Please look at Miley Cyrus as an example!

Bravejamriot · July 2009

Wow, never thought I would lead with that!

But in the ticket confirmation email from Wachovia it says the following:

"The Miley Cyrus tour is a PAPERLESS ticketing tour. You will NOT receive a physical ticket for entry, and you are required to bring the credit card you used to buy your ticket and a government-issued ID to the venue, where your credit card will be swiped to gain you and your party access to the event. If you do not have your credit card and government-issued ID in hand at the event, you will not gain access to the event. No exceptions will be made."

Sounds like a great step to keep the scalpers and brokers from fucking over the fans. I sincerely hope Pearl Jam can look into this.

ScottandPearlJam · July 2009

No BC I had my sister pic me up tix
That would suck

Scott

traveljunkie · July 2009

Yeah, but how pissed are all of those parents who thought they'd drop their gaggle of teenage girls off at the venue and pick them up at 10pm? Now they have to bring them to the door and see them in.

Stryker · July 2009

We've been over this a million times, and there are just about a million reasons why it isn't a good idea.

PJ Fan est. 1990 · July 2009

yeah i agree the idea is good...but there are too many exceptions to not having the card you purchased with (i.e. the tickets were a gift, people who can't make the show last minute and they need to sell or give their tickets away, etc etc)

perhaps if it wasn't AS strict, then it would be possible...i heard of a few concert texting tickets to your cell phone that are scan-able (or something like that) which if you can't make the show, you can just forward the text to someone else

FANnCA · July 2009

i read an article that this was ticketbastards idea and not Miley's camp. for whatever reason ticketbastard decided to try this with her tour. if it works this could be the way they sell tickets in the future. i have always thought that giving out the tickets at the venue the night of a show would help cut down on resale, but i guess that would be a pain because you would have to get there pretty early depending on how big the venue is.

Bravejamriot · July 2009

Or maybe it is too make sure there is parental supervision of all the 12 year olds at the show.

I don't know if this is the best system, but at least it is trying to do something

CJMST3K · July 2009

FANnCA wrote:

i read an article that this was ticketbastards idea and not Miley's camp. for whatever reason ticketbastard decided to try this with her tour. if it works this could be the way they sell tickets in the future. i have always thought that giving out the tickets at the venue the night of a show would help cut down on resale, but i guess that would be a pain because you would have to get there pretty early depending on how big the venue is.

But from a statement from Trent Reznor, the Promoters and TM are now very much in bed with scalpers, making money for both of them. Why would TM and the promoter try to stop what they're intentionally doing anyway?

(below taken from another thread - a VERY good read!!)

PJammin' wrote:

Dirt Like Me wrote:

I've posted this before but I think it is the best synopsis of the ticket situation I have read. It was posted on nin.com by Trent Reznor in March. It still makes me sick that PJ got so little backup when they tried to fight TM and this system about 15 years ago. Where was Springsteen then? Sad but true I believe:

As we approach on-sale dates for the upcoming tour, I've noticed lots of you are curious / concerned / outraged at the plethora of tickets that somehow appear on all these reseller sites at inflated prices - even before the pre-sale dates. I'll do my best to explain the situation as I see it, as well as clarify my organization's stance in the matter.

NIN decides to tour this summer. We arrive at the conclusion outdoor amphitheaters are the right venue for this outing, for a variety of reasons we've throughly considered*. In the past, NIN would sell the shows in each market to local promoters, who then "buy" the show from us to sell to you. Live Nation happens to own all the amphitheaters and bought most of the local promoters - so if you want to play those venues, you're being promoted by Live Nation. Live Nation has had an exclusive deal with TicketMaster that has just expired, so Live Nation launched their own ticketing service. Most of the dates on this tour are through Live Nation, some are through TicketMaster - this is determined by the promoter (Live Nation), not us.
Now we get into the issue of secondary markets for tickets, which is the hot issue here. The ticketing marketplace for rock concerts shows a real lack of sophistication, meaning this: the true market value of some tickets for some concerts is much higher than what the act wants to be perceived as charging. For example, there are some people who would be willing to pay $1,000 and up to be in the best seats for various shows, but MOST acts in the rock / pop world don't want to come off as greedy pricks asking that much, even though the market says its value is that high. The acts know this, the venue knows this, the promoters know this, the ticketing company knows this and the scalpers really know this. So...

The venue, the promoter, the ticketing agency and often the artist camp (artist, management and agent) take tickets from the pool of available seats and feed them directly to the re-seller (which from this point on will be referred to by their true name: SCALPER). I am not saying every one of the above entities all do this, nor am I saying they do it for all shows but this is a very common practice that happens more often than not. There is money to be made and they feel they should participate in it. There are a number of scams they employ to pull this off which is beyond the scope of this note.

StubHub.com is an example of a re-seller / scalper. So is TicketsNow.com.

Here's the rub: TicketMaster has essentially been a monopoly for many years - certainly up until Live Nation's exclusive deal ran out. They could have (and can right now) stop the secondary market dead in its tracks by doing the following: limit the amount of sales per customer, print names on the tickets and require ID / ticket matches at the venue. We know this works because we do it for our pre-sales. Why don't THEY do it? It's obvious - they make a lot of money fueling the secondary market. TicketMaster even bought a re-seller site and often bounces you over to that site to buy tickets (TicketsNow.com)!

NIN gets 10% of the available seats for our own pre-sale. We won a tough (and I mean TOUGH) battle to get the best seats. We require you to sign up at our site (for free) to get tickets. We limit the amount you can buy, we print your name on the tickets and we have our own person let you in a separate entrance where we check your ID to match the ticket. We charge you a surcharge that has been less than TicketMaster's or Live Nation's in all cases so far to pay for the costs of doing this - it's not a profit center for us. We have essentially stopped scalping by doing these things - because we want true fans to be able to get great seats and not get ripped off by these parasites.

I assure you nobody in the NIN camp supplies or supports the practice of supplying tickets to these re-sellers because it's not something we morally feel is the right thing to do. We are leaving money on the table here but it's not always about money.
Being completely honest, it IS something I've had to consider. If people are willing to pay a lot of money to sit up front AND ARE GOING TO ANYWAY thanks to the rigged system, why let that money go into the hands of the scalpers? I'm the one busting my ass up there every night. The conclusion really came down to it not feeling like the right thing to do - simple as that.

My guess as to what will eventually happen if / when Live Nation and TicketMaster merges is that they'll move to an auction or market-based pricing scheme - which will simply mean it will cost a lot more to get a good seat for a hot show. They will simply BECOME the scalper, eliminating them from the mix.

Nothing's going to change until the ticketing entity gets serious about stopping the problem - which of course they don't see as a problem. The ultimate way to hurt scalpers is to not support them. Leave them holding the merchandise. If this subject interests you, check out the following links. Don't buy from scalpers, and be suspect of artists singing the praises of the Live Nation / TicketMaster merger. What's in it for them?

[online.wsj.com]

[www.boston.com]

[articles.latimes.com]

[www.econtalk.org]

[seattlepi.nwsource.com]

[www.stanford.edu]

[usgovinfo.about.com]

[blogs.consumerreports.org]

[www.dailytexanonline.com]

[news.google.com]

[www.financialpost.com]

[www.wisegeek.com]

[en.wikipedia.org]

[online.wsj.com]

[online.wsj.com]

* I fully realize by playing those venues we are getting into bed with all these guys. I've learned to choose my fights and at this point in time it would be logistically too difficult to attempt to circumvent the venues / promoter / ticketing infrastructure already in place for this type of tour. For those of you about to snipe "it's your fault for playing there, etc... " - I know it is.

NeilJam · July 2009

Paperless tickets? No thank you. I keep the ticket(s) from every concert I go to, so that would be taking away one of my souvenirs.

One sales problem is that sometimes people want to get tickets for a friend of family member as a gift. They can't do this with the paperless tickets. What if a group of people get tickets together to see AC/DC, but only one has a credit card, and then the person who placed the order gets sick the day of the show? Should that mean his friends shouldn't be able to go to the show that they paid to see? Maybe a group of parents buy tickets together for their daughters and friends to see Miley, but then the parent who made the purchase gets called out to work that day (and can't refuse), should the kids have to miss a show that another parent could have taken them to? Some parents might want to buy tickets for their teenage son and his friend to see Green Day, but don't want to go in to the show themselves. They just want to drive them to the concert and back, waiting for them in the parking lot during the show.

There are too many what if scenarios for paperless tickets. This is not the solution.

FnCircus · July 2009

AC/DC did this on their tour. I had paperless tickets for the Tacoma show. It was pretty painless once you found the one door to go into.....

NeilJam · July 2009

FANnCA wrote:

i read an article that this was ticketbastards idea and not Miley's camp. for whatever reason ticketbastard decided to try this with her tour. if it works this could be the way they sell tickets in the future. i have always thought that giving out the tickets at the venue the night of a show would help cut down on resale, but i guess that would be a pain because you would have to get there pretty early depending on how big the venue is.

It's just their way of making it look like they are trying to fix the scalping issues that happened with a previous Miley tour.

over bends · July 2009

Doesn't this only work for a GA show?

quarterpast · July 2009

It's totally a step in the right direction. I manage a small venue and every few months we get huge acts that want to do a special club show. We make it so that you have to show up to will call with your credit card and id. I've had people try to turn around and resell their ticket right in front of me. We just don't want kids in there who paid $500. That's not the purpose of a club show. Recently, the owner received an email about 2 tickets up on ebay (the guy would meet you at the venue, pick up the tickets and hand them over). He easily tracked down the douches name, refunded his tickets and gave them to the "snitch" who alerted him (she turned out to be an awesome teenager who hates scalpers). We had notices on craigslist for kids to not buy from scalpers and turn them in asap as they would only be caught if they tried to flip tickets at the venue.

For larger venues, picking up tickets at will call will result in parking lot sales, but it was drastically reduce the rate at which it occurs. And parents will simply have to go to will call. My parents would walk me to the door and give me a quarter for the pay phone or often buy a ticket to go with me before I could drive myself to shows. Everyone says what a hassle it'll be, but until then, they'll keep complaining about not being able to get tickets.

Please look at Miley Cyrus as an example!

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