TicketMaster's Fan2Fan is now Fan2Bot

JimmyV said:

I won Baltimore and both Fenways. My card was charged midday for Balt and twice in the evening for Boston. Not sure that tracks if my name was only drawn once. Seems the charges would come right on top of each other in that scenario. 

Not necessarily. I'm not saying the below is what happened, but nobody really knows how fulfillment works under the hood. And with multiple integrations in play, various tech refactors, optimizations over time, etc... it's possible something like the below could happen. I'm using unique parties, but these could also just be unique processes taking place under a single roof, depending on the system architecture:

1. All users submit their entry forms. An entry form consists of multiple show selections and credit card info.

2. Party A, who has the inventory (count of available tickets) for each show, randomizes the forms and then starts 'allocating tickets' on a per form basis, based on remaining inventory. This means the first form in the list would get tickets to every show they picked... the 20,000th form in the list might get some but not all. The 100,000th form is probably getting nothing. Important to note, no ticket purchases are being processed in this step. It's just creating a list of ticket orders for every show, until the quantity of tickets available for that show has been claimed. And, importantly, it's doing it on a per-form basis, not a per-show basis.

3. With a complete list of ticket orders to be processed, based on step 2, Party A transmits the order data to Party B, who processes all the ticket orders and keeps lists of which orders processed successfully or had issues.

4. With a complete list of successful ticket orders, failed ticket orders, and rejected lottery submissions, Party C sends out e-mail batches for each of those buckets, spanning all shows.

Note that with this flow, there isn't necessarily any correlation between when winners are selected for each show, when they are charged, and when they are notified. Each of those things happens independently. Though it would seem to go against the 'spirit' of the lottery, especially with the history of priority selection, it's easy to see a lottery pipeline being built as described above, intentionally or not. For fans who seem alarmed by the high success rates some had while others got nothing, it's a plausible explanation... and for others it probably just reads like conspiracy theory.

Lerxst1992 said:

Get_Right said:

Lerxst1992 said:

Get_Right said:

Tm is driving all of of this. Tm is the bot. Ticket comes up who is the first to know? Then they appear on a resale site.They take ever ticket and maximize the value. Maximize very seat up until the date of the show. Make no mistake, it is TM grabbing every seat and then squeezing the consumer. You might do ok in a smaller market, but not on the east coast.

And who gave TM more control over the process of conducting the lottery, including but not limited to priority being eliminated (and screwing fans in difficult to get NE shows) because it was “too confusing?”

PJ, that’s who.

I agree. I do not think there is anything sinister with the 10C lottery, but after that all bets are off.

Not necessarily sinister but we are lacking an answer to a basic question…if these NE shows are so valuable according to PJs very own pricing metrics, how the heck did many win three to five  NE shows?

 If there are so many desperate to get tickets, odds had to be quite low for the NE leg. Old days, we got disclosure on the odds and how exactly the draw worked. Now I guess it’s too confusing or the resources aren’t there after nearly doubling the ten c fees.

Not that they owe us any explanation for the very thing we are paying for- full disclosure as to how the lottery is conducted - and how this seemingly impossible draw played out.

We will not get an answer. The band and the 10C have never been ones to disclose details. It is the luck of the draw. Some win some lose. And I do not think priority changed anything. You put your numbers in a hat and some get picked others do not. The odds of getting picked for a NE show were always fairly low even with priority. They may even use a random number generator. But we will never know. The only thing I am surprised about is the number of people that got rejected for Fenway. There should have been a ton of 10C tickets for those shows.

primussucks said:

Once again, for the 3rd time now I had an agreement from a seller for a timed drop for me to purchase their tickets.  For the 3rd time I was on ticketmaster at the exact time of the drop and somehow someone or something was able to purchase the tickets faster than I could!  I have a hard time believing that bots or ticketmaster themselves aren't scooping up these tickets!  This is bullshit!!!

would be helpful to know which show, and the time you did the drop? 

Get_Right said:

Lerxst1992 said:

Get_Right said:

Lerxst1992 said:

Get_Right said:

Tm is driving all of of this. Tm is the bot. Ticket comes up who is the first to know? Then they appear on a resale site.They take ever ticket and maximize the value. Maximize very seat up until the date of the show. Make no mistake, it is TM grabbing every seat and then squeezing the consumer. You might do ok in a smaller market, but not on the east coast.

And who gave TM more control over the process of conducting the lottery, including but not limited to priority being eliminated (and screwing fans in difficult to get NE shows) because it was “too confusing?”

PJ, that’s who.

I agree. I do not think there is anything sinister with the 10C lottery, but after that all bets are off.

Not necessarily sinister but we are lacking an answer to a basic question…if these NE shows are so valuable according to PJs very own pricing metrics, how the heck did many win three to five  NE shows?

 If there are so many desperate to get tickets, odds had to be quite low for the NE leg. Old days, we got disclosure on the odds and how exactly the draw worked. Now I guess it’s too confusing or the resources aren’t there after nearly doubling the ten c fees.

Not that they owe us any explanation for the very thing we are paying for- full disclosure as to how the lottery is conducted - and how this seemingly impossible draw played out.

We will not get an answer. The band and the 10C have never been ones to disclose details. It is the luck of the draw. Some win some lose. And I do not think priority changed anything. You put your numbers in a hat and some get picked others do not. The odds of getting picked for a NE show were always fairly low even with priority. They may even use a random number generator. But we will never know. The only thing I am surprised about is the number of people that got rejected for Fenway. There should have been a ton of 10C tickets for those shows.

Lerxst1992 said:

Get_Right said:

Lerxst1992 said:

Get_Right said:

Lerxst1992 said:

Get_Right said:

Tm is driving all of of this. Tm is the bot. Ticket comes up who is the first to know? Then they appear on a resale site.They take ever ticket and maximize the value. Maximize very seat up until the date of the show. Make no mistake, it is TM grabbing every seat and then squeezing the consumer. You might do ok in a smaller market, but not on the east coast.

And who gave TM more control over the process of conducting the lottery, including but not limited to priority being eliminated (and screwing fans in difficult to get NE shows) because it was “too confusing?”

PJ, that’s who.

I agree. I do not think there is anything sinister with the 10C lottery, but after that all bets are off.

Not necessarily sinister but we are lacking an answer to a basic question…if these NE shows are so valuable according to PJs very own pricing metrics, how the heck did many win three to five  NE shows?

 If there are so many desperate to get tickets, odds had to be quite low for the NE leg. Old days, we got disclosure on the odds and how exactly the draw worked. Now I guess it’s too confusing or the resources aren’t there after nearly doubling the ten c fees.

Not that they owe us any explanation for the very thing we are paying for- full disclosure as to how the lottery is conducted - and how this seemingly impossible draw played out.

We will not get an answer. The band and the 10C have never been ones to disclose details. It is the luck of the draw. Some win some lose. And I do not think priority changed anything. You put your numbers in a hat and some get picked others do not. The odds of getting picked for a NE show were always fairly low even with priority. They may even use a random number generator. But we will never know. The only thing I am surprised about is the number of people that got rejected for Fenway. There should have been a ton of 10C tickets for those shows.

Do not agree with the bolded part. In the old days, we had a decent idea what our odds were before the draw for each show and the results made sense after the draw. How many won 3+ NE shows for the second most difficult concert tickets on earth is astounding. For me, I am a paying customer and deserve to know exactly what I am paying for, and if that’s a lottery, I should be due explanation of the exact process. Disclosure is the only way to avoid  the appearance of impropriety.

I know raising this question yesterday was accurate on my part because we have seen many varying well educated guesses. It’s disappointing that this band believes they are running a fair process with minimal explanation how some were able to randomly win four times to tickets valued $500 to $2000, as they are slashing prices in Euro and Oceania. Glad MSG fans can pay for their tour routing blunders.

We can agree to disagree. Remember big bold and free? No explanation. It is rare that we get a look behind the curtain. I do not think it is that complicated, as far as I know it is a random draw and some people win and some people lose. I do not think priority changed that at all. Some people got lucky and won multiple shows. Good for them and I do not think there is some conspiracy that led some to win while others lost. I do think there is a smarter way to put in your requests. Pick P1 for Philly and MSG and those are the lowest odds of winning, in fact it is a long shot. There has never been transparency to the process since it has gone digital.

Big Bold and Free was going to be a free show in the northeast to makeup for a particularly bad ticket fiasco in the early-mid 2000's. Story was told by @Rubysdad / Tim Bierman on his old radio 10c radio show. The episode where @Santos L. Halper was a guest, if anyone has recordings.

Was treated like a state secret they were revealing. 

jwhjr17 said:

Get_Right said:

jwhjr17 said:

JojoRice said:

Definitely some shadiness going on.  My ticket buddy and I put in for the same 4 shows (Seattle 1&2, Wrigley 1&2).  He went 4/4 in the lottery and I went 1/4. 

So you're saying 2 people entered a lottery with the same choices and didn't get the same result?  Mind boggling, almost as if it was a lottery and one got luckier than the other.  How in the world could that happen?  

It is not almost like a lottery it is a lottery. Some people get picked some do not. It has always been that way even with priority. Was your win for wrigley? 

You're making my point lol

Glad to support LOL It really is the luck of the draw. Kind of like Vegas, the house always wins.

marumaruko said:

PJNB said:

and there it is.
"Only request tickets for shows you can definitely attend" 

This should be tattooed on our arms. You don't know if you can make it happen, don't request and wait until you can be sure. 
Tickets will be eventually available if everyone follows along. 

Also, before anyone says "But no one will restrain themselves" - that's the mindset that is hindering the people. Just do what is ideal and you'll see.  

It’s kind of a non sequitur. Getting rid of priority doesn't have anything to do with choosing only shows you can definitely attend. If anything, getting rid of priority may just encourage choosing more shows, since you no longer can assume you’re likely to score a top-ranked show. Only select shows you can definitely attend is a more appropriate response to a question such as whether you could be selected and charged for numerous shows. And as someone else mentioned, we never truly know which shows we can "definitely" attend... 

As a rehabilitated former sneaker junkie, I can tell you if there really are bots going after certain sections of tickets regular people have zero chance. Good bots can cart items before they even go on sale.