Springsteen ticket failure... Sound familiar?

on2legs · January 2012

Check out the article and then scroll down and read the comments.

Ring any bells?

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2012/0 ... ed_by.html

on2legs · January 2012

"Once again the fans are screwed as Ticketmaster bungles yet another Springsteen ticket sales. Enough Bruce, Ticketmaster, LiveNation and others. You wasted 2 1/2 hours of my time today and that is really 2 hours too much. Again, I will file a complaint and see if anything comes of this."

I find it reassuring that we're not the only fans that suffer when tickets go on sale.

Newch91 · January 2012

This happened back on the WOAD tour in 2009, except it sent you to Tickets Now.

It also doesn't help that other major acts had tickets going on sale today.

Ticketmaster, you blew it for Bruce fans...again!

78FLH · January 2012

6 grand for tickets.....are you kidding me????

boyo79 · January 2012

At least it didn't take them 36 hours to communicate with the fans!!!

Dirty Frankk · January 2012

boyo79 wrote:

At least it didn't take them 36 hours to communicate with the fans!!!

Nothing is bad as 10c sale

bronco_bruin · January 2012

It was all of TM yesterday...same problem for RHCP tix

demetrios · January 2012

Time & time again there will forever be artists & their fan's having problems with Ticketmaster. I don't understand why the band's manager, the one's running their business, can't do more research in search of cities & states to find other arenas or sporting complexes that's not run by Ticketmaster. hmm .. Didn't Pearl Jam do this back in '95? The "No Ticketmaster" Tour?

I think The Boss, is still an apprentice. Cause if he was The Boss, he would of dealt with this year's ago when he saw the same problems on his last tour. Using Ticketmaster again as your business practice is a dumb move on their part. They pretty asked for it, again!

josevolution · January 2012

I bet none of the scalping outlets had any of the problems described in the article i bet they got right thru and have all those precious tickets just waiting for the big rollers to buy ..

I gave up trying for tickets to concerts yrs ago i try for PJ and that's it if i wan't to see anyother shows i just scalp the day of show but really i don't attend shows anymore ...It's all a fucking big ass scam ...

locked · January 2012

The sabateurs strike again!

jervin007 · January 2012

demetrios wrote:

Time & time again there will forever be artists & their fan's having problems with Ticketmaster. I don't understand why the band's manager, the one's running their business, can't do more research in search of cities & states to find other arenas or sporting complexes that's not run by Ticketmaster. hmm .. Didn't Pearl Jam do this back in '95? The "No Ticketmaster" Tour?

I think The Boss, is still an apprentice. Cause if he was The Boss, he would of dealt with this year's ago when he saw the same problems on his last tour. Using Ticketmaster again as your business practice is a dumb move on their part. They pretty asked for it, again!

Sadly, I just don't think their are many venues that don't use ticketmaster or livenation and they seem to have even more control then they did in '95. Especially the large venues that Springsteen and most major acts tend to play these days.

Spark28 · January 2012

The problem is that there really are people out there hacking ticket systems to gain tickets. It's something that i have seen first hand. The emergence of sites like StubHub have turned the scalping industry global. Ten years ago, your local scalpers would pay people to line up for tickets at an on sale. Now speculators in Illinois can buy tickets for a show in Florida and resell them easily online without ever having to go anywhere near Florida. People from around the globe are all going for the same tickets just to resell them.

There is enough money in the resale industry, it is a multimillion dollar industry, that people will hack the online ticket systems to gain special access to tickets faster, and to shut out their competition which includes legitimate ticket buyers.

It's not an easy problem to solve. With the amount of money some people are making, they will always find a way to cheat the system. You can bash the Ten Club, you can bash the promoters, you can bash Ticketmaster, but the real problem is the ease of reselling tickets. It happens on every online ticket system that sells a popular event.

DriftingByTheStorm · January 2012

Spark28 wrote:

The problem is that there really are people out there hacking ticket systems to gain tickets. It's something that i have seen first hand. The emergence of sites like StubHub have turned the scalping industry global. Ten years ago, your local scalpers would pay people to line up for tickets at an on sale. Now speculators in Illinois can buy tickets for a show in Florida and resell them easily online without ever having to go anywhere near Florida. People from around the globe are all going for the same tickets just to resell them.

There is enough money in the resale industry, it is a multimillion dollar industry, that people will hack the online ticket systems to gain special access to tickets faster, and to shut out their competition which includes legitimate ticket buyers.

It's not an easy problem to solve. With the amount of money some people are making, they will always find a way to cheat the system. You can bash the Ten Club, you can bash the promoters, you can bash Ticketmaster, but the real problem is the ease of reselling tickets. It happens on every online ticket system that sells a popular event.

L o g i c ...

reeeeeeeaaaa-sonnnnnn ...

CAN'T BE HAVIN NONE OF THAT HERE.

No Sir \ Ma'am!

Grandma · January 2012

Spark28 wrote:

The problem is that there really are people out there hacking ticket systems to gain tickets. It's something that i have seen first hand. The emergence of sites like StubHub have turned the scalping industry global. Ten years ago, your local scalpers would pay people to line up for tickets at an on sale. Now speculators in Illinois can buy tickets for a show in Florida and resell them easily online without ever having to go anywhere near Florida. People from around the globe are all going for the same tickets just to resell them.
=quote]
So many times I've looked at tix on ebay and sellers are from everywhere. But I've heard it would be quite possible to tie a ticket to the credit card and quickly vallidate that the purchaser is the one at the show. Sure it would be inconvienent once in a while if you got sick -- they'd have to handle gifts somehow too. And yes the lines to get in would be longer.
But it would be worth being able to get tickets again and at face value...
Meanwhile I'm just happy 10c is back to a lottery for the EV shows...
Here's another article on the Springsteen failure:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... newsletter

Spark28 · January 2012

Grandma wrote:

So many times I've looked at tix on ebay and sellers are from everywhere. But I've heard it would be quite possible to tie a ticket to the credit card and quickly vallidate that the purchaser is the one at the show. Sure it would be inconvienent once in a while if you got sick -- they'd have to handle gifts somehow too. And yes the lines to get in would be longer.
But it would be worth being able to get tickets again and at face value...
Meanwhile I'm just happy 10c is back to a lottery for the EV shows...
Here's another article on the Springsteen failure:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... newsletter

There are methods to do this. Ticketmaster even has a system they call paperless ticketing that ties the purchaser's credit card to entry. There are a couple of problems with it however.

A few years ago in the state of Colorado a state senator, Lois Tochtrop (feel free to contact her), with the backing of the brokers (read scalpers) lobby introduced a bill that would make it illegal to prevent the resale of tickets in the state of Colorado. The logic being that once you bought a car, you could resell it however you wanted. Why should tickets be different? The local sports teams argued that a ticket is a license, much like software, and can be subject to an agreement. The Colorado state legislature did not agree and passed the law. Other states have passed similar laws, and you can bet that the broker lobby is trying to get it passed in every state.

Scalpers have also figured out a way around the credit card entry method. They buy up stacks of Visa gift cards. Visa gift cards can be used any place Visa is accepted, as part of the merchant's agreement with Visa. A scalper takes the gift card, buys the tickets with the card, and then resells the card (and tickets) for a profit. The person purchasing the card can use it to gain entry to the event.

Bathgate66 · January 2012

an apprentice?

NOT

covered in bliss · January 2012

gee-sounds familiar.

there are computer geeks all over the place... sabotage theories make sense.

weinerdog · January 2012

Spark28 wrote:

Grandma wrote:

So many times I've looked at tix on ebay and sellers are from everywhere. But I've heard it would be quite possible to tie a ticket to the credit card and quickly vallidate that the purchaser is the one at the show. Sure it would be inconvienent once in a while if you got sick -- they'd have to handle gifts somehow too. And yes the lines to get in would be longer.
But it would be worth being able to get tickets again and at face value...
Meanwhile I'm just happy 10c is back to a lottery for the EV shows...
Here's another article on the Springsteen failure:
http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/ ... newsletter

There are methods to do this. Ticketmaster even has a system they call paperless ticketing that ties the purchaser's credit card to entry. There are a couple of problems with it however.

A few years ago in the state of Colorado a state senator, Lois Tochtrop (feel free to contact her), with the backing of the brokers (read scalpers) lobby introduced a bill that would make it illegal to prevent the resale of tickets in the state of Colorado. The logic being that once you bought a car, you could resell it however you wanted. Why should tickets be different? The local sports teams argued that a ticket is a license, much like software, and can be subject to an agreement. The Colorado state legislature did not agree and passed the law. Other states have passed similar laws, and you can bet that the broker lobby is trying to get it passed in every state.

Scalpers have also figured out a way around the credit card entry method. They buy up stacks of Visa gift cards. Visa gift cards can be used any place Visa is accepted, as part of the merchant's agreement with Visa. A scalper takes the gift card, buys the tickets with the card, and then resells the card (and tickets) for a profit. The person purchasing the card can use it to gain entry to the event.

Ticketmaster doesn't care. To stop the gift card abuse they could cancel orders that are shipping to the same address. How about blocking the sites by IP address that are obviously flooding their systems? When the last Roger Waters show went onsale here in the Twin Cities, fansnap showed over 4000 tickets available from the various broker sites the next day. Ticketmaster laughs because they had already gotten their money, but they know full well where the traffic is coming from that is snapping up all those seats in bunches.

All of this often creates artificial demand as well, and too many people panic and buy from these scalper vermin because they don't know about how TM holds back tickets, or that there are almost always opportunities for seats with a little bit of patience and/or cash the day of the show. Until enough artists show a willingness to consider alternatives(like etix) nothing will change. Paperless/will call is a good idea, but there is no incentive for it to be used on a scale that would make an effective deterrent to scalping.

Spark28 · January 2012

weinerdog wrote:

Ticketmaster doesn't care. To stop the gift card abuse they could cancel orders that are shipping to the same address. How about blocking the sites by IP address that are obviously flooding their systems? When the last Roger Waters show went onsale here in the Twin Cities, fansnap showed over 4000 tickets available from the various broker sites the next day. Ticketmaster laughs because they had already gotten their money, but they know full well where the traffic is coming from that is snapping up all those seats in bunches.

All of this often creates artificial demand as well, and too many people panic and buy from these scalper vermin because they don't know about how TM holds back tickets, or that there are almost always opportunities for seats with a little bit of patience and/or cash the day of the show. Until enough artists show a willingness to consider alternatives(like etix) nothing will change. Paperless/will call is a good idea, but there is no incentive for it to be used on a scale that would make an effective deterrent to scalping.

It's not Ticketmaster's call. There are many things wrong with Ticketmaster, but you are placing blame improperly here. Most tickets being sold though Ticketmaster online are electronic print at home. A fake address doesn't matter because the tickets are emailed. It takes a matter of seconds to open a new email address. Again with the gift cards, no tickets are shipped . They are loaded onto the card. A fake address will keep the system from seeing someone purchasing too many tickets.

Also, do you think if someone is going to spend the time/money to hack the system, they aren't going to have ways around a blocked ip address?

I think that the e tickets will cut down on the number of resale tickets, but not every venue is equipped with the technology to accept them. It isn't cheap either.

Finally, it's not Ticketmaster's call to cancel those orders. It is up to their clients, meaning the venues/promoters. They are the ones who receive the money for these shows. Yes, Ticketmaster receives a service fee, but in a lot of cases it is just a small percentage of the actual cost of the ticket. Most promoters just want the show sold out. At that point, their risk is gone. For the most part, the band gets paid regardless of ticket sales. The promoter is the one taking the risk on the show.

One more thing, Ticketmaster has no authority to hold seats. The held seats you are referring to are band holds, promoter holds, venue holds, sponsor holds, etc. Every event has holds, but they aren't Ticketmaster's holds.

I hate having to defend Ticketmaster, but I'm just trying to get the facts out there.

Gary Carter · January 2012

demetrios wrote:

Time & time again there will forever be artists & their fan's having problems with Ticketmaster. I don't understand why the band's manager, the one's running their business, can't do more research in search of cities & states to find other arenas or sporting complexes that's not run by Ticketmaster. hmm .. Didn't Pearl Jam do this back in '95? The "No Ticketmaster" Tour?

I think The Boss, is still an apprentice. Cause if he was The Boss, he would of dealt with this year's ago when he saw the same problems on his last tour. Using Ticketmaster again as your business practice is a dumb move on their part. They pretty asked for it, again!

least the boss is going the paperless ticket route unlike pj. I guess pj gets a pass on that like many other things? :roll:

The boss is far from a apprentice. If you wanna talk apparentice look a pj who hardly do tours and skip out on a whole region of the untied states unless its for a festival aka cash grab. Least the boss actually does tours unlike pj. I could post the past tours of both pj and the boss in the us, but I can't be fucked to do so.

on2legs · January 2012

One of my favorite comments from the various Springsteen articles on this whole mess. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence:

"Time for Bruce to dump ticketmaster and handle tickets sales himself, through his own website. Other bands do it and while you're never going to have a perfect system thanks to the scumbags at stubhub and the such, it's much better than dealing with ticketmaster."

Springsteen ticket failure... Sound familiar?

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