Scalping now legal in NY - How will this affect getting U2 tickets day of show?!

[randhail]

Actually, you know better than that. Most people do in fact associate it with Native Americans, despite its origins. If you mean most academics associate it with Scythian soldiers, then you've got me. And so it's still a joke.

And, no insult intended, you just seem very very serious. Nothing wrong with that.

What's the matter with you, you didn't know about the ways of the Scythian military? It's common knowledge.

 

[BVS]

Well I meant worldwide, not just in America. In America, you are probably right.

And really I'm just a cyborg uncapable of humor.

 

[twochordcool]

Perhaps the thread starter is ignorant of the fact that a quarter mile plus radius around the arena will remain a no-scalp zone.

This WILL NOT prevent competing with at least the same amount, if not more, scalping scum, for U2 tickets, at the box office on the day of the show. They can purchase along with everybody else - and they'll just have to continue to sneak around and sell tickets in parking garages - or down the block.

 

[No spoken words]

Well I meant worldwide, not just in America. In America, you are probably right.

And really I'm just a cyborg uncapable of humor.

Resistance is futile?

 

[twochordcool]

This thread IS about the affect that scalping has on the U2 fan - but if you want it to be more about U2...Can anyone tell me when we can expect new music from them?

 

[LemonMelon]

This thread IS about the affect that scalping has on the U2 fan - but if you want it to be more about U2...Can anyone tell me when we can expect new music from them?

New single, "Severe Lightheadedness" (featuring an Italian chorus), comes out September 2008.

 

[ntalwar]

StubHub is the one that lobbied for this new law, and they'll benefit. Ordinary fans of any event who can't go will be able to sell their tickets at market value, not face value. Tickets get scalped based on demand and supply, just like any other commodity gets scalped (stocks, bottled water, etc.). If U2 played more shows, scalpers would be less of a factor.

 

[twochordcool]

New single, "Severe Lightheadedness" (featuring an Italian chorus), comes out September 2008.

You don't REALLY expect me to believe that, do you?

 

[BVS]

Resistance is futile?

You're right...

 

[LemonMelon]

You don't REALLY expect me to believe that, do you?

Seriously, best guess for a new single is September of next year, maybe something sooner for charity or whatever...

 

[No spoken words]

Fucking Borg are everywhere.

 

[BVS]

Fucking Borg

I'm not programmed to do that either.

 

[LemonMelon]

Fucking Borg are everywhere.

Stop judging by the material of a person's skin.

 

[No spoken words]

Stop judging by the material of a person's skin.

That's funny. Nice.

 

[The Sad Punk]

What's the matter with you, you didn't know about the ways of the Scythian military? It's common knowledge.

They also smoked massive amounts of hemp.

... we need a thread about the Scyths, right now.


... shit, what's this topic about again?

 

[MrsSpringsteen]

The majority of scalpers on the street (for concerts, sporting events) that I see are middle aged white guys. And the biggest scalpers of all are ticket agencies which are owned for the most part in my (limited) experience with them by middle aged white guys-maybe they hire minorities to go to the box office etc. and do their leg work while they sit back and get fatter and richer.

 

[Bonochick]

Thread topic:

Scalping now legal in NY - How will this affect getting U2 tickets day of show?!

 

[U2FanPeter]

Will U2 ever enter the ticket brokering game? (For example giving all monies above face value to MUSIC RISING???)

This would only apply to a couple dozen tickets per show, not every seat/GA.

u2fp

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Have you ever tried getting tickets for a U2 concert day of show at Madison Square Garden? If it's anything like it was at the Hartford Civic Center it's as if half the youth population of Compton and Harlem decends on it and tries to scarf up every available ticket in order for them to go outside on the streets and sell them to somebody like you or I for triple or quadruple the money - and if they're GA's forget about it. Quite disgusting really. Kills the pre-concert vibe for me entirely if I am still trying to get tickets while witnessing this for too long.

a) compton is in los angeles, not new york.
b) your mention of harlem only adds to your ignorance... that particular section of manhattan is mostly black, yes. but the crime rates there are relatively low, and the area has undergone a sort of rennesance over the past decade or so. but it is still known as "where black people are."

you have a point in your core argument. don't ruin it with inert racism.

there's a kid i coach, junior in high school. school, located in one of the richest neighborhoods on long island, has a uniform, so he looks/dresses just like all the trust fund white kids. well spoken, decent grades, etc. etc. if you see him, you'd think he's a nice young man... you'd call him an "african american."

there's another kid, lives on 125 and lex, dead smack in the middle of harlem. loves rap music, dresses according to the style of the culture of the day. if you saw him, you'd say he was an "inner city street thug."

problem is, of course, i'm talking of the same person.

 

[Canadiens1131]

I don't get why people freak out on scalpers. It's a free market, baby. There is a large group of people who will pay a crazy amount of money for concert tickets and who do not want or cannot put in the effort of lining up early in the morning or checking Ticketmaster every day for free seats.

Between message boards, fan mailing lists, friends and relatives, and the usual personal efforts, it's pretty hard to imagine a "true fan" couldn't score a ticket.

Maybe this is just me as I like seeing one or two shows and don't follow the band up and down the East Coast and see 8 shows.

 

[BonoIsMyMuse]

Between message boards, fan mailing lists, friends and relatives, and the usual personal efforts, it's pretty hard to imagine a "true fan" couldn't score a ticket.

That was my experience. I had nosebleed seats for the last show I went to, but a few days before, I found GAs on ebay, which I got for only about $10 apiece above face value. The person selling them was a big fan but had something work-related come up that he couldn't get out of. I sold my nosebleeds to someone at face value (who ended up shaking hands with Bono later that night, but that's another story).

Trying to get tickets on the day of the show is inherently risky. Even if there were no scalpers, there'd still probably be more people there than there are tickets. That's why I'd never do it. I either get my tickets in advance or resign myself to the fact that I'm not going to get to go.

 

[ntalwar]

The person selling them was a big fan but had something work-related come up that he couldn't get out of. I sold my nosebleeds to someone at face value (who ended up shaking hands with Bono later that night, but that's another story).

Trying to get tickets on the day of the show is inherently risky.

And a lot of fans with extra tickets sell them to scalpers, who then resell them. I showed up at MSG once without a U2 ticket, and ended up buying one from a fan after looking for sellers for about an hour or two. He charged me double face value for it btw.

 

[twochordcool]

you have a point in your core argument. don't ruin it with inert racism

I'm not being racist - I only gave you a description of what I saw that day. It's not my fault that 95% of the scalpers were rap culture lookin' black kids. Don't shoot the messenger.

It is possible I painted an unnecessarily detailed picture of what I witnessed that day, but you shouldn't be so sensitive that I can't simply describe what I witnessed that day.

In this case who is getting wronged, the people trying to acquire tickets through these scalpers? Or the scalpers because they are being described as exactly who they are? Give me a break.

 

[Canadiens1131]

I don't have a problem with selling tickets to scalpers day of show, you just have to make sure they don't give you counterfeit bills for them. It's fairly easy to spot on Canadian money, thankfully. All you really have to go on with the US 20s are the watermark and texture.

 

[twochordcool]

That was my experience. I had nosebleed seats for the last show I went to, but a few days before, I found GAs on ebay, which I got for only about $10 apiece above face value. The person selling them was a big fan but had something work-related come up that he couldn't get out of. I sold my nosebleeds to someone at face value (who ended up shaking hands with Bono later that night, but that's another story).

Trying to get tickets on the day of the show is inherently risky. Even if there were no scalpers, there'd still probably be more people there than there are tickets. That's why I'd never do it. I either get my tickets in advance or resign myself to the fact that I'm not going to get to go.

1) Getting GA's on ebay for $10 over face value is the exception not the rule.

2) There are ALWAYS some kind of tickets that come available at the box office on the day of show - if you go early and are flexible odds are with you that you will get tickets.

 

[twochordcool]

The problem is that these tickets can get too expensive if there is no price regulation and that is wrong. U2 fan(atic)s are too passionate to think rationally if they have a wad of money in their pockets and someone has tickets but wants a killing for them. I think anti-scalping laws protect people - perhaps from themselves somewhat, but also from thieves. Conservatives think you shuld let the market dictate what prices ought to be for things but I think it can get too carried away.

 

[Canadiens1131]

The problem is that these tickets can get too expensive if there is no price regulation and that is wrong. U2 fan(atic)s are too passionate to think rationally if they have a wad of money in their pockets and someone has tickets but wants a killing for them. I think anti-scalping laws protect people - perhaps from themselves somewhat, but also from thieves. Conservatives think you shuld let the market dictate what prices ought to be for things but I think it can get too carried away.

So you want legislation to protect people from doing what could be considered stupid things based on impulse?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

I'm not being racist - I only gave you a description of what I saw that day. It's not my fault that 95% of the scalpers were rap culture lookin' black kids. Don't shoot the messenger.

It is possible I painted an unnecessarily detailed picture of what I witnessed that day, but you shouldn't be so sensitive that I can't simply describe what I witnessed that day.

In this case who is getting wronged, the people trying to acquire tickets through these scalpers? Or the scalpers because they are being described as exactly who they are? Give me a break.

"the scum of society"

"the scum of the earth were out in full force"

"hiring homeless drunks"

"I don't know how close I came to getting a knife in the gut that day"

"it's as if half the youth population of Compton and Harlem decends on it"

"some punk inner city street kids"



"And whether you like it or not, out of about 20 of them in Hartford that day about 19 of them were black street-types with no interest whatsoever in U2.

And I was told it was even worse at Madison Square Garden."


the funniest part of this entire thing is that here you are talking about what it was like/will be like at Madison Square Garden, and you didn't even wittness it yourself. You wittnessed Hartford.

see, i'm as far from a member of the "PC Police," and i rarely go "ACLU" on someone. you're probably not trying to be racist, this is true. but you are implying that a black man who dresses in the way of "hip hop culture" is some inner-city punk who may or may not knife you in the gut. that's a rather broad stroke there... how do you know the person isn't from the suburbs and commuted in because he's trying to make a buck? privliged kids from the 'burbs can be just as scummy as those from the "inner-city."

why are those who work for companies like the one who's ad adorns this page not "scum of the earth?" for one, i see absolutely no difference. both are trying to exploit supply and demand for their own financial gain. why does one's appearance even need to be brought into the conversation? just make the point about the tickets, if you have one, and leave the rest out of it.


the reality of the entire situation is that it's up to the bands themselves to combat scalpers... pearl jam does it, springsteen (who's demand in the NYC area is as big if not bigger than U2's) has done it, u2 does not. there is your #1 problem.

 

[twochordcool]

Well, they were rude, they were aggressive, and I'm sorry but they were black. And it was quite obvious they were not U2 fans. And that isn't only because they happened to be black.

You don't need to lecture me about anything - I have worked my entire life with decent people of all races.

I guess it just bothered me that people that were so obviously not U2 fans were allowed to run rampant, buying up tickets, bumping into people, cutting in front of people, and coming back for more, etc. It was wrong that this was allowed and I'm sure I wasn't the only one who had animosity towards these people for how they behaved, coupled with, perhaps unforunately, who they were. But they brought that upon themselves.

To me this is as obvious as letting granny off easy at airport security checkpoints and patting down middle-eastern men as if our lives depended on it - COMMON SENSE really.

Now it's no longer a crime - don't know if it was in CT - but it ought to be everywhere because very little good will come of it being legal - especially at U2 concerts.

 

[twochordcool]

New Zealand seems to have gotten it right (or proposed to get it right) but we're too busy being the capitalist pigs that we are to do the right thing.

This article says that U2 tickets were going for 8 times their face value - that's OUTRAGEOUS.

Scalping law to help land international sports events

12:00AM Wednesday November 01, 2006

By Errol Kiong

Proposed laws will see ticket scalping banned in a move the Government says will make New Zealand a more attractive venue for international sporting tournaments.

If passed, the laws will outlaw the on-selling of tickets for profit - a common occurrence in everything from test matches to concerts.

Tickets for Lions-All Blacks test matches last year fetched two to three times their value on auction site Trade Me, despite threats from the Rugby Union to confiscate scalped tickets.

Economic Development Minister Trevor Mallard said the proposal applied mainly to sporting events such as the 2011 Rugby World Cup and the 2015 Cricket World Cup but legislators would consider other definitions of "major events" not linked to sports.

Last year, black-market tickets for U2 concerts fetched up to eight times their face value before the Irish band announced it was postponing its tour.

Mr Mallard said the proposed ban on scalping would be included in a bill that would also control ambush marketing. He said the bill would protect event sponsors from individuals or businesses seeking to make money by mass-buying tickets to an event with which they had no formal association.

"When there is bulk buying of tickets to such events simply for the purpose of profiteering, scalping is a rip-off that could deny many people the opportunity to see the event."

The proposed penalties includes fines, the right to require the illegal profiteer to hand over profits to the ticket issuer, and the right to obtain injunctions to halt on-line trading.

Germany introduced scalping controls at this year's Soccer World Cup. More than a dozen American states have banned scalping, as have some states in Australia. In the United Kingdom, it is a criminal offence to scalp football tickets, although it is still a common practice.

Trade Me business manager Mike O'Donnell had yet to see the proposed legislation last night.

"Certainly we'd be interested in any proposed measures to legislate in that area. If the law changes ... that would change the way we implement the business rules on our site."

New Zealand Rugby Union deputy chief executive Steve Tew welcomed the Government move to legislate against scalpers.

"We've obviously taken a stand against scalping during the past three or four years. We made endeavours during the Lions tour last year to try and take the people out of the game who were making a profit from buying up tickets that genuine rugby fans should be getting and then taking money away from the game."

The union had made it known that terms and conditions on its tickets to prevent scalping could lead to people buying from unauthorised sellers ending up with an invalid ticket.

Mr Tew said legislation would help organisers protect their intellectual property and the integrity of events.

JUST THE TICKET

The proposed new law means:

* It will be illegal to sell a ticket for more than its face value. Tickets can be on-sold, as long as there is no profit.

* It will be unlawful to give away tickets as part of a promotion package in a manner which suggests the company is an authorised sponsor (ambush marketing by association).