Ticketmaster Claims Hacking Over Ticket Resale Site 317
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 (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Led Zepplin fans with wrong CC get turned away (Score:5, Interesting)
They neglected to tell the winners the tickets were non-transferable.
The promoters are telling ticketholders that if their names don't match the names on the credit cards they won't get in.
BBC News has more [bbc.co.uk].
"What we have here is a failure to communicate."
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
They neglected to tell the winners the tickets were non-transferable."
I seem to remember hearing that the tickets were non-transferable when I first heard that they would be available by lottery only. That was the whole idea, cut out the scalping.
Re:Led Zepplin fans with wrong CC get turned away (Score:4, Insightful)
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: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
You could do that at least a bit with a regular dutch auction. If you see that selling 99 out of a 100 items would raise the price by a dollar each, say $20 to $21 dollars. The seller could place an extra 'bid' at $21, buying the last one, increasing the price from $2079 rather than $2000 for an extra profit of $79, plus having the item available.
Still, when you're talking a
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Led Zepplin fans with wrong CC get turned away (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ticket Brokers Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Ticket Brokers Suck (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
All you need to fix this is for tickets to be sold in an auction format. If the highest bidder is a scalper then they won't be able to sell it at a higher price on the marketplace. Presto, no more scalpers. Now to only make sure the bands get the increases in ticket retail values and not TicketMaster or the record companies.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ticket Brokers Suck (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The b
Re:Ticket Brokers Suck (Score:5, Insightful)
Damn straight! Service charge here, convenience charge there, credit card processing fee at the end... You were talking about ticketmaster, right?
Mod Parent Up (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Look on the bright side. It's a sold out concert! This is great for the artists. Maybe the ticket outfit should adjust prices to what the market will bear. It would be a shame if the scalpers bought a bunch of tickets that they couldn't sell.
A good publicity campaign to not use brokers could speed up the process. A good announcement that the tickets have been sold out to scalpers. Due to popular demand, they are now having a second concert next week to meet demand a
Desperate for culture... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Guys get cheaper with gifts every year.
Solution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
On the other hand, I know absolutely nothing about the business - perhaps having shows "sold out" all the time is more important to the marketing of a band, and solving the problem of 3nd party ticket sellers is secondary.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A lot of people buy their tickets early, at face value, and would never consider paying scalper prices. A lot of other people don't bother and are willing to pay far far more. Raising the cost of tickets might force out 3rd parties, but it would, in many cases lead to fewer people buying tickets and thus less profit overall. There are probably very highly paid people working that sort of thing out.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
$100 a ticket to see a band? you've got to be kidding me.
they lost my business years ago.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Solution (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Cheers.
Re: (Score:2)
so just about 40.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Solution (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I'd say that only the rich and well-to-do deserve to go to concerts.
Re:Solution (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even with a lottery system, we only 'help' the people who both win the lottery and can afford the TM price. And since when did access to overpriced concerts become some charitable goal? Are we really so socially conscious that TOOL needs t
Re: (Score:2)
And we're to feel sorry?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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:And we're to feel sorry?! (Score:5, Informative)
1. You navigate to their website past the dozens of scalper pretenders and through their horrible interface.
2. Select your area and click go. It's not always clear where exactly the tickets are, but I guess if you do it enough you'll learn the terminology.
3. Now you have to do their Captcha, which usually has a bunch of 1s and Os, or Is and 0s, it's a bit of a crapshoot getting it right.
4. After a few minutes you get randomly given some seats. If you'd prefer to have one higher up but closer around a side or down the middle, well, tough. You can try to have more tickets randomly generated but they'll tend to be in the same area time and time again.
5. Now you have to high stress part of buying the tickets. You're presented with a huge form with your name, address, etc... and told that if you can't fill all of the info in within 2 minutes then you'll lose your tickets and have to start over
6. Do it again for the credit card info.
7. And for the delivery part. If the site is going to crash, it will usually do it here, or the next page will just take more than a minute to load and when you finally get it the page will already be timed out.
8. Otherwise you get the joy of spending $10 or $15 to have them email you a PDF and have you print it out on your own paper with your own ink. I'm sure glad they managed to email me for only $10.
At least once you have the PDF (which tells you very clearly to print out the whole thing on an 8.5x11 or it won't be valid, despite the fact that 75% of the page is just ads). When you get to the venue all they care about is the barcode on the bottom.
Every time I see the system I think I could write a website that could easily do the same thing for less than a dollar a ticket. The trick is of course that I wouldn't have the vast sums of money to buy out venues across the country to insure the monopoly.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Every time I see the system I think I could write a website that could easily do the same thing for less than a dollar a ticket. The trick is of course that I wouldn't have the vast sums of money to buy out venues across the country to insure the monopoly.
brownpapertickets [brownpapertickets.com]
I've only used them once (or maybe twice), but it worked fine. It was when a band had *very* early advance ticket sales to supporters (essentially low level patrons).
Ticketweb [ticketweb.com] also handles a lot of small clubs in the LA area and isn't usually too expensive. It's gotten so that things are likely enough to sell out at small clubs that advance tickets are a good idea, even for a lot of local bands.
Re: (Score:2)
Just like there is no better way to stop piracy than through conv
Re: (Score:2)
Whats interesting is that the article says this company RMG is a
Re: (Score:2)
Except the price for the ticket isn't set by Ticketmaster. It's set by the venue. Ticketmaster just adds their service fees to the ticket. Very rarely, the ticket price is set by the band (they'll choose a different venue if they think the venue is charging too much for the tickets).
Nephilium
Re: (Score:2)
Re:And we're to feel sorry?! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Distribute 5000 seats equally to TM, company X, company Y, etc. The outrageous fees will be the first thing to drop. Magically, the broker-avoidance security features might actually work. If you know that outlet X "never" seems to have tickets, you won't buy tickets from that outlet for the NON-SELLOUT concerts.
But this is all pie in the sky, of course. Even communism looked good from a bird's eye v
Re: (Score:2)
Ticketmaster signs exclusivity agreements with venues and promoters, and gets venues to only work with ticketmaster promoters, and promoters to only work with ticketmaster venues. So a venue can't use multiple vendors, as no promoters would work with them, as working with them would get them blackballed from all the other ticketmaster venues. Vicious cycle
You're lucky if it's $10 (Score:2)
In the end, I drove down to the venue box office and bought my ticket for list price. Just one of the perks of living in the city that hosts the events. People out
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Because there's a tour schedule that the band has to stick to. Not to mention, for those larger bands, there's the question of availability of the venue. The venue isn't going to want to leave an open night "just in case". They want something going on every night, and they usually try to get their schedules set up months in advance.
Nephilium
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
get real, it's a business otherwise they would be playing on street corners for pocket change. ( I have found bands that kick as in local bars ). A promoter pays the band, buys the concession and tries to make a buck or three. don't pay the price and you won't be seeing the show.
don't worry, the good thing is that great bands can be seen at cheap prices if you are not following the crowd but are willing to take a risk in listening to someone new,
One good turn deserves another... (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Thank you.. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What? Generally, it is the facility that handles that sort of thing, not the act. Unfortunately, many facilities have decided to hand that sort of thing over to TicketMaster. In my area, there was a competing, smaller organization that handled that sort of thing, but they fell into disfavor when their employees were abusing their ticketing authority by handing out the best tickets to their friends and such, so the biggest aren
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Uhh, that's what I was talking about but thanks for allowing someone to waste their mod points on your post which is redundant.
Several obvious solutions (Score:5, Interesting)
2) Auction
3) Non-transferable tickets
An auction is the most capitalistic approach. Scalpers won't bid much lower than they think they can resell the tickets for later.
A lottery adds some fairness but only if you can limit the number of tickets per buyer and avoid the straw-buyer problem.
Non-transferable tickets that are refundable for 100% of the purchase price will solve the scalpers-buying-up-all-the-tickets problem but they aren't too useful if your target audience is children and others who don't have ID cards.
For popular shows, I'd go with selling non-transferable tickets, where any adult would need an ID that matched the name on the ticket and children would have to be accompanied by someone sitting nearby. If after a few days the promoters realize a given block of seats is not expected to sell out, I would lift the non-transferable restriction and let people sell their tickets on the open market. Anyone needing to return tickets could get their money back less the usual ticket-service charge.
If you show up with a non-transferable ticket in hand that doesn't have your name on it, you are turned away. You can contact the original purchaser to beg him to get you a refund.
I'm not sure how this would work for shows oriented to the 12-15 crowd, as these people usually come without their parents but without any ID other than a school ID.
Re: (Score:2)
Wanna bet? Scalpers who sell a few tickets at 4X the price can survive just fine with 1/2 the tickets unsold or sold at a loss in the last few minutes. They can get their 4X price if they can corner the market by eliminating the competition. As you have just seen, it is done by buying all the tickets within moments of opening. Now try to find a ticket at less than double the price...
Re: (Score:2)
It's their problem to solve, not mine. (Score:3, Interesting)
Captcha Problems (Score:4, Interesting)
1) enter in the captcha before the tickets go on sale, and purchase when available
2) bypass the captcha because its not a requirement to make a purchase
3) the captcha not complex enough to fool a computer for a few minutes
No software should be getting around it without someone typing in the magic letters after the tickets go on sale.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A human using the system is beyond the stated scope.
Happened before - will happen again...and again... (Score:2)
As long as there is commodity demand, there will be someone short-cutting the process for their own advantage.
Ticketmaster and ticket resellers (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"They are both worthless companies that do no add any value what so ever. Both can DIAF and the industry would be much better."
I'll assume the "no" instead of "not" was a typographical error. However, "what so ever" is preferred as "whatsoever". This is the first time I've seen the acronym "DIAF". I had to go look it up to find out that it means "die in a fire". I must be getting old.
"The phrase "more better" is
Let the market handle it... (Score:2)
It's worse than you think... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
No matter what practices TM puts into place, the scalper-scum will continue to dominate the market?
Why, you may ask?
Because the scalper-scum have moles working in TicketMaster's IT department.
Good luck finding them, guys....
And what exactly makes them scum? (Score:2)
Bottomfeeder.com (Score:2)
The parent company of Ticketmaster is IACI, which also owns Ask.com, LendingTree, Match.com, the Home Shopping Network, the remnants of Excite, and some real estate companies. It's Barry Diller's company.
The corporate history of Ticketmaster [fundinguniverse.com] is fascinating. Paul Allen owned it for a while (and, unusually, managed not to screw it up.) They've sued Microsoft over deep linking, and been sued by Pearl Jam over their monopoly.
ticketmaster is why I don't go to events (Score:3, Insightful)
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".
The largest scalper (Score:2)
The government should ban scalping (Score:2)
Problem solved.
Free Market and Technology (Score:2, Interesting)
Here is where the money is! (Score:3, Interesting)
1) It tells me that ticket prices are, basically, under-priced. If scalpers are buying up the tickets and selling them for 10 times the face value, then Tickemaster should be selling those tickets at ten times what they are currently selling them for.
2) It tells me there is a lot of money in live performances. If I were a performer, I would capitalize on this by putting on 15 shows in a city instead of 5 (or however many I could continue to sell out) before moving on to the next city. While digital music is becoming worthless, clearly some live performances are skyrocketing in value.
3) It tells me that Ticketmaster needs to work on developing technology that can limit the number of tickets that can be purchased by any given entity or individual.
Re: (Score:2)
The first tenant of the free market is that all players have equal information and access, so sorry, you've flunked reading even the summary. Using a botnet to storm the ticket seller's site is not "able and willing to buy in volume" in the free market sense.
Re: (Score:2)
Wrong. The first tenants of the free market are the poor.
Or did you mean tenet [princeton.edu]? 8^)
I was offered this job . (Score:2)
I should emphasize the point that while Libertarians believe in a free market, that does not mean that they are unethical... quite the contrary. Underhandedly buying commodities in bulk while others are limited to a few each is not a "free market" principle... on the contrary, it is cheating and an anti-competitive (monopolistic) practice.
I should a
Re: (Score:2)
The problem here isn't people reselling tickets, it is allowing them to buy them so much faster than everybody else.
No. (Score:2)
Second, Libertarians are not Anarchists. Only "radicals"
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Like some other posters here, I am not a big fan of Ticketmaster. But what
Re: (Score:2)
my argument to that is, if that's the case then
(A) the ticket outlet is selling the tickets for far less than they are worth
and/or
(B) there are a sufficiently large number of consumers (fans) that are willing to pay far above commonly accepted value (meaning the actual value of the ticket is more than you think it is)
The law of supply and demand makes sure that products are sold at the