Ticketmaster Claims Hacking Over Ticket Resale Site

FlopEJoe writes "Ticketmaster claims that RMG Technologies is providing software to avoid security measures on their website - even to the point of utilizing bots to get large blocks of tickets. RMG says it just 'provides a specialized browser for ticket brokers.' From the New York Times article: 'The fact that tickets to popular events sell out so quickly -- and that brokers and online resellers obtain them with such velocity -- is clouding the business, many in the music industry say. It is enough, some longtime concertgoers say, to make them long for the days when all they had to do to obtain tickets was camp out overnight.'"

Ticket Brokers Suck

[Anonymous Coward]

They are nothing more than scalpers.

Of course, all that is needed to fix this is for tickets to be tied to the credit card. You buy the ticket with the card,you confirm it's your card when you get there.

Desperate for culture...

[TheNarrator]

Speaking of Brittany Spears concerts, It throughly amazes me how desperate people are for "culture". Any public gathering that involves alcohol, some pretension of sophistication or spirituality, and good parking is absolutely overflowing with people these days. Maybe I'm just getting old :/

And we're to feel sorry?!

[FatAlb3rt]

Ticketmaster's been bending us over for years...now we're to feel bad for them? It's too bad TM has such a stronghold on the industry - ticket sales ain't rocket science, especially not at a convenience fee of $10+.... per ticket.

One good turn deserves another...

[garcia]

Coming from the company that has, for the longest time, been ripping off customers and making a killing off unnecessary ticket processing fees which are likely a hold-over from when they were outlets in shopping malls and telephone sales. There is absolutely no reason why I should have to pay such astronomical rates to a third party in order to get tickets for a show to support bands that I want to see because they don't support the RIAA.

If anything, these companies are just paying you back for screwing over legitimate consumers for years by screwing you over more. The TicketMaster model is dead and everyone should really do their own ticketing in order to avoid this non-sense. I am much more likely to pay a band's direct ticketing agent than TicketMaster. Hell, I'm more likely to go to a show when I have to pay anyone other than TicketMaster to get the tickets for any event I attend whether it be sports, theater, or music.

Re:And we're to feel sorry?!

[Chris Pimlott]

I'm not a big fan of TicketMaster either, but anything to stop professional scalpers from buying up huge blocks of tickets is a good thing for the average fan.

I do agree that their fees are overly high; on the other hand, their site does perform rather well under huge swells of traffic when popular event tickets go online. I've had much more frustrating experiences with some other online ticket sites that just buckled under the load.

Re:One good turn deserves another...

[Anonymous Coward]

There is absolutely no reason why I should have to pay such astronomical rates to a third party in order to get tickets for a show to support bands that I want to see because they don't support the RIAA.

Then support your local music scene. Chances are there are more than a few great bands in your city, and the clubs they play at don't even sell tickets through TicketMaster (or if they do it's only for the really big acts/shows). If you don't want to support the RIAA, then that means not supporting the bands on the member labels. It's as simple as that.

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[Broken scope]

What if you buy tickets for a friend... or you give them to a friend because something comes up and you can't go?

Re:Solution

[timmarhy]

the tickets don't reflect the market at all. they are artifically high due to ticket* group of companys fixing prices.

$100 a ticket to see a band? you've got to be kidding me.

they lost my business years ago.

Re:Solution

[Sergeant Pepper]

Uhh... artificially high? The fact that concerts for good bands sell out so quickly shows that they're NOT artificially high.

Re:And we're to feel sorry?!

[Anonymous Coward]

Ticketmaster doesn't really care, its not like they get less money if a scalper buys tickets as opposed to someone who really wants to see the show.

No, but it shows that Ticketmaster underpriced their tickets. If Ticketmaster charged the market price for their tickets, scalpers wouldn't have anything to do.

The only reason scalpers exist is that the Ticketmaster price is much less than the market price.

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[CastrTroy]

This only ensures that the people who end up going to the concerts are yuppies who don't even know who the band is, but just heard their name on TV, and thought it sounded cool. It really sucks that the real fans can't afford tickets.

Re:Solution

[644bd346996]

Forgetting your Econ 101 class? Price ceilings only help the poor when you make sure the poor are first in line. Otherwise, they end up helping the rich just as much (and in the real world, often more so).

Re:Solution

[cHiphead]

You're older and have enough disposable income, the core fans typically do not for newer bands.

It's worse than you think...

[bluelarva]

These so called ticket brokers are actually worse than most people think. I actually had a long conversation with one of these scums. First of all, these guys don't operate small. He claimed that his operation spent over a million dollar a year just on Google AdWords advertisement campaign. That tells you the scale of his operation. He uses a network of machines with bot software to buy up as much tickets as he possibly can for sports events and concerts. The markup on those tickets are astronomical. He deals mostly with movie and sports star agents mostly to unload these tickets at shockingly high prices but those agents don't care because they are out to make their clients happy at all cost. What's sad is how he sometimes end up with bunch of unsold tickets. This creates artificial demand thus increases ticket price for everyone as well as depriving fans who want to go see these events. Whenever you see bunch of empty seats in a sold out baseball game, it's not because the fan had a change of plans or got sick. It's because these scummy ticket brokers couldn't unload them for huge profit. One of the reason why ticketmaster won't do anything about the situation is because these brokers ensure that events are sold out which works out in their favor. They don't care about actual fans getting hold of the tickets. They simply want the tickets sold.

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[DamnStupidElf]

They are nothing more than scalpers.

Damn straight! Service charge here, convenience charge there, credit card processing fee at the end... You were talking about ticketmaster, right?

Re:Where are all the Libertarians now?

[vtcodger]

***Ayn Rand would be so disappointed.Ayn Rand would be so disappointed.***

If I recall my Ayn Rand, high ticket prices wouldn't be a problem in a Randian paradise because artists whose artistic integrity has been transgressed would frequently blow up venues. That would, I am quite certain, discourage desire for tickets and therefore bring ticket prices down.

An interesting and unique solution to a vexing problem.

Note that we could achieve much the same affect by simply marking every 500th ticket with a black border and shooting the guy who buys it. Since scalpers buy many more tickets than ordinary people, we would wipe them out in short order.

Mod Parent Up

[jbengt]

Tickmaster sucks the life out of venues and acts.

Re:You're lucky if it's $10

[CastrTroy]

Unless, of course, the venue [wikipedia.org] happens to be out in the burbs.

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[MoriaOrc]

Because there's no way that someone can simultaneously have money and enjoy music...

ticketmaster is why I don't go to events

[fotbr]

Concerts, sporting events, whatever. If ticketmaster is involved, I don't go.

I just don't like being surcharged and fee'd to death. If its going to turn out to be a $300 ticket, just price the ticket at $300. Not $150 with a $50 convenience fee, a $30 internet-order fee, a $20 online-ticket-printing fee, a $10 "you paid with a visa card" fee, a $20 "processing fee", and a $20 "fee collection surcharge".

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[Protonk]

It still doesn't matter. If the band insists on doing this, then shortages will result, because you have more tickets demanded at that price than will be supplied. In this case you have a direct tradeoff ONLY if you assume that no one breaks the rules (hah). The tradeoff is this. If prices are allowed to rise to equilibrium, then some people will not be able to go because they can't afford it. If we hold prices low, then some people won't be able to go REGARDLESS of their ability to afford it.

The band can make a goal to sell concert tickets cheaply, but if demand is such at that price that it outstrips supply, then they will have trouble meeting that goal. Scalpers move in to resell tickets at what is more likely the market price. Does this mean scalpers are good? No, of course not. Scalpers introduce all sorts of negative externalities, but they are making mutually beneficial transactions occur, they are pretty irrepresable in that regard.

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[Anonymous Coward]

What the hell are you two talking about? Its all incoherent babbling! Mwaaa!

Re:And what exactly makes them scum?

[Anonymous Coward]

And how is that 'artificial demand'?

Scalping only works when they are the only place to get the tickets. If they buy up all the tickets then only sell half of them at three times the face value, they're making a profit, even if they're holding the price well above the real equlibrium price.

The tickets they fail to sell at their higher price should not be counted in the demand for tickets at the higher price, even though all of the tickets had been "sold" (to the scalper, not to the end-users).

Re:Led Zepplin fans with wrong CC get turned away

[Firethorn]

My economic solution, that would also ensure that scalping is minimized would be to hold a dutch auction - everybody bids what they're willing to pay, then the tickets are all sold at the highest price that ensures a sellout.

If that doesn't work, start up with sky-high prices, then gradually drop them until a sellout is achieved - it would minimize scalping because in order to get large numbers of tickets you'd have to buy early, at the higher price.

Though making the tickets non-transferable works at least a little bit.

Besides, scalpers don't always make out - I've heard of them selling tickets at half the price they paid for them on the day of the show because they just can't move them.

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[Firethorn]

Bingo - If you can sell out concerts at $400 per ticket, why sell tickets at $100 per ticket. Sure, you get the excuse 'but legions of my fans can't afford $400'. So what? They can buy the CD/music video DVD when it comes out. If nothing else, it's an incentive for various fans to get better paying jobs, save up, etc...

If they really want to let the people who can only scrounge up $100 attend a show, then hold more concerts. Eventually even the rich fans will run out of money for multiple concerts.

But yeah, I agree with you - I seriously doubt that 'yuppies' will attend many concerts of shows they aren't fans of.

Re:Ticket Brokers Suck

[roguetrick]

Because capitalism doesn't work by adding more men in the middle who do nothing. The only part they may be thought to play is insurance that tickets will get sold, even if the concert is a flop. They're just human leeches.

Re:scalpers manipulate the market

[John Hurliman]

Your proposed solution might work because it makes sure the high profits go the venue/artist, not the scalpers, but it only works if you can design such a system that can keep out/identify the scalpers. These technical hurdles is what caused the problem in the first place: if Ticketwhatever made a system with all security features working as intended, then there would be much less of a problem. The same technical hurdles would need to be taken for your proposed auction system. But the reason scalpers can make a living is because they can manipulate the market. By buying up all tickets, they create an artificial scarecity which enables them to ask what the mark will bear. Selling at a lower than facevalue price is just the cost of obtaining market dominance. Undercover agents with a licence to kill scalpers would be a good solution, but just realising that intervening in a free market is contrary to the US' capitalist ideals, would be an even better solution. Then the only problem is for the venues that don't get all the profits.

The proposed solution has nothing to do with identifying scalpers. Scalpers take advantage of market timing; they attempt to buy up as much of the ticket supply as quickly as possible and sell tickets at higher prices later. In a Dutch auction it's assumed everyone who wanted to buy a ticket has an opportunity to place a bid, and the price point is optimized based on all of the bids. Resellers wouldn't be able to win a majority of the tickets in the auction and resell them at higher prices (above what consumers were willing to bear), they could only sell to people who missed the auction or mis-judged their bids or have more disposable income later on.

The idea that resellers would sell at lower then face value price to obtain market dominance doesn't make any sense... there is an infinite supply of future events and the distribution costs for tickets is extremely low. Are you suggesting that Ticketmaster would be put out of business by resellers that originally bought the tickets from Ticketmaster? The "US capitalist ideals" you talk about are making the market efficient in the best way possible by optimizing profit, and if that means using a different market style like a Dutch auction then that more power to them. It is not intervening in any definition of the word.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying a Dutch auction is definitely the best answer, there are a lot of open questions there. I don't think your reply had any valid rebuttals though.