on the radio this morning that van halen are being accused of making a deal with their promoters who are holding back tickets and putting them on ticketmaster's ticketexchange site (auction site), essentially scalping their own tickets. although I don't think this is anything new so I don't know why it's news (I guess the tickets showed up on ticketexchange within a minute or two of tickets going on sale, so it was some kind of proof).

but if you think seeing van halen is worth paying $2k, I just feel sorry for you, and don't necessarily see the evil in it.

so why is this listed as "having new answers" at the top of ILM?

OK never mind, it was because I had it bookmarked.

pretty cool, actually.

trent reznor to fans: yes i know, it sucks:

I assure you nobody in the NIN camp supplies or supports the practice of supplying tickets to these re-sellers because it's not something we morally feel is the right thing to do. We are leaving money on the table here but it's not always about money.
Being completely honest, it IS something I've had to consider. If people are willing to pay a lot of money to sit up front AND ARE GOING TO ANYWAY thanks to the rigged system, why let that money go into the hands of the scalpers? I'm the one busting my ass up there every night. The conclusion really came down to it not feeling like the right thing to do - simple as that.

My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and TicketMaster merges is that they'll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme - which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show. They will simply BECOME the scalper, eliminating them from the mix.

Nothing's going to change until the ticketing entity gets serious about stopping the problem - which of course they don't see as a problem.

touting never bothered me as much as booking fees. they're fucked up. seeing people apologise for this but not for regularly using ticketmaster etc ... ehhh

I've done this once but only for a nominal profit. obv ticket brokers in general suck ass.

what's yr experience?

This story is getting a lot of play here in L.A.: https://variety.com/2019/music/news/black-keys-hundreds-turned-away-wiltern-ticketmaster-1203344146/

Honestly, this is the overcorrective reaction that I can't stand. Yeah, the resale industry is fucked, esp with revelations that bands are actually releasing thousands tickets for sale directly to third party resellers. But there are people that pay it - sometimes when I'm traveling for work or pleasure, I'll find out an act is in town that I want to see but the tix are above face value, and I just pay it.

But how is that more fucked than denying people who can't make a show due to some emergency from selling to someone who can? Is this going to endear fans to the band more when buyers got kept out of the show?

Non-transferrable is really fucking stupid and no matter my opinion of scalping, Black Keys are the ones who look like shitheads here. same as when Smashing Pumpkins did the same thing in 1996.

"We wanted to ensure fans got into the venue at the low price we set for them. Instead they didn't get let in at all! but fuck em, they're not true fans!"

You'd think there would be a way to make them digitally transferable but only at the price they were purchased at.

Black Keys are the ones who look like shitheads here

seems it would be fine if ticketmaster had a feature allowing you to return your ticket for face value

the tale of a woman from Boyle Heights who’d spent $700 on three tickets for herself and her two young children and waited in line for two hours, only to be told after finally passing through security that the tickets weren’t valid, sending her back onto the sidewalk with a crying 9-year-old.

lol tbh

if Ticketmaster had a feature allowing you to return tickets, that'd be a step, but there are plenty of people who are paying for the privilege of getting into a sold out event, whether we were too slow to get tickets, or perhaps didn't think they'd be able to go, or traveled somewhere and found the show on their doorstep unexpectedly.

yeah $700 is much more than I'd spend for three tickets to ANYBODY, much less Black Keys, but hey, it's their money. lol @ the idea that anybody in the 3rd party markets was in any way significantly hurt by what the Black Keys did.

plus I mean they used Ticketmaster, how much do they really care about markup

I assume the venue is LiveNation/Ticketmaster only, so they probably didn’t have a choice there.

Seems like if a band does their best to make sure True Fans have the best shot at buying tix (maybe release the code via email right before they go on sale?), then if some fans end up reselling, that’s the breaks.

the other thing, the article made it sound like if you sent a ticket barcode from one phone to another, i.e. someone buying the ticket as a gift, it would also not be honored, the software would recognize it and disallow the scan?

Right, seems it’s a “dynamic barcode”

the argument between stephen and everybody else upthread is always entertaining

The most depressing result of the consolidated, decentralized ticket scalping operations is sitting in the near-premium area in a large seated venue only to have the seats near you stay empty throughout the entire show when they were sold out online.