Ask All Knowing Force – Thoughts On Ticket Scalping
By: AKF Post
slayers asked: “you guys never talk about ticket scalping and i know it bothers us all, had to pay $700 for a pair of rammstein tickets for tmrw night in nyc due to this”
Andrew: I honestly don’t recall if I ever addressed ticket scalping, but know Darius and I never spoke about it on or off the air.
I’m going to keep it real. The promoters don’t care. The ticketing agencies don’t care. If you ever hear a promoter or a ticketing agency speak negatively about scalping, they’re lying.
Why don’t they care? It’s simple. Revenue from advance ticket sales. They are selling in upwards of 10% of their inventory within minutes of an on-sale and these are sales that in most cases, wouldn’t exist. In a sense, the scalper becomes a salesman for the promoter and ticketing agency.
If you’re in a local band and you’re looking to get a spot on a national tour that’s hitting a nearby club, odds are the promoter is going to turn you into a ticket seller, meaning you have to buy x amount of tickets in advance, usually at a discount, and sell them. So, in other words, it pay to play. Essentially, it’s the same thing with scalpers, except they’re not musicians, just people looking to capitalize on supply and demand.
Contrary to popular belief, scalpers lose money on more shows than they profit. However, their large profits on a small percentage of shows offsets their small losses on a large percentage of shows.
And no, lawmakers don’t care either. They’re taxing ticket sales. They’re taxing scalpers on sales in the secondary market. They’re getting their money, and that’s all they care about. If our government could find a way to tax heroin, believe me, it would be legal.
So, what do I think about ticket scalping? I don’t care either way. I’ve actually benefited from their poor decisions. I bought two orchestra Kid Rock tickets to a sold out Jones Beach show for $20 each last summer. I bought two center stage Def Leppard tickets to a sold out show at the same venue for $30 each a few weeks prior to Kid Rock. If you play your cards right, you can beat them at their own game.
Scalping will never end, because large corporations are corrupt, our government is corrupt, and let’s face it, the people who we elect into power don’t care at all about us. As the late, legendary George Carlin said, they’re just present to give is the “illusion of choice.”
Other Interesting Things...
You do realize you didn’t answer the guys question right?
867-5309(Quote) (Reply)
Merry Christmas guys.
How can you condone this, dude? Too political of an approach here. Maybe you haven’t had to pay a premium like us to go to shows in areans. How could you see it from everyone else’s point of view? Just because it’s benefited you before?
Oscar(Quote) (Reply)
One word … CAPITALISM.
lkantngelse(Quote) (Reply)
I have to agree with Andrew and the last poster. I have BENEFITED from scalpers bad decisions and gone to a few shows for more than half off face value.
Andrew’s answer is accurate. Once you immerse yourself in constant ticket buying transactions you will see it makes a lot of cents (I intended for this spelling).
Dennis(Quote) (Reply)
Just keep in mind, that the way Ticketmaster and other companies would go about eliminating scalping is by massively raising their ticket prices to capture the full market on the first sale.
If scalpers can sell a ticket at 3x or 4x face value, then TM could have sold it for 3x the price in the first place. So I generally don’t mind scalping, because it prevents all tickets from being priced higher. Also, as Andrew says, you win some and you lose some. Sometimes you pay 2x, sometimes you pay 20% of face.
I just wish scalpers wouldn’t sell fakes. That’s low. And its becoming more and more common with emailable tickets and barcode scanners at the door.
Kevin(Quote) (Reply)
@Kevin: Finally, someone who agrees with me. Well put, man. Amen!
ALL KNOWING FORCE: Andrew Bilach(Quote) (Reply)
All ticket scalpers should be shot.
343(Quote) (Reply)
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