PreferredSeat.com Blog

Ticket Brokers and the Ticketmaster Mess

by on Feb.24, 2009, under Business News, Entertainment News, Music News

Ticket brokers have long taken the blame from Ticketmaster for taking most of the best seats available for all the concerts. And to some extent it may be true.

But as long as there is a quick way to make a buck someone will be doing it. And when the bot software came out there were no shortage of takers because if you didn’t have one, your competitor did, and he was getting the tickets.

But I would contend that maybe Ticketmaster doesn’t really want to deal with the problem at this point because they can eliminate it by not releasing the best seats directly to the general public and make more money by reselling them without the ticket broker as the middleman.

How would I solve the problem of bots, brokers and Ticketmaster?

First thing would be to limit the sale of tickets to the city and surrounding communities within a certain radius, say 100 miles, for the first day of the sale. This would cut down dramatically the thousands of tickets for shows that are purchased by brokers with offices in other states and put the tickets back in the hands of local fans.

Then when those extra tickets that magically show up and Ticketmaster releases them to the general public, they should only release them at the box office or local ticket outlets. This cuts down on the bots catching the ticket releases for brokers and puts them back in the hands of local fans.

This won’t solve the problem completely, you’ll still have local brokers getting tickets, but not in any way the numbers you see today from out of state brokers.

Do I believe this will ever get adopted? Never, because selling tickets is their business and they want to sell a lot of them as soon as possible, whether it be to a broker or a fan.

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6 comments for this entry:
  1. Christian
    February 24th, 2009 on 8:12 pm

    It seems like a cop out to claim that because some brokers were using bots, everyone had to do so. Using bots was basically hacking and it should have been treated as a federal crime… but I much prefer the feds pursuing more harmful matters.

    In any case, scalpers/resellers are very crafty and I doubt your suggestion of a radius would really work. If scalpers can get past per-person ticket limits, they can figure out the radius problem.

    I wonder why you do not openly discuss how TicketMaster uses brokers to get rid of tickets for poorly selling events and then falls into an obligation to then sell brokers tickets for high demand events, crowding out those who waited in line.

  2. admin
    February 25th, 2009 on 12:14 pm

    I used the term “bots” because it was used by the media, etc. The software that was used did not hack any computers, it just allowed a single user to open many windows to purchase multiple sets of tickets and automated the process for speed. All small business people are crafty, otherwise everyone would be one. You may never and should never stop the reselling of tickets, but it would keep the tickets closer to home, and get more tickets in the hands of local fans.Ticketmaster has never used brokers to get rid of tickets, any problem you have with Ticketmaster, the brokers have also. If you know anything about Ticketmaster and ticket brokers, there has never been any love lost between them. And nobody waits in line anymore, that’s part of the problem.

  3. Christian
    February 25th, 2009 on 1:31 pm

    1) It may not appear as such, but I do favor resale. I actually think it should be totally legal.

    2) Re: bots. Sure, call it software. It is software designed to circumvent security measures on a website so the site can be used in a way that was not intended. That is hacking and that is why RMG was sued, and doesn’t exist anymore.

    3) Re: ticketmaster practices, I know that brokers are generally at odds with ticketmaster, but I do have reports that they push tickets to some brokers for events with poor sales.

  4. admin
    February 25th, 2009 on 2:14 pm

    If software that reads a captcha is hacking, then call it what you want. If you have proof, not just reports, that Ticketmaster is pushing tickets to ticket brokers, your wanted in Washington today. I’ve been in the business over 21 years and I can’t imagine why a broker would buy tickets for a poor selling show that even Ticketmaster was having trouble selling at face value, be it from Ticketmaster or anyone.

  5. Gerald
    December 7th, 2009 on 6:44 pm

    I seriously doubt limiting the number of tickets to a small radius would hurt the brokers. In fact it would probably make it more difficult for general consumers.

    (1) Brokers have far more contacts than simply the computes. They have contacts to artists/teams, artists/team management, and box office ticket sellers. They usually get the best tickets from these sources (at a high price) long before tickets go on sale, thus the limited radius would do nothing to curb these types of transactions.

    (2) Brokers use each others tickets. One way brokers get more access to tickets worldwide is to use each others tickets on their site. For example, Broker A owns the tickets and may charge $100 per ticket on his site. Broker B may sell the same tickets on his site with a 25% markup ($125 each). Thus, if somebody buys the tickets from Broker B, Broker B buys the tickets at $100 each from Broker A and sells them to the consumer and makes a $25 profit per ticket. If you limit the radius of first day ticket sales, you will encourage brokers from outside of the radius to buy the tickets and sell them at a profit.

  6. admin
    December 8th, 2009 on 10:41 am

    Brokers do have contacts, but not as many as you may think. A majority of tickets that are resold are taken off the open market when tickets are put on sale. If the sale is limited to the venue for a period of time, only the local brokers will get most of the tickets to be resold, and even then they are limited to the number of people they can get in line. And with random numbering and wristbands, even the fans have an equal chance. That is much better than 300 brokers and thousands of want-to-be brokers buying up the tickets right off of ticketmaster.com at 10:00. No comparison, and I know, it worked fine before the internet.