This is so ridiculous I’m amazed that I even feel like pointing it out, but despite what you’ll read in just about every corner of the Internet media, no one is actually selling tickets to Bon Jovi’s Central Park concert for $1500.
In case you haven’t heard: 60,000 tickets were distributed free by the city of New York, and the media is having a field day over the fact that one person and one person only posted a Buy It Now listing priced at $1500 for a pair of tickets on eBay.
This does not mean that tickets are “selling” for $1500. All it means is there’s some total schmoe online hoping to dupe someone into paying hella more for something than it’s worth, and I’m sorry to say, but that happens every single day. Good job, Bon Jovi’s publicist!
(A 10-second check of completed eBay listings shows that Bon Jovi tickets are actually selling for about $10 to $20 a pop.)
I, myself, am more inflamed over the increasing prominence of StubHub. They’ve even got TV commercials now.
Here it is, folks: the age is upon us when everyone’s a scalper, none of the concerts you want to see have available face value tickets, and StubHub takes a 25-percent cut of all tickets sold for two, three, five times the face value.
In 38 states, it’s still illegal to sell tickets on the sidewalk outside of a concert, but StubHub, which is owned by eBay, is posting huge profits year after year.
Giving money to a guy on the street: Bad! Giving money to an $8 billion company traded on NASDAQ: Good!
.You Give Publicity A Bad Name
2 COMMENTS
LEAVE A REPLY
I think the issue really boils down to the sale of otherwise free tickets.
I recently, and shamefully, bought two Flight of the Conchords tickets for $220 from a ticket seller on Ebay just a couple of days before the show.
The tickets had sold out almost instantly when they went on sale for face value, which was around $35.
I had also checked stub hub, which had nothing under $200 per ticket.
Monetarily, the concert was worth it. However I came to regret the purchase.
Craigslist was laden with fans desperately searching for extra tickets.
This got me to thinking of the whole wrong-ness of the situation. Those $200 tickets probably didn’t sell. So here are empty seats in this supposedly sold out venue, which should have been occupied by honest fans who can’t afford $200 a ticket.
It’s not fair for the ticket-profiteers to take face value tickets out of the hands of the fans.