Ticketmaster Gets Into Online Scalping
Tuesday January 15, 2008
As Ticketmaster announces that they are acquiring online ticket scalper TicketsNow, I have to wonder if they days of purchasing a ticket for a concert or event at a set price is becoming a thing of the past.
It's one thing for eBay to acquire StubHub. After all, eBay is in the business of auctioning. Ticketmaster, on the other hand, is in the business of supplying tickets. To both supply them and to auction them off in the second market is treading a thin line. What happens when Ticketmaster decides there is more money in cutting out the middle man and just auctioning off all tickets?
This whole scalping of concert tickets & xmas present video games is eventually going to implode upon itself. There’s no long-term viable way to continue making money out of nothing. Something’s got to give eventually.
Ticketmaster already holds a monopoly on the ticket supply. Now they want the monopoly on ticket scalping. No wonder they don’t like StubHub, it’s their competition.
Oh, man, I feel like I just got ripped off for American Idol tickets. My sister and I bought them from a place that Ticketmaster sent us to. After fees and all, it came to $175 each. The tickets (which are not even real “tickets” but print outs of them) have $68 on them!! How is this legal????? I thought scalping tickets was illegal? I’ll NEVER go to another concert again.
Just to add that before this I thought Ticketmaster was just a ticket supplier and only charged a service charge. Never knew until doing some research just now that you can’t really get anything BUT scalped tickets these days. It’s sad – the greed and how they are taking advantage of us. Also, I thought scalping was illegal? Don’t they arrest people for doing it in front of a stadium or theater? I don’t get it…….. Why do the venues and artists let them do this to the fans?