cmb737 said:
No one is, like, in love with eBay. But most of us that are responding in a way that is contrary to your idea of boycotting and witchhunting have bought tickets from eBay and without it wouldn't have gotten tickets any other way. It is impossible to prevent some people from getting some tickets with the sole purpose of reselling them. There are not enough resources to fight this, and frankly governments don't care in many cases.
We choose to fight by not buying tickets that aren't good deals. Just like shopping at one store over another. The market responds. We get what we want. No body is hurt. It is a damn concert anyway, not a homeland security threat.
And frankly, there are many that would probably argue that those issues you mentioned actually help the concert business.
So why aren't people pissed about spending hundreds of dollars above face value for these tickets? Wouldn't you be pissed if you were in the GA ticketing line and someone cut in front of you and bought the last tickets and then turned around and offered to sell them to you for hundreds of dollars more? That is exactly what is happening in this case and people are actually thankful for it. If it happened in person, people would be in fistfights. And don't tell me that's not true, because people are fairly sensitive around these forums about GA line etiquette.
My whole point on this whole issue is that people are thanking eBay for allowing them to get tickets that they were blatantly screwed out of in the first place. eBay's not doing them any favors, eBay is encouraging and facilitating an unfair practice. Why are tickets unavailable seconds after a show goes on sale, is it because of huge fan demand? Absolutely not, it's because of huge BROKER demand. Ticketmaster cannot process 20,000+credit card transactions in 2 minutes, fyi. I don't have any problem with a fellow fan trying to sell a ticket on eBay, hell, I've sold tickets on eBay myself. The difference is I didn't inflate my price 1000%. Could I have? Sure, but why be an a$$hole and screw someone else, that's just not my style. I just saw an auction for one $50 GA ticket with an asking price of $750 PLUS $10 for shipping! And someone will likely buy that ticket. Does the seller deserve to make that much profit? If you think yes, please explain why. Why is that ethical? Why should the broker make 10 times what the band does for selling the same ticket? What is that broker doing FOR you vs. what is the broker doing TO you?
The problem is brokers having inside information that literally steal thousands of tickets from fans. How many stories have you read on here about people not being able to get tickets for MSG seconds after they go on sale? Do you really think that fans are getting all of those tickets? It's huge brokerage houses that get them at face value and then charge out the nose for them. You may call that capitalism, I call it robbery. Check out the links I provided in another post to a single broker who has hundreds of tickets to every venue on the tour. Hundreds of general admission tickets selling for THOUSANDS of dollars. This is not something to be dismissed as something 'that exists so deal with it'.
I am a purist at heart, you could say. I bet you will see a lot of empty seats at the shows this tour and I know that the concert experience is being tarnished by these grossly unmonitored market conditions.
Anyone who says that we fight market conditions by buying tickets that are not good deals just doesn't get it. There shouldn't have to be any 'good deals' unless they are offered by the band or a fellow fan. General Admission tickets at $49 bucks is a fantastic deal, but not being able to buy them for less than $500 is not something that should be accepted. It shouldn't happen in the first place, and thanking eBay for creating a market for brokers to take advantage of true fans is not only unethical, but generally sickening when you think about the alternative experience without broker involvement.
I was just putting this out on the table for discussion and had great hopes for some participation from those who feel shut out. I can clearly see that I should just be happy with the tickets that I did get and not worry about my fellow fan. It's just that I would rather have them next to me at the show rather than someone who is more into being able to afford an overpriced ticket than what the U2 experience is about.
And while I'm a newly registered member here, don't dismiss me as a 'newbie' U2 fan. The first time I saw U2 was in 1987, and I've been to several shows since then, so I have a lot of history and passion about the subject.