Welcome to “Who's Got My Extra?”
Jamtopia's new series all about concert tickets.
Over time, we'll be taking a detailed look at the business and pleasure of concert tickets, from practical advice like spotting a counterfeit ticket to more esoteric topics like concert ticket derivatives.
This post — Introduction to Concert Ticket Brokers — kicks things off with some foundational knowledge about concert ticket brokers.
If you're like me, you've probably noticed that it's getting harder and harder to buy concert tickets for your favorite events at face value. And yet somehow, concert ticket brokers have plenty of tickets.
Today we're going to take a closer look at this phenomenon and see why, beyond simple supply and demand, concert ticket brokers are the main reason it's so hard for you to buy cheap concert tickets.
Here's the short version:
Concert ticket brokers have teams of people and automated software buying tickets for them. You do not.
The morning of a concert ticket onsale date, tickets brokers deploy teams of buyers like a shotgun blast to Ticketmaster.com, Ticketmaster outlets, and even the venue box office. You, on the other hand, are a metaphorical sniper rifle, a one man team with a single shot at scoring the elusive cheap concert tickets.
This sort of swarm buying is common practice, and for the most part these concert ticket brokers are playing by the rules. But not always.
On April 17, 2007, Ticketmaster filed a lawsuit against RMG Technologies, alleging that concert ticket brokers were using their software to purchase of large blocks of cheap concert tickets.
RMG's aptly named “Purchasemaster” software allowed brokers to virutally cut in line, thwarting the typical ticketmaster IP address restictions and CAPTCHA system. These type of ticketbots are said to account for up to 80% of ticket requests during popular onsales. Hey, what ever happened to no cuts, no butts, no coconuts!
Ticket brokers swooped up thousands of tickets within minutes of them becoming available online and shut out legitimate Hannah followers.
— Brokers snatch joy from Hannah Montana fans [CNN.com]
After six months of legal wrangling, Ticketmaster was granted a preliminary injunction againt RMG, but it was no use according to Ticketmaster. They allege that RMG's automated devices continued to access Ticketmaster.com after the injunction was granted.
Finally, in June of this year, following eight months of appeals, Ticketmaster filed a fascinating application for permanent injunction against RMG, requesting $18.2 million in damages. A few weeks later, the ruling was in: Ticketmaster won the permanent injunction and was awarded the damages taboot.
Ticketmaster's injunction request outlined a number of ways the automated software hurts Ticketmaster's business — and more importantly your chances of getting cheap concert tickets. These included:
- Hammering Ticketmaster's servers, resulting in additional expenses to build up infrastructure and develop technical countermeasures
- Creating an artificially high volume of tickets on reserve, preventing promoters from accurately assessing ticket sales
- Diminishing the inventory of tickets available to the public and generally blocking the public's ability to access to tickets
- Irritating consumers who subsequently and publicly drag Ticketmaster through the mud, damaging Ticketmaster's goodwill
- And my favorite, “altering the flow of traffic” and thereby preventing Ticketmaster from showing ads and up-sell offers to ticket buyers
Ticketmaster neglected to mention the potential of the brokers and bots to cut into Ticketmaster's own aftermarket concert ticket businesses, but more on that in a later post.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, all of this doesn't even account for pre-sales, fan-club offers, and any of a host other ways brokers can score concert tickets for face value before they even go on sale to the general public. Again in those situations, it's you, alone, up against resourceful ticket brokers paying a cut to swarms of “assistants” buying concert tickets on their behalf for a sliver of the action.
This of course happens for pretty much every concert that's in even moderate demand, but for some reason when it's a really important act like Miley Cyrus (er, Hannah Montana) it becomes national news on CNN.
Unfortunately, there's not much that bands, promoters or even venues can do to stop the professional concert ticket brokers as most of the time they're not doing anything illegal.
Reputable concert ticket brokers almost always operate within the law, typically registering with the Better Business Bureau and National Association of Ticket Brokers. Plus, ticket resale laws vary from state to state, and are typically only enforced at the local if not venue level.
Here's my theory: if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Next time there's a concert ticket going on sale that you've gotta have, phone the neighbors and wake the children. Then make sure they're hitting reload and redial on your behalf. You'll need every chance you can get to score those ever elusive cheap concert tickets!
Come back soon for more articles about concert tickets in the Who's Got My Extra series.
This is complete bullshit that these ticket brokers get away with this shit. If it is illegal to scalp tickets which they are doing then they should be prosecuted and their tickets should be void and resold to someone who wants to enjoy the music not rake people over the coals so they can see a band they have supported for years. Something needs to be done about this “system”.