Better-Online Ticket Sales Act of 2016 Passes

Bentleyspop

Might be good news for future PJ tour ticket sales

Congress Crack Down On Bots That Snap Up Concert Tickets
http://www.pollstar.com/news_article.aspx?ID=828409

Congress Bans Ticket-Scalpers' Tool Blamed For Quick Sell-Outs
http://n.pr/2hpmsQk

EB218946

Good news!

adusick

This is awesome!

fl4tdriven

Excellent!

SJD3232

It's about time!

PJ-Cubs

Will be interesting to see how they stop this. Brokers will likely still use bots- too much money to be made for no work.

Scalping is illegal too buy still happens all the time

on2legs

I'm skeptical this will have any effect. The government can't stop email hacks during an election but they're suddenly going to devote their resources to cracking down on bots?

lotsalemon

on2legs said:

I'm skeptical this will have any effect. The government can't stop email hacks during an election but they're suddenly going to devote their resources to cracking down on bots?

bingo.
Maybe Russia can do something to block the bots?

Bentleyspop

PJ-Cubs said:

Will be interesting to see how they stop this. Brokers will likely still use bots- too much money to be made for no work.

Scalping is illegal too buy still happens all the time

But scalping isn't "illegal" everywhere.
Different jurisdictions have different laws regarding scalping.
Some are strict
Some don't have any restictions.
There is no federal ticket resale laws
So this will be interesting

Zod

I still think the bots have become the scapegoat, but they're more like a red herring. Reading other articles in the past few years it sounds like the amount of tickets making it to the regular onsale are only a percentage of the venue. Promoters sell blocks directly to brokers, hold tickets for family/friends/promos/fan clubs take up a bunch more. I don't think eliminating bots is going to have the impact people think.

jbalicki10

It's illegal to spoof phone numbers and call cell phone numbers for telemarketers. They passed legislation on this. Worked for about a year. This was after you signed up do not call list every year. Then the rule of law was no longer practiced. Guess what? Now we get crappy calls all the time again. Another useless law that will not be enforced.

bootlegger10

It will be interesting though. If brokers are selling thousands of tickets to one event it will draw scrutiny under the new law. They will need to get more creative in how they sell.

Bentleyspop

bootlegger10 said:

It will be interesting though. If brokers are selling thousands of tickets to one event it will draw scrutiny under the new law. They will need to get more creative in how they sell.

This is very true
Though I'm guessing that there is nothing to stop the brokers from utilizing nternational computers using bots to source their ticket stock.

Zod

Do they? Wouldn't the burden of proof have to prove those tickets came from bots? From my understanding (and confirmed in that article from a former ticketmaster CEO) promoters often sell blocks of tickets directly to brokers. In many cases they need too in order pay the fee they promised the artist (as face value isn't actually enough). The bot thing isn't going to stop that, and American law is still based on innocent until proven guilty. They would need to have a burden of proof, to show it was bots.

How does the government enforce the bots thing? Wouldn't they have to subpoena Ticketmaster for order records. What kind of things would they look for? A bunch of orders from the same IP address? Could bots be updated to show all orders came from different ip addresses? Is ticketmaster required to keep logs of this data? How does the government show sufficient data to a judge to obtain a warrant to access records should they exist?

Ticketmaster also lets foreigner's buy tickets (as a Canadian I can buy tickets to US Stuff). What's to stop people from running the bots outside of the united states.

I'm pessimistic on this having any kind of impact, as you can tell

For those of you that haven't read it yet, read this:

https://theringer.com/ticket-industry-problem-solution-e4b3b71fdff6#.do4umj87u

You'll find out why were already doomed before the public onsale, and the bots get access to the same crappy tickets we do.

Merkin Baller

The bots are definitely one of the problems, but not the only one.

I believe it was an article I read on the Ringer that said artists will buy back the prime seats from the venue, and then re-sell them on sites like Stub hub for a major profit, in order to get 'market value' for those sections.

This is good news regardless.

Bentleyspop

Merkin Baller said:

The bots are definitely one of the problems, but not the only one.

I believe it was an article I read on the Ringer that said artists will buy back the prime seats from the venue, and then re-sell them on sites like Stub hub for a major profit, in order to get 'market value' for those sections.

This is good news regardless.

Bands have been selling tickets to brokers since before the Internet.
An old problem that will probably never go away.

Zod

Bentleyspop said:

Merkin Baller said:

The bots are definitely one of the problems, but not the only one.

I believe it was an article I read on the Ringer that said artists will buy back the prime seats from the venue, and then re-sell them on sites like Stub hub for a major profit, in order to get 'market value' for those sections.

This is good news regardless.

Bands have been selling tickets to brokers since before the Internet.
An old problem that will probably never go away.

Yah I remember seeing a guy walk up to the TM counter just before a regular onsale started for something. Handed over an envelope of cash and the employee handed them a fat stack of tickets. That was around '97 or '98 maybe.... I've assumed it's been happening ever since.

I wanted to bring awareness, because to me, everyone's got horse blinder's on. They're so focused on bots, then all these shady practices get to keep operating in the shadows. All the media, message forums, facebook. All anyone rants about is the bots, and to me it's the smallest of the current problems facing ticket buyers. It gives the industry something easy to blame, and they get to keep doing what they're doing.

Personally I'd like to see paperless ticketing for everything. The system that TM has where you go to the venue, scan with the Credit Card you purchased the ticket with, and immediately have to enter the view. Giving you zero chance to scalp the tickets (unless of course you enter with people you sold them too). That really seems to curb scalping to me. I think any artist can use if the request it, but I've only seen it in action once (the fan club tickets at at a U2 show were paperless, while everything else wasn't). The two drawbacks are:

1) Not being able to attend a show. You can't easily sell them to a friend (well I guess you could if you trust them with your credit card). Personally i've missed 3 shows in the 20+ years I've been going to shows. I would gladly eat the cost of those tickets if it meant curbing scalping.

2) The stubs that paperless tickets print out are pretty crappy. Many of us keep our stubs as mementos for all the shows we've gone too. It would be awesome if the machine at the venue could print out something comparable to current ticket stubs.

I'm wonder if the lack of artists using paperless ticketing is because they make more money with out.... In which case I guess it'll never catch on.

joseph33

About time. That's great news.

on2legs

Great news! See all of you in the front row at the next show!

foodboy

bots are not a red herring. they take whatever the best tickets are before you or i have any chance at all. so even if there are seats sold to brokers or held for fan clubs there is almost zero chance you will ever see a good ticket to any show where there is demand. thats why when pj put up that second show with no notice the bots couldn't buy any in toronto. the real fans got them . that hasn't happened in many years. yes i know the complaints the fan club should have got them etc. bots buy tickets all over north america. any big tour as evidenced in the article they got 15000 seats. multiply that by 60.00 and that may be small but you see why they do it. and that's just 1 tour. without knowing someone with a seat license i can't get jack unless i want to pay ridiculous v.i.p. bundles prices, but at least i get a suckers fake looking backstage pass laminate thing to wear around my neck to show every one how stupid i was for spending that kind of money to go to a show.

Zod

Yah but the thing is that there's only about 20% to 50% of tickets available during a general onsale. The bots only get access to leftovers like we do. Best tickets don't go on those sales. I think promoters selling the best seats to brokers is a much bigger issue. Focusing only on but's is like fighting over scraps from the dinner table.