I'm sure we'll get in to the same old discussion about market prices, but (1) I don't give a sh*t, this makes me nuts, and (2) I know this is about basketball, but all the same applies to in demand concerts.
*********************
Ticket Scalpers Play Hide and Sell
Outside MCI Center, Entrepreneurs Try to Avoid Police, Attract Buyers
By Timothy Dwyer
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 12, 2005; Page B01
He rolled through a sea of rabid ACC basketball fans, a cell phone in one hand and the other stuffed in his pants pocket along with a thick wad of bills. "Got tickets?" he asked over and over in a low voice. "Need tickets? Lower bowl. Whaddaya need, whaddaya got?"
Lincoln, that's his first name and that's all he'll give up, because he is in the business of ticket scalping, which is illegal in the District and will cost you a $50 fine. The money isn't all that steep, just the price of doing business, but the two or three hours cooling it in jail waiting to be processed -- now, that can cut into profits.
Lincoln, 31, is married with three children, and he was as happy as anyone to see the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament come to town. He set a goal of making $4,000 this weekend but said he'd be satisfied if he cleared three grand.
He is one of a small army of scalpers who worked the crowd around MCI Center yesterday and Thursday, though the crowd worked them, too, each side engaging in a grand American tradition: Buy low, sell high.
It was an open-air bazaar, like the floor of the stock exchange, except in this case, plainclothes police officers once in a while handcuffed some poor fan from out of town unfamiliar with the D.C. scalping law. "But I only got ten dollars for two tickets," one man complained as he was loaded into a police wagon. "That's $60 below face value." The cops shrugged and shut the door behind him.
A police spokesman said the department does not keep statistics on scalping arrests. It is illegal to sell or resell tickets in public spaces to any sporting or entertainment event in the city at any price. Scalpers and fans either risked getting arrested or sometimes moved around the block or into a restaurant to get around the "public space" issue.
"It's a cat-and-mouse game," Lincoln said. He had just handed out his business card ("Basketball. Baseball. Football. Concerts. Best Seats Around.") to a man who was looking for tickets for today or tomorrow. Lincoln had none.
His cell phone rang.
"Yeah," he said, "whaddaya need?"
He started strong Thursday morning, buying four primo seats to Maryland's game for a total of $280 and then selling them for $200 each. But it slowed down later.
For the scalpers, the Maryland Terrapins were key. If they had won Thursday, demand for their next game would have made the bazaar a seller's market. Conventional wisdom had it that Terps fans would dump tickets for the rest of the weekend if the team lost, flooding the market.
Turns out those disappointed Terps fans held on to their tickets, and that made the market mighty tight. Scalpers were asking for three times the value of a $65 ticket yesterday morning. Lincoln was on the street at 7:30 a.m., and by 11 -- an hour before the first game, between North Carolina and Clemson -- he had nothing to sell. "Dry," he said as he rolled down Seventh Street NW. "I'm getting shut out."
He walked by a man wearing a baseball cap with a homemade sign sticking up from the back: "Need 2 tickets." C.C. Pharr's head was under the cap. He was attending his 44th ACC Tournament. Each year he comes with a group of friends, all ticketless.
"I'm the ticket man," he said. "Other people take care of reservations, the hotels and the restaurants, and I take care of the tickets."
By 11:30 a.m., he had done his job a little too well. Buying and selling for most of the morning, he kept upgrading his tickets until he was quite satisfied. But he had one extra ticket to get rid of.
"I really enjoy this," said Pharr, who is a partner in Tot Hill Farm Golf Club in Asheboro, N.C., and a Wake Forest fan. "We do this every year," he said of the ticket hunt, "but we didn't know that buying and selling tickets was illegal here. I mean, Washington, D.C., is against the American way of life."
There was some mean competition for tickets. Some fans would buy and sell only to other fans, cutting the scalpers out of the market. Sometimes things got a little tense if one tried to cut another off in the middle of negotiations.
"Relax," one scalper said, his nose nearly touching the chin of a competitor.
"I am relaxed. You're the one that's not relaxed," the guy barked back.
"You will be relaxed, all the way relaxed," hissed the first guy.
Lincoln stayed away from that kind of nonsense. Once Maryland lost Thursday, he focused on buying up tickets for the rest of the weekend.
He pulled a laminated sheet from inside his heavy jacket. On one side was a floor plan of MCI Center, and on the other, two words: Need Tickets.
No one was selling.
One or two fans told him that people were selling before they left the building. He pulled an unused ticket out of his jacket.
"I'm going in," he said.
