An Attempt To Reel In Concert Ticket Scalpers

When you buy an Adele concert ticket in the UK, you'll get a notice that "The resale of tickets will not be tolerated." Team Adele is taking a zero tolerance approach to scalping that already seems to be having an effect.

According to an article in Music Business Worldwide, about 20% of hot concert tickets end up on the secondary market, often at super inflated prices. In Adele's case, whenever a ticket is offered for resale by a buyer, the sale is immediately canceled as each ticket is individually registered to the fan that bought it.

This has resulted in less than 2% of her tickets now available for resale, and that number of dropping.

The prices appear to be as high as $1,500 over face value, but buyer beware though, as you might be buying a ball of hot air that won't get you into the concert after all.

It should be noted that in many cases the artists themselves are responsible for the high scalping prices, as they hold back a block of tickets and sell directly to the secondary markets for a quick profit. Not so with Adele. to her credit. She's already made plenty of money, and would rather her fans not have to pay more than the asking price to see her live.

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Amazon Now Selling Concert Tickets With No Extra Charges

One of the things that everyone hates is the service charge attached to a concert ticket when you buy it from a broker and even directly from the box office.

Amazon may finally put an end to that as it's trying to get into the ticketing business, promising full transparency and no extra charges in tickets purchased from the site. In a pilot program launched on Amazon Local, the company is selling tickets to the Bestival shows on the Isle of Wight in early September.

Amazon will offer more shows in the UK through the end of the year, then after the bugs are worked out, will roll it out to the US as well.

One of the little known secrets in the concert industry is that it's not the venues or promoters inserting this extra charge though - it's the acts themselves. Instead of raising the ticket price to where it seems too high, it feels more acceptable if there's that service charge on the back end.

Many acts actually hate the idea of doing that to their fans, and these are the ones that usually allow paperless ticketing, a practice that has yet to gain tracktion in the industry.

If Amazon ticketing catches on, it might finally put a stop to the insane extra charges that we so reluctantly pay.

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Scalpers And Their Bots

Want to buy a good seat at a concert? Then prepare to fight off the bots! Yes, in the battle for a great ticket, your chances of winning are growing smaller and smaller, thanks to the custom computer programs used by the big scalpers to scarf up all the good seats before you can even enter your credit card information.

According to Ticketmaster, bots are used to buy 60% or more of the best tickets available, and the company's not happy about it. The problem is, it's a grey area as to whether purchasing tickets this way is legal or not. According to an article in the New York Times, last month Ticketmaster sued 21 people in a New York court for fraud and copyright infringement related to using bots to buy tickets. Three years ago, four men from WiseGuy Tickets were indicted on conspiracy and wire fraud charges, but got off with only probation and community service.

Ticketmaster has hired a team a computer investigators to try to combat the bots, but even though they can usually identify them, they don't actually stop them from buying tickets, only slowing them down to give a regular human a chance. Still, that doesn't mean that you'll ever get a real chance to buy that great ticket anyway, since it's a common industry practice for the venue or promoter to place a hold on a block of the best seats for sponsors or industry people, or even sell them themselves for a large markup.

With ticket prices so high and with all the extra "convenience charges" tacked on, now the consumer has to suffer the indignity of not getting a chance to buy the ticket he desires as well. It's a scalpers market, and the bots are in charge.

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The Problem With Concert Tickets

We all want to have a fair chance at a good seat when tickets go on sale for a concert, but increasingly that's becoming a pipe dream as scalpers and third party brokers swoop in to buy them all up. These are then sold back to the public at an enormous increase in price. Add that markup to the service charges, premiums, parking, and general high ticket costs, and you have the situation today where ticket prices are so high that people can only afford to attend a show a few times a year.

There are ways around this, like electronic ticketing on your phone, or tickets that you print yourself at home, but believe it or not, there are actually laws against that in some states like New York. How a law like this benefits the public I don't know, but it sure does benefit the ticket brokers.

Green Day thought they found a way around this for a concert at the Barclay Center in Brooklyn in April. They came up with the idea that fans could only pick up tickets on the day of the show at "Will Call" at the venue. That way, brokers and scalpers wouldn't have a chance to get their hands on them, and everyone would pay a fair price, especially for the premium tickets on the floor.

It turns out that fan protests caused them to relent and revert back to selling the old fashioned way, making the brokers happy and the fans a bit poorer.

Why did they protest? Many fans felt that by only having the chance to pick up a ticket by showing an ID right before the concert, their rights were violated. The Fan Freedom Project insists that when a ticket is purchased, it's then the property of the fan, who then has the right to sell it, trade it, give it away, or use it as he so pleases. Other fans were upset that they would have no recourse than to eat the money if they couldn't attend. Of course, the brokers thought that the band was skirting the electronic ticket law, and were prepared to bring a lawsuit.

It seems that something that should be so easy, like purchase tickets to a concert, will remain in the dark ages at least for the near future.

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Help support this blog. Any purchases made through our Amazon links help support this website with no cost to you.

Interested in the Music 3.0 archives? Buy The Music 3.0 Guide To Social Media. The best of over 800 posts.

You should follow me on Twitter for daily news and updates on production and the music business.

Check out my Big Picture blog for discussion on common music, engineering and production tips and tricks.