In the Opinion Pages of the NY Times today, Albert A. Foer, "a lawyer formerly with the Federal Trade Commission [who] is president of the American Antitrust Institute," writes that:

AT this moment, all over the United States, consumers are buying tickets to games, concerts and other live events under the impression that they have the right to give away, donate or resell the tickets they purchase. They assume that they can do so whenever and with whomever they wish and (as long as they don't violate the few remaining laws against scalping) at whatever price they choose.

But those consumers may be mistaken. In recent years ticket sellers, along with promoters, producers, artists and sports teams, have increasingly taken a new approach to selling tickets. This approach, marketed in the name of innovation, convenience and protecting purchasers, restricts those fundamental freedoms long rightly taken for granted.

The practice is so-called paperless ticketing...

Read the whole article at the NY Times, including the part where he admits that "The American Antitrust Institute, of which I am president, received a modest contribution, in the form of sponsorship of a conference last year, from an advocacy group financed in part by StubHub."

"This week a new nonprofit group, the Fans First Coalition, announced itself with a mission of protecting ordinary consumers from predatory ticket scalpers. The group appeared to have broad support from the industry, including prominent artists like R.E.M., the Dixie Chicks, Maroon 5 and Jennifer Hudson.

What fans might not know is that the coalition is financed by Live Nation Entertainment, the parent company of Ticketmaster, and that it has grown out of a lobbying fight between Live Nation and StubHub, the biggest legal online ticket reseller, over control of the multibillion-dollar secondary ticketing market." [NYTimes]

As previously mentioned, tickets to the four LCD Soundsystem shows at Terminal 5 go on sale Tuesday, but now we also know the exact time, price, openers, and a lot of special rules. LCD says:

basic bullet points to know:

-monday and tuesday, march 28 & 29 will feature liquid liquid.

-wednesday and thursday, march 30 & 31, will feature shit robot live.

-tickets for all four terminal 5 shows (march 28/29/30/31) will go onsale via ticketmaster at 9.00am on tuesday 22nd.

-there is a two ticket per person limit.

-the cost of a ticket is $40.00. ticketmaster charges will be $6.90 plus $2.05 per order handling fee. (that's the best we could get, apparently)

-(as an attempt to avoid the "secondary market") there will be no hard tickets. the only way to get in to terminal 5 on the nights of the shows will be to show i.d. at will call and then immediately enter the venue.

-we're told that ticketmaster will also sweep the online purchases daily and delete any duplications from potential scalper bots. (please come to the venue early on show nights - the line for entry may be long). if the tickets for the shows don't sell out very quickly, we'll stop the duplicate ticket thing and allow people to buy tickets for multiple nights. (just want to make sure all who want to go get a ticket before "multiples", if that makes any sense).

-oh... and we can't do a walk-up ticket buy at the mercury lounge box office this time (w/o ticketmaster fees) because those are only the hard tickets, which can be sold afterwards. (yes, i asked about putting names on the hard tickets.)

-more important: we're as bored of this ticket stuff as you are, so let's just have fun a few last times, and then get some food! 2 more liquid liquid shows! the new york debut of mr. shit robot live, maybe featuring some guests! loudness and lights! fancy stuff!

It's awesome the band is going out of its way to stop scalpers, though unfortunately this is a key statement: "please come to the venue early on show nights - the line for entry may be long.", There's also no mention of a way to give your tickets to someone else if you can't make it that night, and I'm not sure how someone without a credit card in their name can get tickets. Also, as they point out - there's no way to get tickets without fees now. That all said, this is not a new debate, but which way would you prefer?

Liquid Liquid is also opening the MSG show.

" Gov. Paterson is going nuclear in the political fight over New York's now-expired ticket scalping law. The state's 2007 scalping law, which removed price caps on the resale of tickets, expired Saturday.

As a result, Paterson is firing off a letter to 56 ticket brokers, including StubHub, reminding them a more restrictive law passed in the 1920s is back in effect. According to Paterson aides, that law prohibits the selling of tickets for more than $2 above face value.

And it prohibits primary sellers like Ticketmaster from tacking on service and delivery fees.

"Ticket resellers must act in accordance with the laws of New York State," the Paterson administration says in a copy of the letter, obtained by the Daily News." [Daily News]

Fake Lady Gagas

"Nina Liotta bought what she thought was a legitimate pair of tickets to Lady Gaga's sold-out July 9 concert at Madison Square Garden, according to news channel Fox 5 (video embedded below). Only after the cash transaction occurred -- totaling $300 -- did Liotta notice that the tickets were fakes." [Ticket News]

Fox News video below...

Continue reading "girl buys fake Lady Gaga tickets, Fox News reports"

"An Arizona woman who bought, what turned out to be, counterfeit Phoenix Coyotes playoff tickets helped police nab the suspected scalper with a picture of his license plate.

Mari Alfaro discovered the tickets for sale on Craigslist, and after meeting up with the alleged scalper, Mario Cox, she bought them for $200. But, according to a report on KTVK-TV, Alfaro had a funny feeling about the transaction, so before Cox could drive off she snapped a photo of his license plate." [Ticket news]

In the guy's apartment, they found other fake tickets including some for a Brooks & Dunn concert... The video news report is below...

Continue reading "phony ticket seller busted via his license plate "

"It's disgraceful that this situation went on for as long as it did, depriving fans of seeing performers whom they support," said Camille DeSantis, a New Yorker still steaming she was shut out of an online sale of Ringo Starr tickets at Radio City Music Hall.

"Four Nevada men who called themselves the Wiseguys were busted Monday for hacking into online ticket sellers like Ticketmaster and illegally grabbing up prime seats for concerts, ball games and Broadway shows.

The massive conspiracy - which allegedly netted the men $25 million between 2002 and 2009 - blocked ordinary fans from buying tickets, forcing them to turn to scalpers and price-gouging ticket brokers, officials said.

"The public thought it had a fair shot at getting tickets to these events, but what the public didn't know was that the defendants had cheated them out of that opportunity," said U.S. Attorney Paul Fishman, unsealing a 43-count indictment in New Jersey.

Wiseguys Tickets was charged with using a computer program to virtually muscle to the head of the line when an online sale began." [Daily News]

From: Bob Lefsetz
To: Nathan Hubbard

Is this true? That buyers of DMB and Phish tickets at livenation.com were redirected to coasttocoast.com?

___________________________________

From: Nathan Hubbard

Sorry, been traveling.

No it's not to my knowledge. Have not had fan complaints about this and we monitor issues in the email and call center hourly. We DID find out that a couple of these broker sites including gotthetix.com were using the Live Nation name in their Google ads and displaying the ads when someone searched "Live Nation." This happened in late June. We filed a trademark complaint with Google soon after. But no redirect from the buy button.

We do of course know that many brokers get their tickets using bots that vault them to the front of the line. It sucks for us (we have to build a costly infrastructure that can essentially handle an attack), and more importantly it sucks for the fan (lack of available inventory). We continue to work on technologies that thwart these efforts, and dynamic pricing to address the underlying economic reasons why the secondary market exists.

Thanks for highlighting the great stuff NIN does via Musictoday (part of Live Nation Ticketing). These really are the two options to address the issue; restrict transferability and ask the fan to jump through a few hoops to prove their identity, or price the tickets at what the market is willing to pay. They aren't mutually exclusive

Once infamous -- and in many places illegal -- the reselling of tickets for profit has gone mainstream. Accelerated by the Internet and changes in state laws across the country, it is now a multibillion-dollar business serving consumers who want that last-minute ticket to Taylor Swift or "Wicked."

"The days of scalping sounding like drug dealing in a dark alley are gone," said Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, whose deal for Michael Jackson's 50-night engagement in London included a partnership with a ticket reseller. "It's all aboveboard. It's very transparent now." [NY Times]

The above picture by Dominic Bugatto accompanied the Times article. Transparent maybe, any less horrible?

"Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-8th Dist.) will announce federal legislation intended to overhaul the concert ticket industry and improve fans' chances of scoring tickets to their favorite acts.

The BOSS ACT (Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing) [which is a clever acronym based on Bruce Springsteen's nickname] will require primary ticket sellers to disclose the number of tickets available for sale to the public and the number held back for fan clubs, presales and artist allocations, Pascrell told The Star-Ledger.

The bill would also prohibit brokers from purchasing tickets during the first 48 hours of the primary sale. It also makes it illegal for any primary ticket seller, promoter, artist or their employees to resell tickets to events they are involved in at more than their face value." [The Star Ledger]

Chuck Schumer is also introducing similar legislation, and the NY Times posted some thoughts on that.

SelectATicket - today (Monday) 10:02 a.m.

" Nobody expected that getting tickets for Bruce Springsteen concerts this fall would be easy. There have been ticket scams in the past, and this time he was offering the chance to witness the "wrecking crew" bring a finale to the old Giants Stadium in New Jersey before the place is demolished early next year. The tickets were supposed to go on sale at 10 a.m. Monday. Instead, tickets appeared on the Internet a week ahead -- ghost seats costing up to $1,300 apiece.

Last week, New Jersey's attorney general, Anne Milgram, filed charges against three companies for selling the phantom tickets (including some for sections that do not exist). "It's plain fraud," she said.

Across the river in New York, where fans routinely face huge markups in the resale market, ticket scalping is basically legal. The state once capped these markups, but lawmakers got rid of that restriction two years ago, and on Monday, Albany is expected to renew the ticketing free-for-all for another year. One reason is that, somehow, a study of this looser market was never finished in Albany. Also, a lot of money has been spread around by lobbyists who want the law to stay just as it is...." [NY Times]

NIN @ the 2009 Virgin Fest (more by Bao Nguyen)

A letter from Trent below...

Continue reading "Trent Reznor: thoughts on ticket re-sellers / scalping"

Smashing Pumpkins @ United Palace (more by Chris La Putt)

Ticketmaster Entertainment Inc was hit with a C$500 million ($410 million) lawsuit in Canada on Monday, alleging the company broke the law by reselling tickets at inflated prices.

A Toronto man who tried to buy two tickets to a November 2008 concert by the band Smashing Pumpkins alleges Ticketmaster's website said none were available, but redirected him to the website of the company's TicketsNow resale unit...

...The suit mirrors complaints in the United States that people trying to buy tickets to singer Bruce Springsteen's current tour were redirected to Ticketmaster's TicketsNow site, where they were available at much higher prices. [Reuters]

In a victory for IAC/InterActiveCorp's Ticketmaster, a federal court ordered a maker of software used by ticket brokers to pay more than $18 million to the world's dominant ticket seller.

Last year, Ticketmaster sued Pittsburgh-based RMG Technologies Inc. for creating software that allowed its users to gain access to tickets via the Internet much more quickly than average customers of Ticketmaster.com.

Ticketmaster said the RMG software violated its terms of service and other rights by automatically circumventing controls designed to verify that a given user was a real person. That allowed brokers to inundate Ticketmaster's system with thousands of requests for seats when popular events went on sale, "in effect allowing them to cut in line," according to Ticketmaster. [Wall Street Journal]

Paperless ticketing is the only purchase option for this tour.

Check back soon for a tour schedule and more ticket purchasing information .

Paperless Ticket:
You will not receive paper tickets for this event. At the time of entry, you must present the credit card used to purchase your tickets as well as a valid photo ID (such as driver's license, state ID or passport). Your entire party must enter the venue at the same time. Tickets are non-transferable.

* Led Zeppelin will not tour
* The Verve announce more UK tour dates
* Sex Pistols to warm up in U.S. for British tour
* Led Zeppelin Passcodes: Almost As Hot As Hannah Montana Tickets

and they look a little something like this*....

* the person who sent this to me got a little creative to protect their own identity

Were you on line? Here are a few quotes from the comments:

"I GOT TWO TICKETS. THANK YOU!!!!
Got there @ 2AM for the fun :)" [Oliver Klein]

"Got two tickets - got there at around 6:00 am, was 141st in line." [Marlow]

"got there 8:30 and got shut out with at least 100 people in front of me." [Anonymous]

Tickets are still available for their much larger MSG show. Some pics of the Irving Plaza line below....

Continue reading "people got their White Stripes tickets"