Millions,
About six months a year, I’m in San Francisco, temping, pretending to be a productive member of society. Recently, while back from tour, I got hooked up with a ticket brokerage and am learning all the strange, shady, underhanded stuff that goes along with reselling tickets. And today, I happen to also be fairly bored. If you’re curious, ask away.
All of it, huh? Care to share half of it with us?
When people ask you what you do, what do you tell them? Telemarketer? Used car salesman? Nazi Youth recruiter?
I keed, I keed.
Let’s put it this way: I’m taking more showers now.
How do you set your prices? If you price too low, you’re leaving money on the table. If you price too high, you risk having to eat inventory, which (unlike typical store inventory) becomes worthless and unsalable at any price once the event takes place. Do you use a database of past resale prices, or what?
Geez, I like scalpers. If it weren’t for scalpers it would be impossible to get hockey tickets in Toronto.
I quite often get tickets below face value from scalpers. I keep their business cards. I see nothing at all wrong with it.
This year I moved up 187 spots to #50,217 on the waiting list for season tickets at Lambeau. Living out of state it would be damn near impossible to get to a game. I love brokers.
One question. How is it the brokers seem to always get such large numbers of prime seats to events? Is it an insider deal, or just because those that are able to get them do so knowing they can sell to a broker?
Oh, one more. Are there any restrictions selling out of state? I know that many places restrict scalping, but how would it work if you’re in a different state? I know that at Lambeau there is a reservation very close where scalping laws aren’t enforced.
Since that’s pretty much how all brokers make their money, there’s plenty of different ways to do this. Some know people at team/broadway box offices who simply pull tickets from the system and sell direct to the brokers, which is in no way legal. Others know ticketmaster employees who will let them into sales early. If they don’t know anyone with an inside connection, a broker will literally set up about 20 computers with a program that will log into ticketmaster the nanosecond tickets go onsale and the program itself applies for the most tickets possible in the best available location. Then, the broker sits back, waits for the turing test to pop up, writes out the jumbled digits or word, and gets tickets.
Of course, you can’t buy hundreds of, say, World Series tickets under the same name. So some brokers will enlist their friends by getting their credit card numbers. They’ll pay this buddy a few percent over what they charged, help his credit, and sell the tickets for far more.
They also get seats from season ticket holders who can’t go. This sometimes involves paying a premium to the ticket holder, then jacking up the price again. Some tickets will change hands five or six times before making it to the buyer who will actually attend.
Restrictions are generally laughed off from most folks I talk with. But there’s a reason why a lot of New York brokers are located in Jersey: it’s legal there and illegal in (at least parts of) New York. Very rarely are scalping laws enforced however. It’s a win-win for the brokers and the venue to resell.
I have heard several events claim to be the toughest ticket to get. Does your industry have a yearly event that they would agree is actually the toughest ticket? And along the same lines, what is the most expensive yearly event ticket?
For the Kentucky Derby, up until the actual day, I will see ticket brokers with many tickets left to sell. I guess I had assumed the ones that don’t sell by the event date get turned over to scalpers who go to the event and try to sell them there. What really does happen to all the unsold tickets?
And it was funny to see your thread title when I did. I have just spent an hour googling for some tickets I want, and could not find a single thing. So by any chance would have a suggestion on where I could find tickets to the Sandy Lane Gold Cup? http://www.barbadosturfclub.com/Stake%20Races/Sandy%20Lane%20Barbados%20Gold%20Cup.aspx
The track’s own site just gives info for getting tickets for any other day but this day. I am guessing if I call the track, they will tell me they are sold out. So I was trying to find online ticket brokers who had them, but none I found did. Any ideas?
Thanks!
When I worked at the Ticketmaster counter at record store many years ago, I was approached by a broker based in another state. We made some deals and he would send me cash via Western Union including my “commission.” I would pull tickets of major events for him within seconds of the ticket sales. Sometimes I did very well in getting at least 6-12 tickets for events that sold out within minutes.
On the legal and ethical side, scalpers usually have contacts with season ticket holders and resell the tickets they don’t use. OVer the course of a long hockey, basketball or baseball season, most season ticket holders can’t get to all the games, so there’s a huge supply of unused seats the scalper can buy for less than face value. I know some even have contacts in companies to get their corporate-held seats. Of course, they’ll often buy tickets right at the event; they can get a suprising number of tickets from fans who have extra seats because so-and-so didn’t show up.
And the illegal, unethical methods have been discussed already; those, obviously, will vary depending on the venue’s ticket sales methods and policies.
Interestingly, some sports teams are now offerning services for season ticket holders to sell tickets they won’t use directly to the end user, bypassing brokers.
Can you get me two camping tickets for Glastonbury this year?