Before he asked Fashion to add me to Book of Resell, he warned me that some of the chitchat is not something he personally finds palatable. He typically uses the profit on a ticket he scalps to pay for his own ticket, and sometimes uses the advice he reads to help his friends.
The advent of this kind of fan-to-fan transaction was predicted almost three years ago by Ken Lowson, the most famous ticket scalper of all time.
When the Wild West days of bots were over—and Lowson had paid his fines—he started a new company called TixFan, which pays real fans to get Verified Fan codes from Ticketmaster and go shopping on behalf of wealthy customers or brokers. Who knows? But if a fan buys four tickets and sells two, what does he care? The second priority—which is much more tangible and in some ways easier to live by than the first—is making sure that everyone adheres to ticket limits.
But buying four tickets and flipping them counts, in most cases, as playing by the rules. While fans and scalpers might not have any particular love for one another, the real hate is always reserved for the big guy.
When error codes pop up or carts glitch, fans and scalpers alike feel burned. They hang out in group chats. They chattered about Harry Styles for days, maybe not going so far as witchcraft on his behalf, but certainly going far enough with other things. Being a fan at a certain level becomes an education in the music industry, and being a scalper is the same from the other side. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic.
Popular Latest. The Atlantic Crossword. Sign In Subscribe. It may be a good idea to split your spreadsheet into different types of event. That way, you'll be able to see where the most money is. Method 2. Determine whether a show will sell out. Especially if you're selling a ticket in person, you need to make relatively sure that there will be a demand for the upmarked tickets you're trying to sell.
There is only a promise of demand if the event sells out. You can usually have a decent idea whether or not a show will sell out based on other shows that artist or team have put on.
Look online to see if earlier events sold out. Artists who charge the least for tickets are your best bet as a prospective scalper. Some artists may charge as much as they can for tickets, while others will purposefully undercharge with the hopes of capitalizing on merchandise sales once their customers are inside the venue. Aim to buy higher quality tickets. Unlike selling online, you are probably not going to be able to sell to a large amount of buyers while scalping in person.
Realistically, a dedicated scalper may only sell to a few parties in one night, so it's important to make those sales count with higher quality tickets. Buy your tickets early, and make sure the tickets themselves are part of a tier that's bound to sell out fast. Get to the venue early. It doesn't hurt to get to the venue early. After all, fans who are desperate to get tickets aren't going to wait around to head over.
For the highest demand events, you may have all of your tickets sold hours before the show starts. Getting to the venue will also give you a time to gain some selling momentum before the majority of ticket-holders show up and things begin to get chaotic. Make sure the buyers have the cash beforehand. Because of the illegality of scalping tickets, you won't be able to go to the police if you're cheated by a prospective buyer.
Before handing anyone your tickets, make sure they actually have the cash to pay for it. Be loud. You don't exactly need to have a brilliant marketing scheme when it comes to scalping tickets, but you do need to make people aware that you're selling them. Be loud, and shout what you're selling. You can repeat this information loudly. If there is a demand for what you're selling, people will eventually come up to you and ask.
For example, if you were selling great tickets to a sold-out Dream Theater concert, you could say something like this: "Dream Theater, front row! Pair of tickets. Some people who approach you may be more likely to accept a price once they've already opened a dialogue with you, as opposed to hearing a high price before approaching. Make the exchange. Once the interested buyer has agreed to your price, its a simple matter of exchanging the tickets for the cash.
The exchange itself should be fast and painless. There may be reason to be suspicious if the buyer is procrastinating or wasting time. In the vas majority of cases, buyers looking for scalped tickets are in a rush to get inside the venue, so an interaction shouldn't take very long once the price has been agreed upon. Don't expect the buyer to show much in the way of gratitude. Scalpers are looked down on, and although they technically getting into a sold-out show because of you, the opportunism isn't going to get you into anyone's good graces.
Lower your prices if necessary. Like so many things in business, there is an element of financial risk in scalping tickets. Sometimes, a show will not sell out near as much as you thought you would. The tickets you are selling may not be quite as demanded as you had hoped for. If you're having bad luck, don't be afraid to lower your ticket prices. If there is no hope of selling them for a profit, you should cut your losses and sell the tickets at face value or below.
It will be a defeat, but nowhere near as much as if you let the tickets go to complete waste. On a brighter note, selling tickets at their face value is completely legal, so you won't have to worry about infringing upon the law if it turns out you have to lower your prices.
But ticket resellers who break those rules have no reason to be concerned, the sales executive reassured. A blind eye will be turned. Trade Desk staff are aware their users harvest tickets using multiple Ticketmaster accounts, the sales executive said. Star and CBC reporters asked what happens if staff at Ticketmaster headquarters detect unusual activity in the purchasing patterns of a Trade Desk user, such as the use of bots.
Will they ask for information from the resale division? Reporters from the Star and CBC attended the ticket scalpers conference in Vegas undercover because media were not allowed into sessions where the collaboration between Ticketmaster and scalpers was to be discussed.
For months, Ticketmaster has declined interview requests to address these issues. After attending the conference, the Star and the CBC gave Ticketmaster an opportunity to review what their sales people had said and comment. They declined. In response to a detailed list of questions, the company provided a statement. Ticketmaster has previously claimed to have stopped five billion purchase attempts by bots in alone. Reg Walker, a leading British expert on ticket scalping, questioned why Ticketmaster would make a program for scalpers.
That needs investigating by the authorities. In response, Prestige Entertainment West Inc. During a video conference this spring, another Trade Desk sales executive, speaking with Star and CBC reporters who posed as brokers, explained how Ticketmaster does not want to catch scalpers using multiple accounts. I think the last thing we want to do is impair your ability to sell inventory.
And the more users scalp, the greater the incentives become. In a session closed to media, Ticketmaster Resale senior director Casey Klein stood in front of conference room packed with hundreds of scalpers.
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