<p>AXS has an online “waiting room” which opens about 10 minutes before tickets go on sale. If you are logged in and in the waiting room you are assigned a random number to select once they open - I got P!nk tickets this way for a show that sold out in about 10 minutes</p>
<p>Back in 2010 some organized scalpers were caught. Big concerts, sports events, megachurch events, whatever, they would scoop up tickets during the regular sale, pre-sale, any sale, and do it in such a sophisticated way that very few people had a chance to get any tickets at all. </p>
<p>It’s really not the radio station set asides that are taking all the tickets, it’s the scalpers.</p>
<p><a href=“http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/mary-pat-flaherty/sentencing-set-in-online-ticke.html”>http://voices.washingtonpost.com/crime-scene/mary-pat-flaherty/sentencing-set-in-online-ticke.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Also in 2010, certain artists and venues tried to go “paperless” where the ticket buyer would have to show up in person with the credit card they used to buy the ticket in order to get in. I’m not sure how this worked and if anyone is still doing it. It seems the scalpers just keep popping up again and again. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/04/AR2010070404180.html”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/04/AR2010070404180.html</a></p>
<p>I got amazingly lucky with small venue Fall Out Boy tickets last year . . . we had conflicting info on what time pre-sale started so kid was checking and rechecking web sites. He looked on the tour schedule on the band site and they actually had ticket links. All of the sudden he’s like, “Mom, they want me to enter a credit card number.” He had clicked on the “buy tickets” button for our venue and it was live the day before pre-sale was supposed to start. He followed it all the way through and selected our tickets and we purchased them. I could hardly believe it and kept checking the other tour date links and the venue ticket site. Some links were live and some weren’t but the venue said that they didn’t start pre-sale until the next day. I checked 90 minutes later and the venue site said it was sold out . . . a day before the official pre-sale was supposed to start.</p>
<p>I accidentally bought the kids paperless tickets on my card to a show where they had GA pit tickets and were gunning for front row and wanted to stand in line early. I forgot that I would have to be there with my card for them to get in. I ended up buying myself a single nose bleed seat since I had to stick around anyway. It was a good show, but definitely a lesson learned.</p>
<p>Sometimes there is a special "donors only"out there even before fan clubs. An act I absolutely love came up on my “patron of the arts” email. I jumped fast and it was apparent this was before the fan club sales. </p>
<p>The system is corrupt. </p>
<p>It’s best to follow the artists pages and any company closely linked with them for the best chances for promo codes and actually getting a ticket. </p>
<p>I was able to luck out on tickets a couple of times for catching them by chance a few days before the pre-sale window opened.</p>
<p>That’s what I did - I follow the artist through his website. This artist uses a program called Crowdsurge to administer selling the tickets, so I guess I never really even went to Ticketmaster. </p>
<p>“Because artists rely so much more on tour revenue, they want to grab the share of money going to scalpers - and now the legal resellers like StubHub. Makes sense. So the acts offer special packages that can run into the thousands. I see, for example, packages that include “first out” parking, dinner, limited edition merchandise (i.e., t-shirts), seats in the better sections, etc.”</p>
<p>I don’t have a problem with artists offering these packages (and indeed I briefly considered whether I wanted to pay that price to go to sound check, etc.). I guess I feel it’s more “honest” in a way if the artist offers a VIP package for $2,000, that I pay $2,000 and he gets it, versus I’m paying some guy on StubHub $500 for tickets that have face value of $250. </p>
<p>Remember that LiveNation merged with Ticketmaster and had to agree as part of antitrust approval to open their computer system to a few other companies because they had an effective monopoly. I don’t know how far that has gone but they control a large number of concert venues and have relationships with many, many more. By control, I mean they sometimes operate them directly or have an exclusive booking/ticketing relationship. We have no idea how the money flows behind the scenes from sponsors like Coke or Amex and to artists.</p>
<p>BTW, for a while, a neighbor ran a small family chain that had direct Ticketmaster terminals. He’d get us tickets, which were always in the first few rows. That was the only chance.</p>
<p>When you say control the venues, how does that play itself out? So, truly, the Taylor Swift scenario of only 1500 seats in an 13,500 seat arena really only available to the general public is the norm? That’s kind of disheartening, though I suppose since I’m in the fan club (and am also Amex Platinum, though I didn’t use it) I’m not the general public. (But it’s not like it took anything special to be part of the fan club - it was just signing up on the website.)</p>
<p>If you don’t work with Ticketmaster, you can’t use their venues. Remember when Pearl Jam testified before Congress, because they balked at all the service fees?
<a href=“Ticketmaster - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticketmaster</a></p>
<p>Concert venues aren’t the only venues plagued by the ticket agencies. My H and kids go to Red Sox spring training most years and if I can’t get tickets through the Red Sox website, I have no choice but to use StubHub or another company like it.</p>
<p>So is it good or bad that this artist used Crowdsurge? (Apparently it’s a UK company) I truly didn’t realize I wasn’t on Ticketmaster or on the venue’s website. </p>
<p>More basic question - if there’s so much demand, I’m curious why they don’t have an extra show or jack up the prices. </p>
<p>I’m puzzled, too. I can understand why they would be unwilling/unable to add shows (schedule, venue availability, etc.). But can they get the prices up to the level where scalping would become unprofitable for the scalpers? I doubt that the artists/venues are so naïve to think that high ticket prices are bad for their fans.</p>
<p>A side note. I’m doing a little “project” on a high end brand of purses with an artificially limited supply. The pieces are being snatched by resellers and then sell on eBay for 125-150% of full retail prices. Every time the brand jacks up their retail prices, which happens almost annually, the least expensive pieces become even more expensive on the secondary market (125% -> 150%), but the more expensive ones do not go up so much and, as the result, lose the resellers’ interest and become more available via regular retail outlets. A similar thing could happen here.</p>
<p>Artists who cater to young people, thankfully still want young people to be able to afford the shows. Many seem to want motivated, energetic fans in the front rows rather than just high rollers. It’s the shows like Sting and the like where non-nosebleed seats are out of range that really shut people out (and don’t sell out). Many artists do make an honest effort to sell tickets to real fans who want to see them at prices that they can afford. That’s where all the pre-pre-presale comes in.</p>
<p>This particular artist already does a lot of shows - it’s a very high demand artist who frankly IMO could jack half the tickets up to $1,000 and still sell out. They did offer VIP packages (sound checks, etc) that went up to $2,000 a ticket, which I don’t have a problem with - I’d rather the artist make the money than the reseller. </p>
<p>BB - are you looking at Birkins? </p>
<p>It’s the scalpers and their sophisticated programmers that grab up most of the tickets in the first few milliseconds. The venue and event don’t matter, just that they can do it online and they will if it is a sought after and profitable event for them. </p>
<p>Pizzagirl, my project is about Chanel - they have been raising prices steadily without negatively affecting the demand (apparently, the prices are going up again on May 1st). Demand, supply, price elasticity (sort of), marketing gimmicks, “scalping”, resale values, and how it all ties together. </p>
<p>BB, when your project is over, if you have one of those small 2.55 black bags left over, send it my way, please. 
It’s one of those things I’ve always wanted but could never never justify.</p>