Defeating Scalpers of GA tickets

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STING2

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Well, nothing can be done after the scalper or broker has GA tickets in their hands but I think something could be done to prevent Scalpers from getting their hands on GA tickets and reselling them. Make all GA tickets Will Call tickets only. There would be no delivery to the purchaser. In order to get the GA tickets, you would have to go to the Venue the day of the show, and produce identification and the credit card used to purchase the GA tickets. Obviously a credit card for the purchase would be necessary and ticket outlets would only give you a receipt.

But if all 1,800 GA tickets are only given to the purchaser the day of the show from the venue the concert takes place, this virtually takes scalpers and brokers out of the picture for GA tickets. I don't think they could do this for all tickets, but they certainly could do this for the small number of GA tickets. Each arena show has about 1,800 GA tickets available per show.
 
Good thinking. Wouldn't be surprised to see this solution or something like it for the 3rd leg. Seems like it would be simple to do as well.
 
Genius?? Good thinking?? Are you out of your minds?
U2 screwed us out of an opportunity to get presale GA tickets. My only real shot now is to go through a Scalper and pay up the nose.
No one has a realistic shot though the General sale. We won't be competing with 90,000 U2.com members. We'll be competing with a two or three MILLION fans. Maybe more. Maybe a LOT more.

God Bless the scalpers. At least you can depend on them.

p.s.-- For what it's worth. U2 are scalpers. By charging their most devoted fans $40 apiece for an opportunity--just an opportunity--to have a CHANCE at tickets they are in effect scalping their tickets for $40 over the asking price.
 
Honestly at this point, I'd rather buy off a scalper than deal with U2.com in any manner.
 
Matthew_Page2000 said:
Genius?? Good thinking?? Are you out of your minds?
U2 screwed us out of an opportunity to get presale GA tickets. My only real shot now is to go through a Scalper and pay up the nose.
No one has a realistic shot though the General sale. We won't be competing with 90,000 U2.com members. We'll be competing with a two or three MILLION fans. Maybe more. Maybe a LOT more.

God Bless the scalpers. At least you can depend on them.

p.s.-- For what it's worth. U2 are scalpers. By charging their most devoted fans $40 apiece for an opportunity--just an opportunity--to have a CHANCE at tickets they are in effect scalping their tickets for $40 over the asking price.
Click to expand...

Now you're complaing about Sting's idea?
 
Why hasn't someone thought of this before. Great Idea.

As for scalpers, if thats your means to tickets more power to you but I personally refuse to pay more than $50 to see the band. The best part of the concert is not Bono running around. Its the music. I'll just stay after the concert and meet and greet them then.
 
This is a good idea, but that would also prevent us fans from trading and selling tickets to each other at face value. This is one of the best resources we have to actually get GA tickets, and this system would make it impossible.

If it could really stop the scalpers I guess it would be good.
 
The sad part is that I bet the scalpers will find some way around this and continue their ripoffs - or trick and deceive gullible and/or uninformed fans.
 
Yeah this is a good idea in theory, but what about the GA line? Does someone stand in line while the other picks up the tix? Or hey let's all line up and let *them* bring *us* our tickets! Now we're talkin'.
 
Back when Bruce Springsteen & E-Street Band did their Reunion Tour, they had Reserved Floor Seating. If you purchased seats in the First 17 Rows, you could only pick them up after 5:00 on the day of the show. Had to present ID, credit card. They gave you a wristband, and let you into the show immediately.

They were known as "Jailbait Tickets," because of the Row 17 & Under limitation.
 
U24eva said:
Yeah this is a good idea in theory, but what about the GA line? Does someone stand in line while the other picks up the tix? Or hey let's all line up and let *them* bring *us* our tickets! Now we're talkin'.
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Umm...people come and go in the GA line all day to eat, use the bathroom, meet the band when they arrive at the venue, etc. Going to the box office to pick up tix would be nothing. Hell, people left to go to the other side of town to pick up tix from ETS on the last tour and it was no big deal.
 
The bottomline is the whole ticketing process is a dirty business. There will forever be inside deals and shady agreements made between the band's management, promoters, ticket agencies, venues, scalpers, etc.
 
an idea to stop GA abuse

Another thing they could do is not ship paper tickets but make people use ticketfast....people and scalpers are leary of them but if your the first owner of them it doesnt matter.
 
I personally think the reason this hasnt been done on a massive scale is most likely a resource issue, as well as the number of legitimate ticket holders this would cut out.

20,000+ people standing in line to pickup tickets between 5-7pm just isnt realistic. 2000, maybe.
 
In the past I've not seen so much complaining about scalpers or ebay.... I sort of wonder if this conservation would actually even be taking place if U2.com and TicketMaster hadn't royally fucked up.

I think some people are losing sight of the real issue at hand, U2.com made false promises, over sold memberships, and over sold expectations. TicketMaster couldnt deal with it.
 
on another Pearl Jam level, despite being able to get myself General Admission tickets for two shows in the UK the one thing that this week has proved to me is that my love for Pearl Jam now far outweighs that of U2.

With Pearl Jam I feel that they have genuine interest in their loyal fans, and will do their level best to help them and make sure they aren't ripped off.

Unfortunately, U2 seem to of totally lost track and understanding of their fans.

Fighting for the third world is a wonderful thing, but if your other hand is feeding the muli-national rip off corporations who's greed helps to cause poverty then whats the point?

I respect their music, and still cannot wait for the shows, which I know will be great, but just hope Bono doesn't use the occasion to trumpet his causes.
 
I agree something has got to be done. This whole experience has left me disillusioned - I've vowed not to go to anymore large. popular gigs in future. I persevered this time really because I'd gone so far and I was determined to get a result. But NEVER NEVER again unless some better controls are put in place. I'll stick to going to smaller bands, smaller gigs thank you very much.

Yeah, identification idea sounds good - if there is additional admin costs that could be covered by a few £ / $ extra couldn't it ?
For larger cities - fan club people could go to an id controlled event one night and make another night a public sale. People with spare tickets for the id controlled night would be obliged to return them to be passed on to people on a waiting list or traded for face value only.

I eventually got my ticket booked lunchtime today after ticketmaster called me back. I guess there's a few in the same situation thanks to a proactive response from U2 / ticketmaster. That may have appeased the situation, but we should get consumer groups involved and get things changed. These sharks have been getting away with too much for too long and their tricks get worse and worse.
 
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pearl jam ten club members picked up tickets for the MSG shows at the hotel pennsylvania, across the street from the garden... 13,000 tickets were picked up over the course of two days. it's quite do-able if the time and effort is put in.

if there was a legit 5000 to 8000 tickets slotted for u2.com members to each show, they could pull this off. but the reality is there were probably something closer to 1000 tickets or less per show alloted for the pre-sale.
 
Headache in a Suitcase said:
pearl jam ten club members picked up tickets for the MSG shows at the hotel pennsylvania, across the street from the garden... 13,000 tickets were picked up over the course of two days. it's quite do-able if the time and effort is put in.

if there was a legit 5000 to 8000 tickets slotted for u2.com members to each show, they could pull this off. but the reality is there were probably something closer to 1000 tickets or less per show alloted for the pre-sale.
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And now that they're stopped selling presale memberships, U2.com will need to make sure all 100,000 members get tickets to one of the 100 shows they'll play on the tour. Very doable.
 
It comes down to who knew what. If u2.com knew memberships far outweighed number of tickets available for the pre-sale, then they have a problem.

That's false-advertising and unethical.

They should've known: "Okay, we have x number of tickets available for presale". Then they would have the first x number of members who sign up be eligible for tickets.

To have thousands of fans who signed up battling over a paltry amount of tickets is wrong.

It leaves a bad impression.
 
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Elvis said:

20,000+ people standing in line to pickup tickets between 5-7pm just isnt realistic. 2000, maybe.
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Hence the suggestion of doing it just for the GA which is slated at about 1800 for arena shows.
I participated in both the above mentioned Springsteen "Jailbait tickets" scenario and several Pearl jam 10club ticket pick ups.
The difference here between Springsteen is that people will line up since its for GA tix and for Springsteen you didn't have to line up all day as you had seats, but as mentioned people line up anyay for the GA, it just might increase the overall size of the line.
The PJ scenario is a bit different also, people line up to get their tickets at will call cause they are assigned by seniority but in blocks of 50 or 100 tickets. ( I have scanned the listing while picking up my tix on a few occasions), the difference in waiting in line vs showing up at show time is usually a few rows (3 separate times I got 2nd row rather than front cause I didn't hit the line at the crack of dawn). However the tix are usually distributed starting at 3PM, and in theory its not scalper proof, you could pick up tix and go sell them to someone in the parking lot or a broker can have a customer meet him and get them, he just wouldn't be able to guarantee the exact seat location till after picking them up..
The Springsteen system was nearly scalper proof, but some brokers found there way around that, either selling someone 1 of the 2 tix and going with them, or selling a customer a pair of balconies and then trading tix inside with them, and leaving.
the only systen I encountered truly scalper proof was the Stones at the Orpheum theater.
I had to register my guest (wife) 3 weeks in advance of the show. We had to both show up, show ID and get wristbanded, then go to a separate line show ID again and wristbands and get the tickets. You couldn't enter without both a ticket and an inact wristband. So the only way around it was somehow removing the wristband and someone else putting it on while keeping it in tact, very difficult.
So to make the GA system work people would have to pick up their tix and be ushered directly into the building and onto the floor, would take some level of work, but it is do-able.
 
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