
'Hamilton' Scalpers Pocket $240k Every Week - jerryhuang100
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-04/why-you-can-t-get-hamilton-tickets-for-a-reasonable-price
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narsil
Technical solutions are unnecessary. Just make the tickets non-transferrable,
and have the ticket holder produce ID confirming the name on the ticket
matches the person. Plenty of music festivals, Vegas nightclubs and other
places already employ this strategy very effectively.

~~~
joemi
It's such an obvious solution that there must be a good reason they're not
doing it already. I refuse to accept that they simply have not considered
that.

My guess is it's something in the "that's just not the way it's done"
family... Perhaps their venue controls ticket sales and doesn't care, or they
have an intermediary like Ticketmaster who doesn't care. Or maybe it's more of
a logistics concern, like they just think that doing such a thing would
necessitate too big a change to entry procedure, likely slowing entry down too
much? Or a more general logistics concern of they're not set up in person or
online to do it that way, and changing now would be more trouble than it's
worth?

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enobrev
Dave Chappelle had a 2-ticket limit, where the purchaser and a guest was
allowed. The tickets were purchased via Ticketmaster, and whomever was at the
door was checking the tickets against our IDs. As a matter of fact, they went
through the line ahead of time to match tickets to IDs to ensure we could get
in quickly. Just adding this, so as to point out that it's even possible via
TM.

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keithnz
So, they sell tickets below market value, then they are surprised when people
re-sell them at market value and are feeling ripped off?

Why not auction all tickets, and if you want to give people the chance to see
it for cheap, have lottery tickets which require ID?

~~~
zwily
They do do a lottery, but it's a day-of thing.

~~~
jakevoytko
The Hamilton lottery is not worth your time if you're only going to try it
once. 100+ people competing for 12 seats (where each lottery winner can get 2
tickets). And now there is an online component, which means you are competing
against even more people.

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celias
Interesting Planet Money episode about ticket scalping -
[http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/25/195641030/episo...](http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2013/06/25/195641030/episode-468-kid-
rock-vs-the-scalpers)

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hermannj314
As long as tickets are transferable, this just sounds like capitalism working.

How much money do staffing agencies, warehouses, ecommerce sites, and the
entire middle man industry make each week?

I salute the ticket resellers. Thank you for creating a secondary market for
tickets.

~~~
SilasX
Does anyone honestly think the performances can only sell out because of
scalpers willing to nobly buy large quantities for resale?

I strongly suspect they want it this way: promoters and performers like the
aura of hard-to-get tickets, long lines, and sold-out shows. Plus, they can
risk public derision and boycotts if they actually tried to sell at the market
clearing price -- people are more tolerant of paying a big markup from some
random guy for the exclusivity than buying it openly at the same huge markup
from a faceless corporation.

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Spooky23
Is this a surprise?

Scalping was made legal in New York a few years ago, pushed by a legislative
leader just sentenced to 12 years in prison for bribery and extortion.

The old law barred resale for profit, which kept scalping underground and
prices under control.

Now you have conditions where a monopolist (Ticketmaster), who also operates a
scalping^H "resale" site who (shockingly!) is having trouble stopping bulk
buyers. I'm sure the usurious fees they earn on ticket purchase and resale
encourages them to halt the process.

~~~
joemi
I'm not sure that any anti-resale laws would have reduced the scalping or the
scalped prices noticeably, considering just what a hot ticket show this is.
I've been in NYC for over 10 years and I've never seen such buzz about a
Broadway show as this.

~~~
enobrev
I don't live in NYC anymore, but I did for a little over a decade. I recall
The Book of Mormon had an enormous buzz as well. I had friends stay at my
place a couple times so they could come to town to see the show.

~~~
joemi
That definitely had a lot of buzz, but still less than Hamilton.

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Taek
I was informed at some point recently that a lot of the reselling is in fact
done by the theatre. This allows them to make more money on crowded showtimes
without looking like the bad guy.

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Trundle
>The Broadway hit “Hamilton” is making millions. It could be making millions
more if not for scalpers snapping up seats and hawking them for $2,000 a piece
or more.

That makes absolutely no sense.

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sundvor
The extra profit is going to the scalpers, not the show's producers who could
presumably sell them at higher prices given the demand.

~~~
packetslave
bingo: I'd feel much better about paying $1000 for a ticket if I knew it was
going straight to LMM and the rest of the show's cast/creative, instead of
some random dude on StubHub.

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cassieramen
What are effective methods for stopping ticket scalpers? Heavily penalizing
resale is kind of a crappy route but for a show like Hamilton I wonder what
the legitimate person resale case is. Has any artist fended off the scalpers
successfully?

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mabbo
Raise the price. Scalpers are taking advantage of a market where price is not
equal to what people are willing to pay. Be more dynamic with ticket prices,
and scalpers have no margin to keep.

~~~
cassieramen
I disagree with that. There are many reasons artists want to keep prices low.
In this case maybe you don't want to reserve your ticket a full year in
advance. An artist might also want their work to be accessible to more people
than those that can afford a $1000 ticket. Raising the price is too simplistic
an option.

~~~
dublinben
The problem is that they _aren 't_ keeping prices low. They are setting an
artificially low face value, and then letting scalpers capture all the excess
value. The real cost to see Hamilton right now is $1000+, not whatever (lower)
number is on the ticket.

By not allowing incredibly devoted fans to participate in an auction for
tickets, they are actually making shows _less_ accessible for the people who
want it most. It's unfair that you can get to see a performance for $50
because you happened to get a ticket, but I am unable to even if I'm willing
to pay $500.

~~~
oarsinsync
> It's unfair that you can get to see a performance for $50 because you
> happened to get a ticket, but I am unable to even if I'm willing to pay
> $500.

The person who can only afford to pay $50 might consider it unfair that they
can't get to see it just because you can afford to pay $500.

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packetslave
_" Tickets are now sold out through January 2017, according to Ticketmaster’s
website."_

and THIS is why ticket scalpers suck. Literally the only options to see
Hamilton any time this year are to pay ridiculous rates ($1000-2000 each for
good seats) to a scalper, or enter the same-day lottery and pray.

I predict it's only going to get worse now that Hamilton has grabbed 16 Tony
Award nominations (and is likely to win a truckload of them).

~~~
vilhelm_s
That's not really the ticket scalper's fault, is it? If the tickets were only
sold at the low face-value price, they would still be sold out, and your only
option would still be the same-day lottery. This way, people who really want
to see the show at least have an option to pay extra to see it.

~~~
packetslave
It depends on what percentage of tickets the scalpers are buying for each show
vs. how many are available to actual fans. The article says in one case, a
ticket broker managed to buy 20,000 tickets.

