Tell your best ticket scalping stories here

[bearman🐻]

As far as I can remember, the only time I paid for a ticket that was more than face value (well more than $5 or $10 above face value) was when Smashing Pumpkins played the Metro in August of 1993...it was the week Siamese Dream was released. The face value was $10...I paid $40 and was afraid I was getting ripped off. That was, in fact, bar none the best Pumpkins show I've ever seen and it truly was the best time to see them. I'm very glad that I went because in retrospect that was an era of the band that will never exist again. And nowadays, I really have zero desire to support scalpers. I won't bother going to a concert if I think it's overpriced, which is something I never used to do. I just have reached a point in my life where as much as I love going to shows, as a consumer I have limits to the amount of enjoyment I get for a few hours of entertainment relative to the hundreds of dollars that are charged.

[sonickteam2]

  I find live music to be the very most underpriced item in this universe.

    I suppose now that i'm in my 30s (ugh) the enjoyment I will have at a show is easier to measure, but from maybe 13-25, probably the 90 of the best 100 nights of my life centered around live music or DJ. most of which i spent less than $20 on.  But looking back, i could have paid $100 easy and it would have still been money so well spent.
   
    I am definitely shocked at the precision, thought and criteria based on making decisions on such things.  Pretty much completely 180 degrees from me.

   

[vansmack]

He even bought me a bunch of drinks for just agreeing to meet with him a few weeks before to give him the tix.

That wasn't about you being nice.

We ended up dating for quite a while and the sex alone was worth the price.

That's more along the lines of what I was thinking.

[Firebutt McGee]

I knew a couple of kids at the Radiohead show in Santa Barbara this past tour that beat up this scalper that was selling 4 tickets for 700/piece to be in the pit. They took his tickets and threw him 30 bucks.

"I understand. Without condoning or condemning - I understand."

[bearman🐻]

Wow...Radiohead fans are SO punk rawk.

[nkotb]

They looked so bad-ass as they drove off in their Volvo.

Wow...Radiohead fans are SO punk rawk.

[vansmack]

That's the worst story I've ever heard.  I can't believe they paid $30 to see Radiohead.

[eltee]

This one time, back in '95, I scalped a Big Head Todd ticket to the son of a Congressman (state not important;)). (& I'm pretty sure it was face value)
We got to know him during the show, a good guy. We all partied (that was the term back then), crashed his parent's DC brownstone, ate their cold Chinese food, and took a nap on their couches. Got up in the early am to drive him to Union Station, to metro to Nat'l, b/c he was flying to Australia for a job. I then headed to Earth Day on the mall b/c I volunteered, partially to impress an ex-. At 2 pm, I decided I was exhausted and hungover and headed back to a friend's apt. behind the FBI bldg. to crash. (I still claim I was there the whole time!) And those are all the facts I can provide, oh uh, will say...)


Another time, I scalped a ticket to a woman (don't remember the show, Ryan Adams, perhaps? Face value, I'm boring).  A friend went w/ me to the "meet up location". My friend is not a show-goer, nor a scalper, and was really ansy waiting.  He found it sort of exciting I guess: "Where is she? What does she look like?
Do you know her? Is that her? Wow, this is sorta like waiting for a drug deal..."
(I thought it was funny. And no, neither of us know what that is like)


Couple years ago, I wanted a ticket to some sold out 930 show, so I stood outside the club for one. Some guy, kept trying to get me to cross the street toward the gas station to transact the deal. But he wanted way over face. When I told him "no" he tried to shush me and get me to cross the street to sell it. I almost sicked the staph on him. I then gave face value to a woman standing right next to him.

[sonickteam2]

That's the worst story I've ever heard.  I can't believe they paid $30 to see Radiohead.

speaking of shitty bands, a friend of mine told me she wanted me to come to the U2 show at Verizon....maybe in 2001?  So i take a train all the way from Boston to go with her and she doesnt have tickets.  So we're outside trying to get some and ppl were only selling for $100 or more per ticket.  So we go aroudn to where there used to be the smoking section and this security guard says for $75 he'll let us both onto the smoking deck and from there we can walk into the arena.

  We did, but then realized we had no seats. My friend went to the information booth or whatever and claimed she lost her tickets. they wouldnt let us onto the floor but they did put us up in a handicap row, which, suprisingly at a U2 show, was not at capacity!

[rich_WDC]

The Grateful Dead - Boston - '89 - My buddy was severely sick and severely poor so he asked me to sell his ticket for a profit, which I didn't like doing but agreed to nonetheless.    A few blocks from the arena (Garden) I got a guy to agree to something like double the price (like $60 on a $30 ticket or whatever)---thus I was very proud of what I'd be taking back to my friend.
Right when the deal was being consummated, a trio of Boston police officers swoop in and force me to sell the ticket at face, as opposed to hauling me away or even confiscating the ticket and/or money.   (Definitely a good action on their part, I can say with much hindsight....)   
I then see the guy in the arena at setbreak (I guess the ticket location wasn't adjacent to mine; I forget the details)  and try to get him to live up to at least part of the remaining money "owed".   He got really frustrated at my request and went to security to complain I was badgering him.   I easily, then, gave up.... but at least brought to my friend his face value $ and a story...

[vansmack]

, a friend of mine told me she wanted me to come to the U2 show at Verizon....maybe in 2001?

You should have met me at Gordon Biersch.  I had a spare for the first show that I sold for face.

[sweetcell]

i come to 930.com for the hilarious fanboy antagonism

[ggw]

I had an extra ticket to a Fugazi show at 9:30 a few years ago.  While we were waiting in line some guy walked by looking for extras.  I said I had one; he asked how much I wanted for it; I said $10.  This porky midget behind me suddenly starts caterwauling, "YOU CAN'T SCALP A FUGAZI TICKET..."
"Why not?" I asked.
"IT'S A FUGAZI TICKET......A FUGAZI TICKET.  IT'S......JUST WRONG," she shrilled.
Thankfully her squawking attracted some attention, a counterbidder arrived and I sold the $6 ticket for $25.

[sweetcell]

<doesn't matter>

HE LIVES!!! 

we missed you, g.

[Jaguar]

Wow. Welcome back.