Ticketmaster has it's own scalpers

[CosmicCowboy]

Music fans’ ire toward Ticketmaster for expensive concert tickets may be somewhat justified, according to a fiery investigation by CBC News and the Toronto Star on Wednesday detailing a secret scalping scheme run by the ticket sales company itself. The two outlets sent journalists undercover as scalpers to a live entertainment convention this summer, where Ticketmaster reportedly pitched them on its underground professional resale program, through which it takes a cut of profits.

Ticketmaster, which is owned by live entertainment juggernaut Live Nation, enlists resellers to grab batches of tickets from its site and then flip them for higher prices on a Ticketmaster-owned, invite-only platform called TradeDesk (touted by the company as “The most powerful ticket sales tool. Ever”), according to the report. Ticketmaster gets extra fees from the pricier resale tickets on top of its fees from selling the original ticket. CBC and Toronto Star journalists were told that despite the existence of a Ticketmaster “buyer abuse” division that looks for suspicious online activity in ticket sales, the company turns a blind eye to its TradeDesk users. A sales representative told one of the undercover journalists that there are brokers with “literally a couple of hundred accounts” on TradeDesk, and that it’s “not something that we look at or report.”

[Spurminator]

Well yeah, concerts sell out now basically immediately after going on sale, and just as soon as it's sold out there are resale tickets on Ticketmaster.com for jacked up rates. One of the worst kept secrets.

[tlongII]

It should be illegal.

[DMC]

Until the artists give a shit, it's just capitalism.

[Winehole23]

it's a monopoly. the venues and the booking agencies have sold out to Ticketmaster.

where else can the artists go? it's not like we have another Frank Erwin Center in Austin.

[ElNono]

A representative for Ticketmaster said:

It is categorically untrue that Ticketmaster has any program in place to enable resellers to acquire large volumes of tickets at the expense of consumers.

Ticketmaster’s Seller Code of Conduct specifically prohibits resellers from purchasing tickets that exceed the posted ticket limit for an event. In addition, our policy also prohibits the creation of fictitious user accounts for the purpose of circumventing ticket limit detection in order to amass tickets intended for resale.

A recent CBC story found that an employee of Ticketmaster’s resale division acknowledged being aware of some resellers having as many as 200 TradeDesk accounts for this purpose (TradeDesk is Ticketmaster’s professional reseller product that allows resellers to validate and distribute tickets to multiple marketplaces). We do not condone the statements made by the employee as the conduct described clearly violates our terms of service.

The company had already begun an internal review of our professional reseller accounts and employee practices to ensure that our policies are being upheld by all stakeholders. Moving forward we will be putting additional measures in place to proactively monitor for this type of inappropriate activity.

https://celebrityaccess.com/2018/09/20/ticketmaster-responds-to-tradedesk-report/

[DMC]

it's a monopoly. the venues and the booking agencies have sold out to Ticketmaster.

where else can the artists go? it's not like we have another Frank Erwin Center in Austin.

That's like criticizing a large box retailer like Walmart for business practices while they sell your products. Where else can you go? If it bothers them, they'll figure it out. They have the merchandise.

[Spurtacular]

Allowing resales to regs is a valuable service for the consumer. Having brokers jacking up prices is not good. Consumers need to stop paying the jacked-up prices like anything else. They don't though.

[Winehole23]

That's like criticizing a large box retailer like Walmart for business practices while they sell your products. Where else can you go? If it bothers them, they'll figure it out. They have the merchandise.I choose not to shop at Walmart.

If I want to see a game at the Frank Erwin Center, Ticketmaster gets a slice regardless.

[DMC]

I choose not to shop at Walmart.

If I want to see a game at the Frank Erwin Center, Ticketmaster gets a slice regardless.

I'm talking about the artist/manufacturer, not the shopper.

[Winehole23]

Pearl Jam tried:

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pearl-jam-sues-ticketmaster/

[Spurtacular]

Pearl Jam tried:

http://ultimateclassicrock.com/pearl-jam-sues-ticketmaster/

Technology being what it is, it's perhaps odd that more people aren't skipping the middle man, anyways.

[Winehole23]

Technology being what it is, it's perhaps odd that more people aren't skipping the middle man, anyways.On the production side, this is more and more possible to do. On the distribution and promotion side, much harder I would think. You'd have to start small and ramp it up sustainably.

I think it's intrinsically hard for artists to be artists and run the business side too.

[Winehole23]

Steve Miller, I've heard, was one guy who was precociously savvy about this.