The obvious fix to bots and scalpers is just to not allow ticket transfers - you give your name when you buy the ticket and show your ID at the door. Why this isn't the current process is left as an exercise to the reader.
I remember Green Day doing a local show where you had to pay cash at the door.
This seems to address botting, though scalping organizations can still pay people to stand in line (and presumably take a cut when they are paid to give up their spots.)
Personally I think this approach helps out kids who have time to wait in line but don't necessarily have the money to pay huge markups and fees from the secondary market.
The simple solution to getting fans rather than grifters is to make the tickets cost something other than money. Time is a nice obvious cost element to add.
If only we could channel that time more productively (and in a more palatable way) than having people wait in line.
Taylor Swift did do something a bit like this this for a previous tour - you could get early access to the ticket sales by doing various kinds of fan activities, including buying physical copies of her records, watching videos, and posting on social media [1]. People were kind of mad about it, although I think in part that was because the "fan activities" that gave you the best chance to get tickets were the ones that also involved buying things.
Indeed, maybe with a more bulletproof implementation though (eg. you must show the same driver's license, enforced via matching the pdf417 on the back at purchase and entry)
If I'm not mistaken, this[0] seems to be a commentary on the law. As I understand it after having read that article, the law seems to be in an effort to encourage reselling by the regular person in case of travel/event plans changing, while introducing fines to prohibit egregious scalpers. However, it seems it's just some fines for these activities, and I can't find any case where scalpers were convicted and fined under this statute (but maybe my Google-fu is weak).
Ice is the old practice of producers (aka rights holders) or box office staff taking tips to make tickets available to resellers. This is illegal and is not common anymore. The era of computerized ticketing has made it much harder to do.
Look at paragraph (c), a little pro-reseller nugget buried in an otherwise very consumer friendly law. That paragraph is the reason obvious anti-scalping practices can't work in one of the US's largest live event markets.
This is what newer Pearl Jam concerts do - they sell on Ticketmaster, but made a deal where you can't transfer the tickets to anyone else, and must present a Photo ID upon entry to the venue with a name that matches the name on the billing address.
Better solution is to just price the tickets higher. Scalpers are only taking advantage of arbitrage. This requires a bit of complex demand estimation up front though.
I went to a concert that requires you to match your ticket, but allowed you to sell tickets on a site they control for the face value. I think the buyer has to pay a transaction fee as well.
I got the tickets by signing up and they took my credit card, and charged me when I was next in line and someone had tickets for sale. It was pretty neat, though I suspect I lucked out because a bunch of people sold their tickets when they announced vaccines would be required (September 2021).
There was no market place. Just fifo queues of people willing to buy tickets, and tickets for sale. that constantly works its way down to atleast one of them being 0.
I signed up for the main concert and a few of the after parties, and over the next month I got emails saying I had purchased tickets for the various events.
Some venues do this, but it does slow down entry (though during the pandemic some venues where checking IDs anyway along with covid test results, etc..)
AXS requires that you use their app and it must be logged into the account that purchased the tickets. The QR codes need to be refreshed before entry and expire in 60 seconds.
This presumably requires scalpers/bots to create an account per ticket purchase, and there is probably a limit on the number of accounts that can share the same payment method and address.
AXS allows them to resell on their own platform, so "the account that purchased the tickets" doesn't have to be the one that originally purchased the tickets.
Yes, it includes resale on its own platform. As I noted, I'm not sure this prevents scalping, but it seems like it would require bulk scalpers to create a large number of accounts, and presumably it allows AXS to take a cut and to monitor it.
Also I believe they limit the resale markup to 10% above the face value. This seems good for buyers and fair to sellers, and it may also reduce the profit for scalpers.
I imagine they could also ban resale of tickets for certain shows if they wanted to.
You can also transfer tickets on their platform, so even if there's a cap you can go off-platform for payment and "transfer" (aka sell) through the platform
AXS is really not invested in trying to stop scalpers, they do all this to defeat double use of tickets.
Australia has a few “major events” laws aimed at preventing the worse of scalping. They mostly require that any reselling not be more than a fixed percentage of the original resale price (I think it’s 20% from memory). While not perfect, it does prevent the insane ticket prices.
This is all managed through an offical resale partner with ticket tek and ticket master. You can only transfer tickets officially though the site, with options to do it for no (or low) charge if you’re sending it to a mate.
I’ve used the service quite a bit, picking up tickets on the day of an event. I’ve had some wins buying tickets for ~30% of the original price, but also plenty of times paying slightly over the original price or I’ve missed one event as there were no available tickets. It’s just something I’ve come to expect for the flexibility it provides.
I think the majority of people use this service rather than trying a third party as it’s official, easy for the seller and no one wants to support insane scalpers.
The only problem I’ve seen with the system is events can elect to not allow reselling on the platform till the event is sold out. This can prevent people recouping their losses if they can’t attend the event, and stops me from potentially getting a small deal.
I wasn't able to go to a convention because my girlfriend already bought plane tickets to Las Vegas. If I weren't able to sell the ticket, there would be no way for me to recoup the cost
Shit happens? Lots of things have the same problem but if you bought steaks from a butcher and you came home to find that your girlfriend already prepare dinner?
In the system that I can resell my ticket I don't have a loss, in a system where it's by name I can't
I believe it should be auctioned anyway, so that the people with the highest desire to go can put their money towards it. This is the most practical solution to the problem - the organizers get paid what the tickets are worth, anyone who wants to go knows how much the tickets will go for, scalpers become futures traders
Ok but what about someone with not much money, but time. They may be willing to camp out for several days (certainly desire there) but would lose out to someone with money who can easily afford it.
If they make tickets non-transferable, they should also make them refundable. We're talking about events that are guaranteed to sell out, they should have a problem finding someone to buy returned tickets, even at the last minute.
However, many venues were already checking ID for over 18/21 shows and also covid test results during the pandemic.
Also regular buyers already have to provide contact and payment info (usually very personally identifiable.)
Some venues have tried to fight scalping by requiring presentation of the card used for payment - though obviously that disadvantages cash buyers and scalpers can still use burner cards which they provide with the ticket.
