Discuss this article
Letter to editor
Print this article
E-mail this articleNo matter where you go for tickets, it's a scalper's game
BY JOHN BECK
NYT REGIONAL NEWSPAPERS
SANTA ROSA, Calif. -- A recent Craigslist posting said it all: "I can't help you find a date, but what hottie could turn you down when you're holding a pair of Death Cab for Cutie tix?
"Your sex appeal goes up by a factor of 11 when you've got tix to a sold-out show. Trust me on this."
It doesn't take much of a leap of faith. If you have sold-out tickets, whether it's Prince at the Fillmore or Radiohead at the Greek Theatre, you're the daddy.
You can score a date on the Internet. Sight unseen. No questions asked. You can trade them for guitars or cars. Just name your price.
Giants baseball seat licenses are going for nearly $10,000 apiece. Front-row Barbra Streisand tickets at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., are $3,995 apiece on StubHub. It doesn't mean they'll sell for that much, but given how rarely Streisand tours and how rabid her fans are, you never know.
In this age of instant entertainment and techno-anonymity, the question has become: What are you willing to do for tickets?
Mars Volta at the Phoenix Theater a few weeks ago is the perfect example. The show sold out in minutes when it went on sale. Only about 900 fans could fit into the 100-degree theater. But thousands more wanted to see the show.
On Craigslist, one buyer offered to "sweeten the deal with fine wine." Instead of cash, a seller wanted to trade Moog equipment or effects pedals for a ticket.
Another fan tried to appeal to seller sympathy: "They are my wife's favorite band and are playing on her birthday." Using the same ploy, another fan added a little venom: "If anyone wants to sell me a ticket for my 20th birthday... I'd be a happy, happy girl... otherwise you people selling these tickets for outrageous prices can go screw yourselves!"
Pay to play
No matter where you turned for tickets -- eBay, StubHub, Craigslist or Mars Volta fan forums -- it was a scalper's game.
"This show was insane," says Nick, a scalper who camped out 14 hours at Heebie Jeebies in Petaluma because the band was only releasing 100 tickets online. "The rumor was that right off the bat, two tickets sold for a grand. We looked at each other and said, 'What kind of idiot would spend that on one night?'"
A Sonoma State University pre-med student who doesn't want to disclose his last name for obvious reasons, Nick is not one of the hardcore professional scalpers who deputize an army of foot soldiers to work the sidewalk outside the Fillmore or the Warfield. But he makes at least enough to pay his rent every month.
After scoring Mars Volta tickets for $20 apiece, he sold one for $80 and a Fender Stratocaster guitar worth about $200. He sold another for $150. And on the day of the show, he sold one for $80.
"These people, they know what they want to spend, and we just want to bring that out of them," he says. "We are the new Ticketmaster. It's the stock market of the New Age."
For him and his buddies who all scalp tickets, it's a risk-free investment, because "you can always just sell them back at face value."
Some fans try to ward off scalpers by banding together. Recently, a posting warned of "a scalper glut" on Ben Harper tickets at the Greek. It was true. There were more than 140 postings. So the logical supply-and-demand strategy was to wait until the day of the show, when fans might pay only $10 to $20 over face value.
Luke Pimentel of Santa Rosa nabbed a few extras for the Mars Volta show at the Phoenix. But "instead of putting them online and making a mint, I sold them at face value to friends who hadn't gotten any, because I hate to see them get gouged on eBay or StubHub," he said via e-mail.
"That's about as much 'revenge' as I think anyone can exact on the scalper practice, and even then, there's no guarantee that friends won't turn around and scalp them anyway."
Everything but kitchen sink
If demand is high enough, face-value tickets are hard if not impossible to find. The Internet was ablaze with bids when Coldplay squeezed into the Fillmore a year ago. Fans reportedly offered everything from sex and iPods to a '94 Honda Accord.
"If there are any cool guys who'd like to share a ticket with a 27-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, I'd really appreciate it," one fan wrote on Craigslist, according to published reports.
For Radiohead at the Greek in June, a buyer offered Nick $20 and his "beater car" -- a Toyota Supra with no seats. He and his friends, who also scalp tickets from Sonoma State, UCLA and UC Davis, have all run across the booty-call postings such as "I don't have money, but I'm pretty good-looking, maybe a night out?"
Other times, sellers make the first move, offering a free ticket for a Ween show to "the hottest woman who sends me a photo."
The gonzo fans -- the ones who collect celebrity hair strands and quote from fanzines -- are the ones who drive tickets up and ultimately price the market. As a scalper, Nick is also a music fan (he saved a Mars Volta ticket for himself), but he still has a hard time understanding the ultra-fanatics who pay his rent.
"Die-hard fans are different," he says. "I mean, do they think the band is breaking up soon?
"Some of these bands that are touring now that are selling out, they'll be around again and again and again. Look at The Rolling Stones."
And, just so you know, the sympathy trick -- i.e., it's my birthday or my anniversary or my last night on Earth -- doesn't carry much weight with scalpers. In fact, it works in reverse.
"There are those people who hate scalpers and want to sell tickets at face value. So where are those tickets going to go? Into my hands," says Nick. "Because I have the best stories. I'll send you pictures of my broken leg that I don't have, and you will send me the tickets for face value, and I will turn around and sell those tickets back to you for $150."
Whether its hip-hop or prog-rock, two different camps of musicians are cracking down on scalpers.
Artists such as Madonna, Roger Waters and Van Morrison have opened online auctions to sell their premium seats via Ticketmaster. In a sense, they're scalping their own tickets, which sounds a little shady, but when you think about it, who deserves the $300 mark-up on a $50 ticket, the scalper or the band?
Then there are those like Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits, who put such tight restrictions on tickets that scalpers never get a shot at turning a profit.
The limit is two tickets that have to be picked up at Will Call with a matching photo ID, and once you pick them up, you have to go straight into the venue without getting a chance to sell them to anyone waiting. It's exactly what Prince did at the Fillmore a few years back.
And it's the reason no Tom Waits show started on time (picture a Will-Call line several blocks long) on his recent tour of the South.
"We're either making people wait an extra 30 minutes for the show to start and the seat they received they paid face value for," Waits' tour manager Stuart Ross recently told Harp magazine, "or the show could start on time and half the audience could be paying $350 to $400 on eBay."
Take your pick.
"Your sex appeal goes up by a factor of 11 when you've got tix to a sold-out show. Trust me on this."
It doesn't take much of a leap of faith. If you have sold-out tickets, whether it's Prince at the Fillmore or Radiohead at the Greek Theatre, you're the daddy.
You can score a date on the Internet. Sight unseen. No questions asked. You can trade them for guitars or cars. Just name your price.
Giants baseball seat licenses are going for nearly $10,000 apiece. Front-row Barbra Streisand tickets at the HP Pavilion in San Jose, Calif., are $3,995 apiece on StubHub. It doesn't mean they'll sell for that much, but given how rarely Streisand tours and how rabid her fans are, you never know.
In this age of instant entertainment and techno-anonymity, the question has become: What are you willing to do for tickets?
Mars Volta at the Phoenix Theater a few weeks ago is the perfect example. The show sold out in minutes when it went on sale. Only about 900 fans could fit into the 100-degree theater. But thousands more wanted to see the show.
On Craigslist, one buyer offered to "sweeten the deal with fine wine." Instead of cash, a seller wanted to trade Moog equipment or effects pedals for a ticket.
Another fan tried to appeal to seller sympathy: "They are my wife's favorite band and are playing on her birthday." Using the same ploy, another fan added a little venom: "If anyone wants to sell me a ticket for my 20th birthday... I'd be a happy, happy girl... otherwise you people selling these tickets for outrageous prices can go screw yourselves!"
Pay to play
No matter where you turned for tickets -- eBay, StubHub, Craigslist or Mars Volta fan forums -- it was a scalper's game.
"This show was insane," says Nick, a scalper who camped out 14 hours at Heebie Jeebies in Petaluma because the band was only releasing 100 tickets online. "The rumor was that right off the bat, two tickets sold for a grand. We looked at each other and said, 'What kind of idiot would spend that on one night?'"
A Sonoma State University pre-med student who doesn't want to disclose his last name for obvious reasons, Nick is not one of the hardcore professional scalpers who deputize an army of foot soldiers to work the sidewalk outside the Fillmore or the Warfield. But he makes at least enough to pay his rent every month.
After scoring Mars Volta tickets for $20 apiece, he sold one for $80 and a Fender Stratocaster guitar worth about $200. He sold another for $150. And on the day of the show, he sold one for $80.
"These people, they know what they want to spend, and we just want to bring that out of them," he says. "We are the new Ticketmaster. It's the stock market of the New Age."
For him and his buddies who all scalp tickets, it's a risk-free investment, because "you can always just sell them back at face value."
Some fans try to ward off scalpers by banding together. Recently, a posting warned of "a scalper glut" on Ben Harper tickets at the Greek. It was true. There were more than 140 postings. So the logical supply-and-demand strategy was to wait until the day of the show, when fans might pay only $10 to $20 over face value.
Luke Pimentel of Santa Rosa nabbed a few extras for the Mars Volta show at the Phoenix. But "instead of putting them online and making a mint, I sold them at face value to friends who hadn't gotten any, because I hate to see them get gouged on eBay or StubHub," he said via e-mail.
"That's about as much 'revenge' as I think anyone can exact on the scalper practice, and even then, there's no guarantee that friends won't turn around and scalp them anyway."
Everything but kitchen sink
If demand is high enough, face-value tickets are hard if not impossible to find. The Internet was ablaze with bids when Coldplay squeezed into the Fillmore a year ago. Fans reportedly offered everything from sex and iPods to a '94 Honda Accord.
"If there are any cool guys who'd like to share a ticket with a 27-year-old blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl, I'd really appreciate it," one fan wrote on Craigslist, according to published reports.
For Radiohead at the Greek in June, a buyer offered Nick $20 and his "beater car" -- a Toyota Supra with no seats. He and his friends, who also scalp tickets from Sonoma State, UCLA and UC Davis, have all run across the booty-call postings such as "I don't have money, but I'm pretty good-looking, maybe a night out?"
Other times, sellers make the first move, offering a free ticket for a Ween show to "the hottest woman who sends me a photo."
The gonzo fans -- the ones who collect celebrity hair strands and quote from fanzines -- are the ones who drive tickets up and ultimately price the market. As a scalper, Nick is also a music fan (he saved a Mars Volta ticket for himself), but he still has a hard time understanding the ultra-fanatics who pay his rent.
"Die-hard fans are different," he says. "I mean, do they think the band is breaking up soon?
"Some of these bands that are touring now that are selling out, they'll be around again and again and again. Look at The Rolling Stones."
And, just so you know, the sympathy trick -- i.e., it's my birthday or my anniversary or my last night on Earth -- doesn't carry much weight with scalpers. In fact, it works in reverse.
"There are those people who hate scalpers and want to sell tickets at face value. So where are those tickets going to go? Into my hands," says Nick. "Because I have the best stories. I'll send you pictures of my broken leg that I don't have, and you will send me the tickets for face value, and I will turn around and sell those tickets back to you for $150."
Whether its hip-hop or prog-rock, two different camps of musicians are cracking down on scalpers.
Artists such as Madonna, Roger Waters and Van Morrison have opened online auctions to sell their premium seats via Ticketmaster. In a sense, they're scalping their own tickets, which sounds a little shady, but when you think about it, who deserves the $300 mark-up on a $50 ticket, the scalper or the band?
Then there are those like Prince, Bruce Springsteen and Tom Waits, who put such tight restrictions on tickets that scalpers never get a shot at turning a profit.
The limit is two tickets that have to be picked up at Will Call with a matching photo ID, and once you pick them up, you have to go straight into the venue without getting a chance to sell them to anyone waiting. It's exactly what Prince did at the Fillmore a few years back.
And it's the reason no Tom Waits show started on time (picture a Will-Call line several blocks long) on his recent tour of the South.
"We're either making people wait an extra 30 minutes for the show to start and the seat they received they paid face value for," Waits' tour manager Stuart Ross recently told Harp magazine, "or the show could start on time and half the audience could be paying $350 to $400 on eBay."
Take your pick.
Last modified: September 03. 2006 5:00AM
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertiser links
