Author Topic: Rant  (Read 4373 times)

ZwanzofNever

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Rant
« on: March 15, 2005, 08:56:00 pm »
It pisses me off when I go on ebay to look for Garbage tickets, and notice all the sellers are in different parts of the United States. The system really needs to be fixed if someone out in Idaho can buy tickets to resell for $$$ before a fan in DC, who actually wants to see the show, can.

Bartelby

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Re: Rant
« Reply #1 on: March 15, 2005, 10:18:00 pm »
How many you lookin' for?

ZwanzofNever

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Re: Rant
« Reply #2 on: March 16, 2005, 03:09:00 am »
just one  :)

Bartelby

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Re: Rant
« Reply #3 on: March 16, 2005, 09:12:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by ZwanzofNever:
  just one   :)  
Check you PMs.
   ;)

kosmo vinyl

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Re: Rant
« Reply #4 on: March 16, 2005, 09:30:00 am »
unfortunately, regardless of what regulations, limits, etc imposed to deal with ticket brokering.  the brokers will find ways around it, and the fans will complain and be inconvienced.  
 
 the only way it's going to stop is if there is a concerted effort to stop buying tickets from them.  but, thats unlikely as in the end someone will end up playing the premium.
 
 even the method of only selling tickets one person at time in a line, like they did for the LA Coldplay club date, is bound to generate complaints from those who can't stand in line for hours at a time.
T.Rex

Bombay Chutney

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Re: Rant
« Reply #5 on: March 16, 2005, 10:16:00 am »
The answer for instant-sellout club shows is will-call only, ID required for tickets and you need to go inside immediately.  It's a hassle, but pretty effective.  If the show isn't an instant sellout, you only have yourself to blame for not getting tickets.
 
 Not sure what to do for larger shows though.

Bartelby

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Re: Rant
« Reply #6 on: March 16, 2005, 10:18:00 am »
Kosmo:  a Post article recently revealed that selling a ticket, even at face value, on public property in DC is illegal.  Makes selling a ticket at the 930 very "iffy" unless staff lets one step inside...
 
 At the Kings of Leon show, I had an extra ticket, and was approached - before I even got in front of 930, by a a guy who said he needed a ticket.  I sold it to him for face value - and didn't even charge the additional service fee.  When I got in front of the club, he was "hawking" it for $75.00...so I pointed him out to staff; but I doubt anything happened to him...what a crock. Watch out, forumites - jail or rip offs can be your reward for an act of kindness...

kosmo vinyl

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Re: Rant
« Reply #7 on: March 16, 2005, 10:29:00 am »
yes but most ticket selling takes place via ebay... and yes the id at will call is probably the best option, but still problematic if a person can't go to the show at the last minute and needs to transfer the tickets to a friend.
T.Rex

sonickteam2

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Re: Rant
« Reply #8 on: March 16, 2005, 10:33:00 am »
Quote
Originally posted by kosmo vinyl:
  yes but most ticket selling takes place via ebay... and yes the id at will call is probably the best option, but still problematic if a person can't go to the show at the last minute and needs to transfer the tickets to a friend.
not to mention the amount of TIME it would take to get everyone into the club if the not always so intelligent will call folks had to "check" everyone into the venue.  ugh.

Bombay Chutney

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Re: Rant
« Reply #9 on: March 16, 2005, 10:51:00 am »
It's not that much time.  Didn't they do something like this for the Beastie Boys and Bob Dylan shows? I don't recall having to stand in much of a line for either show.  I just showed up about 1/2 hour before showtime and walked in.
 
 It's a trade-off.  You can either have the convenience of wide-open ticket availability (which eases the job of scalpers), or the inconvenience of standing in line.  There's no perfect solution that's convenient for everybody.
 
 Personally, I like thing the way they are.  With online tickets, you pretty much have the same chance as the scalpers. Unless, of course, they're getting their tickets from an inside source.  There's nothing that can be done about that.

walkonby

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Re: Rant
« Reply #10 on: March 16, 2005, 08:09:00 pm »
good lord, i remember standing in line for a moe show for a good forty-five minutes, because big brother was going through everyone's cigarette packs and the such.  clubs can't handle anything beyond a simple  "id and ticket, please."
 
 think about the lines when places have those scanners that check to see if your ticket is real.

Bags

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Re: Rant
« Reply #11 on: March 20, 2005, 11:58:00 pm »
March 17, 2005
 ONLINE SHOPPER
 
 Look Behind the Ticket Brokers' Curtain
 By MICHELLE SLATALLA
 The New York Times
 
 EVEN in a town known for the high quality of its amateur theater, a performance like Ella's as the Wicked Witch stood out.
 
 The high point for me, as her mother, occurred after the intermission at "The Wizard of Oz," when a green-faced version of Ella appeared in the balcony to point her wand at Dorothy below. My 13-year-old daughter delivered the line "I'll get you, my pretty!" with a raspy cackle that carried across the audience to wake her little sister in Row 11.
 
 "Help, help," Clementine said, disoriented but recognizing the evil chortle that has plagued her on countless family car trips.
 
 "It's O.K., we're at Ella's play," I whispered to Clem as another wild peal of laughter sliced through the theater like a harpoon.
 
 Clem sat up in her folding chair as Ella, threatening the life of Toto, nearly lost her peaked black hat over the balcony. Then my 7-year-old summarized the situation succinctly: "She's a natural, Mommy."
 
 Clearly we will have to see "Wicked" on Broadway next month, when we travel from Northern California to New York during the girls' spring break. Critics say the musical tells a story that turns the Wicked Witch of the West into a sympathetic character. Or, as my oldest daughter, Zoe, put it, "It could be healing for us as a family to understand Ella's motivation."
 
 There's just one problem. "Wicked," like so many hot Broadway plays, is sold out for months. I became one of the last people in America to accept this sad truth last week when I visited www.ticketmaster.com. Ticketmaster, the seller of 98 million tickets a year, informed me online that full-price orchestra seats cost $100 apiece.
 
 Naïvely, I gulped at that amount (yes, I'm also one of the last people in America to believe that it could actually cost $500 to take a family of five to see a Broadway musical that got mixed reviews and no longer had its original stars).
 
 But when I searched Ticketmaster's Web site for "Wicked" tickets on the April dates I'd be in town, I got even worse news. The site told me, "There were no tickets available that matched your request."
 
 The same held for the theater box office. I visited gershwin-theater.com and clicked on an icon that promised "Great Seats," only to find myself transported to a land far more troubling than the road to Oz. As far into the future as December, the box office had nothing to offer but a referral to a ticket broker, ticketsnow.com, which sold tickets at premium prices, like $285 for a seat in the front mezzanine, Row C, on Dec. 4.
 
 Let's see, $285 times five tickets equals $1,425. No. Not possible. I opened the desktop calculator on my computer. I double-checked the math. I considered lying down.
 
 This was my introduction to the vast world of online ticket brokers, who buy tickets and resell them at sites like barrystickets.com, goodtimetickets.com and unlimitedtickets.com.
 
 It's a world of supply and demand, where brokers hope ticket buyers will be willing to pay a hefty premium for hard-to-find tickets to popular events. If, for instance, I wanted to see Barry Manilow at the Las Vegas Hilton tomorrow night, last week at ticketsguaranteed.com I could have paid $978.50 for two tickets with a face value of $165.50 each (main floor, Section 1, Row Q). If I wanted to watch the Kentucky Derby on May 7 from the third-floor clubhouse at Churchill Downs, I could have obtained tickets (for $1,825 apiece) from totallytickets.net last week. If I wanted to bankrupt myself, I could take my entire family to the third-floor clubhouse.
 
 My first question was obvious. "What's the difference between ticket brokers and scalpers?" I asked Gary Adler, general counsel to the National Association of Ticket Brokers.
 
 "Our members are legitimate brokers who adhere to a code of ethics," Mr. Adler said. "Brokering is their primary business, and they have to have a permanent place of business with a published phone number, and to be a member they have to have the sponsorship of other people who are in the business. Every state has different rules and regulations about ticket selling, and, at last count, 10 states regulate the price you can charge. Our members adhere to states' laws."
 
 Unlike the scalper who stands in front of a theater or a stadium to exchange a ticket for cash in the hours before an event, the 185 members of the National Association of Ticket Brokers are accountable, Mr. Adler said. They have pledged to adhere to a code of ethics that requires them, among other things, to sell only legitimate tickets, to post refund and cancellation policies and to "maintain good character and reputation in the community."
 
 Buyers can search the association's site at natb.org to confirm that an online ticket seller is a member.
 
 Some sites, like TicketsNow.com, act as clearinghouses for other brokers. "We're not the original source of the ticket," said Kenneth Dotson, chief marketing officer for TicketsNow.com. Someone bought it and is selling it again. In addition to selling the tickets from our site, we also have a database that networks to about 80 percent of the secondary tickets sold online. Ticket brokers from all over the country upload their tickets into the database."
 
 Other sites, like stubhub.com and www.ebay.com, act as marketplaces where buyers and sellers complete transactions directly. "It's a two-way street, where an individual can go list tickets for sale and also buy tickets," said Jeff Fluhr, chief executive of StubHub. "We have an open universe, where a season ticketholder might come in and list a couple of tickets below market price just to get rid of them."
 
 My next questions were: where should I buy "Wicked" tickets, and how much should I pay? I determined that while I might in the end find the best price at eBay, I didn't want to spend hundreds of dollars on a purchase that wasn't guaranteed. Although eBay polices premium ticket sales to ensure that sellers follow state pricing laws, the site's buyer-beware stance scared me off.
 
 So I focused instead on StubHub and TicketsNow.com, which guarantee the legitimacy of their transactions.
 
 For "Wicked," prices for April performances seemed no higher or lower than prices for those in March, dashing my hope that I might get a bargain by waiting until the last minute.
 
 At StubHub, orchestra seats for "Wicked" ranged from $199 for a seat described as "T, W, U, Z, DD, the most! Up to six available, center" to $353 for a seat also described as "T, W, U, Z, DD, the most! Up to six available, center." At TicketsNow.com, orchestra prices ranged from $215 (Row B, up to four tickets, can't buy an odd number) to $280 (Row B, can't buy an odd number).
 
 This preliminary research sent me scurrying to the mezzanine - the rear mezzanine. As a family, we had weathered Broadway's rear before; Clem proved at "Oklahoma!" that she could fall asleep in the last row as easily as in the first. I bought five $140 tickets for Row H at TicketsNow.com. Face value was $250, total. I paid $779, including a service charge and two-day shipping costs.
 
 The seating chart at the Gershwin Theater Web site revealed that we were in the second-to-last row. I took comfort not only in the thought that we might have better seats than as many as 51 of the 1,933 theatergoers, but also in the hope that one day, when Ella stars in the revival, she may comp us good house seats.
 
 
 E-mail: Slatalla@nytimes.com

joeavrage

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Re: Rant
« Reply #12 on: March 21, 2005, 10:02:00 am »
If a show sells out in five seconds, its probably underpriced.
 Personally, if I was a band which was gonna have a sold out show, I would just sell *all* of the tickets on e-bay. At least that way I would be the one getting the markup, and not some scalper/broker.    I could cut the price on merchandise after that.