Could TicketsNow affect fans' spending habits?

[Bix]

http://www.f4wonline.com/content/view/6432/105/

 

--Reader Rob Kurek of Chicago voiced frustration that has been going on all over Chicago as tickets went on sale for UFC. He tried to buy using the pre sale password but all the $50 and $100 tickets were gone, and he wasn't going to spend $200 (cheapest available) for a ticket. All were gone before the public could get them. But Ticketmaster owns a ticket brokering company called TicketsNow, that has what were the $50 tickets for $193 and is selling the best seats for $2,291.

The tickets are still being bought so the promotion still gets their money, but if this happens more with more events, could it hurt fan goodwill to the point that they'll stop spending money on other stuff sold by the promotion? Will there be less fans in the building and thus less fans buying merchandise? This could have some interesting repurcussions.

 

Also, one of the posters here with a legal background needs to explain how Ticketmaster buying tickets from themselves before the onsale to resell at 4x face value is legal. Is it more of an anti-trust issue than something small-scale?

[Al]

The Chicago Cubs have done this, obviously it has done little to hurt their in-park attendance or bottom line. It seems legal, though a dishonest business practice to say the least. Unfortunately, it seems to be gaining steam as ticket sellers latch on to their own secondhand markets (i.e. Stubhub).

[JHawk]

Certain states do have laws against selling tickets at certain percentages above face value, but those laws very from state to state.

 

New York, for example, limits to 3% above face value.

 

Not sure if Illinois has any such laws.

[Guest Iron Chad]

Ticket scalping is illegal in Kentucky totally (the Lexington police will make a point to bust folks trying to scalp Kentucky basketball tickets in front of Rupp a couple of times every season to give the illusion scalping doesn't happen, which is laughable), but it doesn't make much difference when the ticket scalping capital of the world (Ohio) is just across the river, most of the good seats get eaten up by the brokers in Cincinnati for the big shows in Lexington and Louisville anyway.

 

-Chad

[JHawk]

Ticket scalping is illegal in Kentucky totally (the Lexington police will make a point to bust folks trying to scalp Kentucky basketball tickets in front of Rupp a couple of times every season to give the illusion scalping doesn't happen, which is laughable), but it doesn't make much difference when the ticket scalping capital of the world (Ohio) is just across the river, most of the good seats get eaten up by the brokers in Cincinnati for the big shows in Lexington and Louisville anyway.

 

-Chad

I wish I could dispute this as an Ohio resident, but considering I'll go to Indians games where one guy holding a sign saying "need tickets" is standing five feet from a guy selling tickets and the two of them will never talk to each other, it's pretty accurate.

 

I know they're likely working together, but I'm always "He's looking for tickets, talk to him."

[khawk20]

Music pre-sales are often similar. All the top seats seem to go to ticket brokers who resell them at 2-10x face value. You have to be pretty lucky to get decent seats at a pre-sale. I scored 9th row seats for Rush last september at their presale, and I did the best of everyone on the website that tried. other 9th row seats were available at the brokers for about 5 times the amount afterwards.

 

Point made behind that statement by me is that, while fans rightfully get royally pissed off at this, eventually they will buy the tickets at inflated prices and go anyways. I suspect that UFC fans just now experiencing this will become climatized to it soon enough and just pay it.