How about this:

Tickets cost $15 each, and you can get them in small quantities if you subscribe to the band via RSS or email.

BUT

Every time a ticket is transferred, half the price paid goes to the seller, half goes to the band. This is supereasy to do technically, because the registry of who owns the ticket is embedded into the ticket. In essence, the bands/promoters are using a trading-floor protocol that would be pretty easy to standardize and various stubhub type sites could use their API...

If the marketplace goes crazy, the original fans can go to the show or sell, the people who want to pay can pay, and the more the price goes up, the better the band does.

So the ticket is a tradable security for some (which subsidizes the price of the original ticket offering, making it so the devout fans can get in cheap, if they choose).

That might work.

Seth Godin

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I should not even acknowledge this but what is wrong with people!!!

"Dan and Patrick got paid and forgot where they came from. It sure as hell isn't Akron anymore. Tim Lydon"

This is just stupid! $25 tickets to 1700 people. $42K gross is retirement for Dan and Pat? Take the money and run? We did something great for the fans and you get hammered! Give me a break. People just want to hate. They did a $25 ticket for fans to go to the Wiltern and see the first show in 4 years. Dan Gellert below has got it right. I was there, pretty sure Tim Lydon was not. The place was packed 3 songs in because the Wiltern people sorted it out and got folks in the building. I have done 100 shows at the Wiltern and it was packed, hot & sweaty, and people were dancing their asses off. Felt like great Rock and Roll to me!

Warren Christensen

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I will say I have NEVER seen a dime EVER in 43+ years of touring on all sales from any ticket master $$ 'kick back' or side deal nor have I ever made deal with them. I wonder why I have never been asked?
No one ever asked or offered We sell a bunch of tickets so..?
What IS this scam?

I wonder if an artists has to willfully DO this ?
I am truly baffled here.

Steve Lukather

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This situation reminded me of the approach that Nine Inch Nails took with their Wave Goodbye tour back in 2009. Trent sold tickets only through the band’s web site, there was a max buy of two tickets for any buyer, and photo ID has to match the buyer’s name or no admittance. The tickets were wristbands and all wristbands were picked up at the Will Call window.

As a fan, I found it worked like a Swiss watch. The venue staffed it properly. Once you presented your ID and that name appeared in their database of purchasers, you and a guest were escorted into the hall.

So, Trent Reznor had this figured out a decade ago. Let me repeat: A decade ago. Sheesh.

Best regards,
—Brendan Hasentab

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Why isn't there just a system put in place where buying a concert ticket initially costs whatever the promoter/venue/act decides as sold from one vendor, and your name gets attached to the ticket and then your ID has to match at the door. If you ever want to transfer your ticket because you can't go any longer then there is a system in place from said vendor where you have to do a return into the system, you get your $ refunded straight away, minus whatever the service fee was (you don't get that back), and then a new transaction for the same ticket price is made for the new person you are selling to, and now their name is attached to the ticket. And this can all be with QR codes and apps or emails, doesn't have to be a tangible ticket, so that you could theoretically sell your ticket even minutes before a show outside to someone who also has the app, or can access the web/email on their phone, and it would only take a minute or two to make the change. The new re-sale gives the ticket vendor an opportunity to make another $5 or whatever for a new service fee so they are happy, and the fans attending shows would all be super happy. Also it would then be impossible to ever sell tickets for more than they are supposed to cost. If this were implemented it would 100% end scalping, and re-sellers like StubHub. Whoever gets the contract to sell tickets for certain venues, or shows put on by certain promoters, then that is the only place the tickets can ever be sold or returned and re-sold/transferred for those shows. Let the ticket vendors duke it out over who gets which accounts. This can be a thing, right? How can this not be a thing?

Gabe Lehner (9 Theory)

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I love how when the secondary market is in the street it is considered scalping, but when they have a business license and website, they're "secondary market," or even more sickeningly- "Brokers." Seems like the same difference between Bribery and "Lobbying" to me.

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Best,
Brendan Smith

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How many people, like me, wil say, "fuck it. it's not worth it."?

Joseph Barbarotta

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It’s nice to see a robust live music scene!! Greed will always prevail.

Mitchell Fox

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Why would anyone buy a ticket to the Black Keys??? Just sayin....

docknof

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If you need a title to all this.....I'll take liberty with a Spinal Tap reference, and call it.....SMELL THE MONEY! The stain of greed.

$3.50/4.50/5.50 got me into Led Zeppelin, Delaney & Bonnie, and Woody Herman at the Fillmore E in '69.

Gone are the days,

Steve Chrismar

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Bob you should check out the system your buddy has for the Mission in Denver.whar a mess.I was really looking forward to shows there.But not with that ticketing system.Thanks Bob Stay. well Ted Keane

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My philosophy is this:
(Not that anyone asked)

The day a club,theatre,arena,etc.
can sell tickets to look at an empty stage—that’s when venues and promoters control the tickets.
The reason people are buying the tickets should have a majority voice,certainly.
And not exclude partners like promoters and venues.
But be fair.

Lawrence Berra

___________________________________________

"We take it on the chin for our clients. Period. They designate fees, holds, etc...we just facilitate the sale of tickets..."

It’s this attitude from Ticketmaster that drives me to do runs at the box office. I go to about 50 shows a year, and you’d think Ticketmaster would be my favorite app/service, but this constant victim-playing drives me up a wall.

Live Nation bought into the concert space to a degree that it’s nearly a monopoly. Instead of creating the ideal concert experience—clear fees and policies, customized recommendations, thoughtful add-ons—we get huge hidden fees, lazy marketing, and "VIP" sections that occupy some of the best seats in the house and stay empty for the whole show. We pay all these service fees and still get a bunch of spammy surveys and "ticket insurance" offers.

Either own the space and care about it, sell it to someone who does, or at least take ownership of the experience. Stop telling me fees are for the artist when the venue is selling me tickets at 1/2 the cost.

Cliff Seal

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Hey, there, Bob:

This is long and not edited as well as I like because it pisses me off, so apologies, but I believe I provide a lot of good food for thought here.

As a fan and end user of a variety of ticketing methods going back to the first time I mailed ordered for Grateful Dead tickets in 1986 as a 16-year-old to when I camped out at a ticketron outlet for the Amnesty International tour in 1988 to when I realized that you could call the Texas ticketmaster number to get through on the phone right away for Springsteen's indoor shows on the 1988 Tunnel of Love tour when he went from playing stadiums to playing 14,000 seat Worcester Centrum in Massachusetts (Calling the out-of-state numbers was the ultimate ticketmaster hack, seeking out "hotlines" in other markets for theatre only shows etc, yea you'd have to bluff sometimes with the ticketmaster agent once you got through, but usually during high volume onsales they couldn't tell where the calls were coming from, this method STILL works even for Phish New Year's Eve shows in this current day of internet bullshit, they say you can't call anymore, but you can), I have written extremely long, run-on sentences....

But seriously, all kidding aside, I have been buying tickets to shows for face value for the last 34 years of my life, and often getting killer seats to the hottest show simply because I have put in more than the 10,000 hours thinking about this shit. To an average music fan who only loves the Black Keys the most, or another band the most I can see it seeming like the hardest thing in the world to get tickets. I do get that. And I also think that part of the problem here is that as much bands really do give all the shits and want it to be fair, it's been awhile for a lot of them and their managers where THEY even had to buy a ticket for a show the "Regular' way. I think they get bamboozled by ticketmaster's "Services" and ticketmaster's various platforms so a lot of good efforts turn into clusterfucks by ticketmaster's intentional obfuscations.

How anyone would think that putting in a dynamically changing bar-code at the 11th hour was a good idea is beyond me. And while I get it can seem secure and prevent people from selling multiple barcodes/screenshots, why would the NFL use Safetix? If it's to prevent multiple bar codes from being sold, I would imagine that the NFL lets their season ticketholders resell their tickets. Maybe the safetix in this case just mean a dynamic barcode for the resold ticket through their season subscription site which is probably backended by ticketmaster.

The thing is if the Black Keys really wanna do an underplay for $25, hooray for them. I don't really get why they would charge LESS than they charge for an arena show, which is hardly overpriced, but whatever. However, if they don't want these things to be retransfered, they should let people get refunds up until the day of the show. kids get sick, you can't get a sitter. a million things can happen and with such a high-demand show all the tickets will get used. Someone will get a miracle at the box office from a cancellation, whatever, but until you are putting the tickets on sale THE DAY OF THE EVENT, you can't offer no resale and no refunds. That's ridiculous. Not to mention, since the safetix tickets are attached to your ticketmaster account, if you wanted to resell the ticket, you could just give the person your ticketmaster account info and they can log into the app with your information and the actual dynamic ticket would be there. You could transfer any future tickets in the app to an alternate email address so your customer couldn't also grab those tickets as well, and take off all the saved billing info. it would not be much different than using a temporary credit card like a lot of scalpers do to get around the ticket limit restrictions back when bots were more widely used.

This goes for all bands, yes. The tech is there to eliminate scalping (mostly) or give the appearance of it, but really, the Black Keys and other bands who do these underplays should make the entire shows general admission, make it a one ticket limit (too bad if you go by yourself, it's once in-a-lifetime, make a new friend, and this would also probably cut down on conversations at the show, it's fucking concert, once the band starts who cares if you are there by yourself?), do it by lottery via email, sure knock yourself out and use 3,000 different email addresses to enter, randomize, tell people they won. You need driver's license or passport to pick up tickets at box office where will pay with cash or credit card. Enjoy. Or better, yet, attach all lottery entries to a credit card number (and provide folks for a cash only option at the box office if that is the only was they can pay). Then people could only enter 3-4 times max. And you need to have the physical card, no bullshit virtual cards.

Selling tickets for shows like these even remotely in advance is just silly in my opinion. At most 48-hours. When Springsteen would do his Holiday shows at Convention Hall in Asbury Park 15-20 years ago, he'd put ticket on sale on a Tuesday for shows happening on Thursday.

And finally, that person from ticketmaster who was tooting their own horn about how great their service is and about how they take the hit? Sure, only a fool would think that ticketmaster gets 100 percent of the service fees, but as far as ticketmaster yelling hooray, we have a giant computer that runs fast and collects data and we spend all this money on infrastructure? It's a bunch of shit. The latest iteration of buying these tickets during on a onsale completely sucks.

There is usually NO WAY to pick best available tickets or even by a section. So like an asshole, you login in early for when a massive onsale is about to happen, you wait in the queue that says how long you have to wait, okay, that part is fine, but then when you finally get into to see what tickets are available, you have to cherry-pick the tickets you want while who knows how many other folks are also looking at these same tickets and get constantly retold that "another fan" beat you to the exact tickets that just picked, because no shit, they are showing the best available literal seats right down to row and seat number, and everyone's screen only shows like the first 12 options or so.

Buying tickets online during a massive onsale is as fucked or more than it's ever been. I can't think of a single reason why you can't choose best available like you used to be able to. It's infuriating and if I was a promoter or band or venue who gave half a shit, I would demand ticketmaster get rid of it ASAP. The best available option existing in fucking 1998 when ticketmaster first put out an internet portal for ordering tickets. They can't pull it off today? Bullshit. Who needs the convenience of picking your own exact seat during a massive onsale? The thing is so fucked that even at a GENERAL ADMISSION show during the initial onsale, you ask for 2 tickets, only to be told someone else got the tickets and then it offers you up TWO MORE GENERAL ADMISSION TICKETS in the same fucking section. Their bullshit system is selling you specific GA tickets. I know each ticket gets assigned its own number for recordkeeping, so it's the same as a reserved seats in that sense, but I have hard time believing ticketmaster can't keep track of these things during a massive onsale or at least kick you down to the next two available GA tickets automatically rather than ask you to rechoose tickets that they are telling you are available. And if they can't, they suck.

Also, for massive onsales ticketmaster should collect everyone's order in advance and then do a random lottery like phish does and you get to tell ticketmaster the MOST you want to pay for a ticket based on the predetermined price levels and then you either get tickets or you don't, but no one has to sit in front of a machine for an hour in a state of total futility, in fact, if they did this, they would need to brag about what nice big severs they had because the amount of volume they have to handle at once would go down by about 90 percent.

Madonna actually did this for her current theatre tour and for some reason the back-end was handled by musictoday, which could be a sub-front for ticketmaster, who the hell knows anymore.

So much of this shit gets so over-thought or, to be more blunt, intentionally over-obfuscated by the ticketing companies, when it really could be very simple. There is a front of constant innovation to impress the consumer so that the Man can keep getting reseller fee and tickets can get siphoned off to the secondary market, blah, blah blah.

Let's face it, Ticketmaster is a company that has something called "verified fan" where they claimed to use all this social media mumbo jumbo to determine the email addresses of real fans so they can get priority and pre-register for major onsales. Never mind how fucking insulting it is to get waitlisted for the chance to maybe get tickets rather than the right to participate in what is a likely fucked onsale anyway. To call it "verified fan" basically implies that if you didn't get a code you aren't "verified" I have see Springsteen over 300 times and bought most of those tickets through the primary seller known as ticketmaster. I am also the only person in the country and maybe the world with my name. And when Springsteen on Broadway had not one, not two, not three, but FOUR Different sets of shows to go on sale over 8 months, I NEVER GOT A CODE to TRY to get tickets for something that may get sold out anyway. My friends still give me shit for and I don't blame them, but like yea, if you aren't a verified fan, then who the hell is? It just shows you how tone-deaf ticketmaster is.

Hope you got a laugh or ten out of this screed. Good night.

Jeff Gorlechen

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