Garth Brooks Letter to US Congress (Ticket scalping)

[brettdale]

To make Ticket scalping Illegal

Link to tweet

[orleans]

1. for non twitter people (and so i can enlarge it to read it)

[moniss]

2. Allowing the stranglehold

for ticketing was wrong in the first place. The scalping of tickets is not unlike what they have allowed to happen (sadly) with other industries like trucking. There are now so many different middlemen involved in a transaction of moving freight that quite often the original factory doing the shipping has no earthly idea who all is actually involved in hauling their product. Each middleman is basically re-brokering the load and so you might have a shipper paying a $1000, for example, to move a load and he thinks his "broker guy" is maybe getting 10-20% of that and the trucker is getting the rest. Most of them would be amazed to see that his "guy" brought in a broker who then brought in another etc. until the company actually owning the truck,paying the costs and doing the work is getting maybe 30-40% of that original $1000. The bots and ticket resellers are the same story. You hear stories all the time where a seat gets sold to multiple people or a seat that started at $100 is jacked up multiple times by fake purchases by the resellers themselves in order to rip the final purchaser. Same sort of deal. They find a way to weasel into something and then like parasites they hollow out the body and damage the host.

It would be similar to a construction contractor being retained to build a building and signing a contract to perform the work for x amount of money. But then he hires a project management company who then hires a bunch of sub-contractors and they in turn hire "independent contractors" to do the actual work. Using the label "independent contractor" allows them all to avoid having Work Comp insurance costs, unemployment compensation fund costs etc. So the person with the actual tools and skills is the one actually constructing the building but the layers of "management" above are taking most of the money. That's assuming that the first contractor in the line actually pays the next guy down the line and so on. We all know someone famous for not paying the contractors who actually build his projects. Same thing happens all the time in trucking. Truckers get stiffed every day.

[Coventina]

3. scalpers are the scum of the earth

[lapfog_1]

4. the artists themselves are often involved in "self-scalping"

they reserve large blocks of tickets that they sell online through secondary markets.

My understanding is that this is very common.

[Coventina]

7. wow, that's super disrespectful to their fans.

If I knew an artist was doing that, I would no longer attend their concerts.

[Chakaconcarne]

5. If we don't get a handle on this, we'll only ever be able to see barbie bands in mega venues....

Smaller bands aren't touring or canceling tours because they are barely covering their tour expenses....

[Karma13612]

6. Scalping has been around for so long.

Over twenty years ago, probably the mid to late 90’s, I was going to lots of concerts for one specific artist. That’s when I encountered Ticketbast@rd. They are absolute scum. For one specific concert, I waited all night outside a small ticket office. First in line when it opened. First. While I waited for him sell me one ticket, “the best you have, please”, he was printing rolls and rolls of tickets under the counter. He sold me a ticket to the “nose-bleed” section at the back of the arena.

And the actual scalpers near the venues? What a horrible lot they are. Creepy, dirty, shady. The whole scheme is heartbreaking and criminal. What I hated the most? The fact that scalpers were begging to unload tickets five minutes before the show started. Hearts broken all over the country because the show is “sold out”. But scalpers on site have pockets full. Thats just WRONG!

Sorry… got carried away there……

I’m glad its being investigated, but it is so incredibly late. Reminds me of how long it takes to get any justice in this country. And it will still probably amount to just a fine. Probably will do little to change the practice.

[Elessar Zappa]

8. Longer than that.

My dad bought a ticket for Led Zeppelin from a scalper in the mid-70s. But yeah, it’s a bigger problem now and should be cracked down on.

[Karma13612]

9. Oh, I'm sure. I just felt the effects in the 90's

And early 2000’s.

I’m too old to go to concerts now. Well, at least from a hassle stand point.
Maybe a small venue with polite patrons.

I actually got 3rd row center for a concert once. I was in 7th heaven until the people right in front of us decide to stand for the whole concert.

[aggiesal]

10. Maybe Garth should watch this ...

about Live Nation/TicketMaster stranglehold artists