I got word yesterday that my ticket request was accepted for 2 tickets to the Phish show on June 6 at the Comcast Center (aka Tweeter Center, aka Great Woods) in Mansfield, MA. About the same time, many others were notified that they were shut out of tickets, either for all the shows they requested or a good portion of them. Shortly after, tickets were being posted to TicketsNow.com, a site owned by Ticketmaster, the ticket giant that controls tickets for all the major players in concert, sports, and theatre venues. Some would call Ticketmaster a monopoly. Some would call the fact that they own a ticket brokerage/auction site unethical. Many would say that Ticketmaster insiders, big scalpers, people who give money to Ticketmaster for quick and early access to popular tickets, have a quick shot at getting tickets and use TicketsNow to sell those highly sought after tickets for a premium, sometimes a good 500-700% of the face value.
I ran into one such scumbag today at work. As I’m finishing up a student comes in and starts asking about our IP addresses. He starts to describe his operation. It’s small time, I’m sure, when compared to people who make a living off of scalping tickets through these legal, yet ethically questionable, means. He starts saying how he wants to get a couple computers up with a couple friends and browsers and get on Ticketmaster to buy as many tickets as possible right at 10:00am when they go on sale. I catch onto his game and totally catch him off guard by saying “So you’re one of those scumbags who buys up the Phish tickets just to turn around and sell them on TicketsNow, aren’t you?” He actually has the balls to reply “And Stubhub and…” You get the point as he lists other ticket auction sites. I catch him even more off guard when I tell him that I already got my Phish tickets. His response… “How’d you do that?” Guess he’s not as quick as most of these scumbags who put their names in for the Phish lottery and got tickets. He goes and asks if I have any extras. I tell him that if I did, I’d sell them to friends or strangers for not a penny over face value. He responds, as he walks out the door, “You jerk.” Wait a minute here… who’s the real jerk? The fan who buys his tickets from the source and isn’t trying to make money out from under the band of the scumbag trying to beat the system and get tickets to sell to fans for a premium. I hate to say it, buddy, but you’re not just the jerk, not just a scumbag, but a real asshole.
Anyway, there was a lot of discussion on the Phish boards about the whole TicketsNow thing shortly after the Hampton shows went on sale. There will likely be more after Saturday when a large portion of the summer tour goes on sale. I’m sure there’ll be even more discussion after the rest of the summer tour goes on sale. My advice to the fans… put pressure on Ticketmaster. Call your senators and representatives in Congress. For tickets to be on TicketsNow within minutes of them going on sale at Ticketmaster, someone is using a means other than the Ticketmaster website to get their tickets. Ticketmaster knows this. Do they care? Probably not, at least now they can get a portion of that sales when people use TicketsNow to buy their tickets. Hell, they can even suggest to the poor fans that get shutout to check TicketsNow.
For the rest of you who weren’t shutout… I’ll be at the Comcast Tweeter Center in the Great Woods of Mansfield, MA on June 6. Look for me. I’ll be the guy wearing the concert t-shirt (or if you really want to meet up, check with me ahead of time, and maybe we can plan something). Oh yeah, don’t promote the scalping of tickets. Whatever you do, no matter how much you want to see Phish, DO NOT BUY TICKETS FROM SCALPERS. That includes TicketsNow, StubHub, and whatever other sites exist selling tickets for more than $50 plus the service fees (which should be no more than $20 per ticket).
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