I don't know how it is in your state, but in Illinois ticket brokers are legal. They are the same as scalpers, except they are legal. Here you can do that as long as you don't sell at the venue. I know, doesn't make sense. Here's something I'm posting everywhere:
I am contacting all my senators and representatives, and I'm asking
all of those in Illinois who hate scalpers to do this as well.
Why am I contacting my reps? Simple, I'm tired of fans being shafted
when it comes to tickets. On Saturday, January 29, at 10am (even
before this actually), I went online to get tickets for U2. Outside
of Duran Duran, U2 was the only other show I wanted to see this
spring. I made a budget so that I could finally see U2 in concert.
I had a rough time getting through, but finally it said Ticketmaster
was supposedly searching. After 15 minutes, it said nothing was
available. They even added additional shows, but these sold out
while I was online. At first I figured that since it was a hot show,
everyone tried to get tickets. I've since found out the majority of
those buying tickets were in fact scalpers, or "brokers".
How does this apply to contacting politicians? In Illinois, it's
legal to be a broker. These brokers buy hot tickets, and then sell
them as much as 50 times the worth of the ticket, or even more. I've
seen tickets from these brokers going for as much as $1,000 for a
ticket with a face value of $165. Yes, many of these brokers get
tickets from people selling tickets (such as comp tickets, etc).
However, when these companies take tickets away from fans, only to
resell them to fans at a huge markup, then this is a major problem.
Not only are fans being screwed, nothing can be done since these
companies are legal.
I am asking the state of Illinois to make brokers illegal, like they
are in most states. I realize that making them illegal won't make
them go away, but I firmly believe the problem will be less of a
problem. The fleecing of fans needs to stop, but it can't stop
unless others join the fight.
Besides contacting your reps, other ways to fight this include not
buying these tickets. As much as I want to go to the U2 show, or get
better Duran Duran tickets, I refuse to give these people any money.
I would rather sit at home than give them money so they can continue
this. If more people do this, I believe the problem will lessen.
Please join me in this fight, and say NO MORE!