(12-05-2005) U2 Sell-Out Becomes Scalpers Windfall - Undercover Music News*

[HelloAngel]

U2 Sell-Out Becomes Scalpers Windfall

by Paul Cashmere


U2 shows sold out on the morning of release in both Sydney and Melbourne today and it has proven a windfall for scalpers.

The Sydney show created somewhat of a record with 70,000 tickets being sold within the first hour and a by lunchtime a further 55,000 seats were sold in Melbourne.

It then didn’t take long before tickets started to appear on eBay.

By early afternoon, two A reserve tickets for the Sydney show were fetching $2600 while a couple of general admission seats for the Melbourne show topped $1500.

Scalpers may have jumped the gun with their ticket sales. By tomorrow, they could be back to face value. Second shows are planned for March 25 in Melbourne and April 1 in Sydney. Confirmation of the new dates is expected tomorrow.

http://www.undercover.com.au/news/2005/dec05/20051205_u2.html

 

[Lally1011]

There has GOT to be a better way to let the fans get their hands on tix first.

 

[ShellBeThere]

There has GOT to be a better way to let the fans get their hands on tix first.

Amen...
I understand that it is a sucky thing to have to deal with, and certainly the way the presale happened didn't solve the problem, but I must say I was disappointed that the note going out drumming up U2.com membership states that they will not be dealing with membership-related ticket sales.

Scalping is just so ugly, it's largescale extortion that we're all supposed to just accept, blech.

cheers anyway...

and yeah, right, like adding more shows to poor U2-starved Australia will make the tickets the scalpers horded suddenly be worth "only" face! I'd be very surprised if that turned out to be true!

 

[cypress]

It's really a sad situation. One Aussie I just talked to told me he'd rather get a ticket for a foreign show around face value and book a mini vacation to go see it rather than pay some damn scalper $1000 a ticket to see a show there. It's not the money that bothers him as much as it is the fact that he feels U2 fans there are being taken advantage of by the scalpers. I don't blame him for feeling that way. He'd rather pay the money to anyone else but the scalpers.

 

[Carek1230]

Scalpers just suck.

 

[Earnie Shavers]

There were several auctions that were timed to finish yesterday afternoon. They were people who had gotten pre-sale tickets and started the auctions last week, timed them to finish yesterday afternoon once the first concert had sold hold. Some monkeys paid a fortune for GA tickets, I guess unaware that 20,000 more were about to go on sale. Many of the waaaay over inflated auctions are being run up by people with names like "phukscalpers", and also, if you have a look through all the tickets on sale, I'd guess at the very most there are several hundred individual tickets there on eBay presently across all the Australian shows. Even if you assume that three or 4 times that amount for the Sydney shows end up on there over the coming months, out of the 140,000+ tickets that have/will have gone on sale for Sydney it is still a tiny percentage, not a massive tragedy that is blocking millions of U2 fans from getting to see the band.

I completely agree that it is an awful thing, and understand the anger yesterday from those here who missed out on tickets only to see so many instantly pop up there. I also think there has to be a way around it. For starters, the individual limit should have been lower. 8 tickets is just asking for it. An ID system for smaller shows would be a good idea as well, but understandably a nightmare for anything over maybe 10,000 people, impossible for a stadium gig.

However, at this point in time, I don't think it's some crisis going on. It's a tiny percentage of tickets, and you know it wouldn't actually happen at all if people weren't actually willing to pay the stupid inflated prices. People ARE buying these things for 4 or 5 times the face value on there. The quickest way it would stop would be if the profit wasn't there to be made.

Perhaps for mega-concerts like this, the promoters should dump 5000 tickets straight onto eBay? They'd end up selling for only a small margin above the cost price, then dump another 5000 in there on the week of the show.

 

[ShellBeThere]

People ARE buying these things for 4 or 5 times the face value on there. The quickest way it would stop would be if the profit wasn't there to be made.
....
Perhaps for mega-concerts like this, the promoters should dump 5000 tickets straight onto eBay? They'd end up selling for only a small margin above the cost price, then dump another 5000 in there on the week of the show.

That's a good point...if we didn't buy them they wouldn't buy them to make a profit. I have no idea what scalper stats look like...that is, how many sell at 4 to 5 times face, how many sell at more like twice face, etc. I couldn't afford something near 4 to 5 times face, so it wouldn't be an issue for me, but I wonder who does buy them at that price.
Even if they re-sold them at a merely marginal profit, the whole system makes life more anxiety-filled and very annoying..

And aren't the promoters already doing auctions for some shows? I swear I recall recently getting a email from ticketmaster or somesuch saying I can go and bid on bon jovi tix, or was it coldplay tix?

I just wish they'd make it illegal for someone to sell at much higher than face value, and that would sort of be the end of story wouldn't it? I know it seems communistic and all, but why would we need the 'freedom' to do otherwise? Then people can still scalp on a smaller scale but the power and incentive to do mass-scalping...I'm sorry...'brokering'...would be much reduced.
But hell, I get emails from on-line pharmacies and ads from drug companies trying to sell me uppers and downers all day long, so why would I expect anything to be put in the way of someone making bucks off desires and anxieties?

and good point too about lowering ticket limits and maybe having i.d. systems for small venues. At least the ticket limits--how many people need to buy tickets for themselves and 7 friends?!

cheers!



I do hope that most most people got to get a ticket of some kind without having to pay a scalper much, if anything

 

[Lally1011]

I learned that, in Canada's eBay system (and this is because of Canadian law), you cannot sell tickets for more than the face value. I had to sell concert tickets for my cousin in Toronto. Even though I live in California, I could not list the tickets for more than the face value. Of course, I could have listed them on U.S.' eBay system for more but I wanted to unload them quickly due to time.

So I suppose if there were any solution, it would have to involve your national government.

I'll probably go hard of hearing by then.

 

[gvox]

They get around the laws in Canada by claiming that your auction includes something else like a 'limited' cd or something

Believe me, plenty of tickets sell in Canada for well over face value

 

[ArrogantU2Fan]

I saw several scalpers being arrested at the Dallas U2 show....I think law enforcement of the law would be a good first step...I have and never would buy from a scalper...it is just extortion...Susan