BuffettNews.com

Now we can see what we are up against when we try to buy tickets.
It's a long article but worth it.

http://www.eastbayexpress.com/issues/20 ... ure_1.html

Great artcicle. I think the most important sentence was this:
"But to truly end scalping, ticket agencies may basically end up becoming scalpers themselves."

Well that was interesting....

Makes you feel all warm and cozy, doesn't it?

Wow, what an article...there's not much there I didn't suspect although Ticketmaster becoming a scalper seems quite unethical given their job is to sell tickets at face value (plus service costs). What a nightmare....

Interesting article, but not surprising.

For Great Woods, I got into Ticketmaster.com right at 10:00. My transaction went through quickly. Yet, I was only able to get outside tickets. Someone (many someones) somehow managed to get in quicker. Now I know how.

One thing they didn't mention was all the Ticket Agencies (Scalpers with an office) that have deals set up with the promotors and have their tickets days before they go on sale.

Artist are paid for their services and Venues are available for a certain price and the promotor covers this. The promotor then gives tickets to Ticketmaster who provides the service of selling tickets to the general public. Probably 85% of the face value of the tickets goes back to the promotor, Ticketmaster keeps 15% plus those outrageous handling fees. The kicker here is how many tickets the promotor provides to Ticketmaster. A good guess would be about 70 percent, give or take 10%. The rest the promotor has to give to sponsors, venue season ticket holders, the artist, and whoever else (friends, associates, scalpers) they want to give them to.

If this was as big a problem as this article and many others over the years lead you to believe then the promotors and the artists would be going straight to the government about putting a stop to this but the last thing in the world they want is the government getting involved with their business since promotors, artist, venues, and Ticketmaster are happy about the money they are making.

The only people getting screwed are folks that want to buy a ticket to a show.