So I completely understand having sites like stub hub and ticket exchange to help people who have season tickets sell their seats if they can't make a game or folks who get tickets then something comes up where they can't go.

The fact that the panther playoff game sold out in 3 minutes got me thinking. How many of the 9,000 tickets were purchased with people immediately turning around to see them for 2x, 3x, etc the face value. Considering that programs exist so that as long as a tech can merely go from computer to computer in a lab set-up and type in the "Captcha" with a program handling the rest it seems like stubhub allows people to easily abuse online ticket sales.

1/6/2014 9:11:39 PM

K

1/6/2014 9:15:09 PM

"Scalping" (selling for more than face value) was legalized in North Carolina a few years back

So it's not really exploiting the system as much as selling for what the public is willing to pay, legally

1/6/2014 9:19:29 PM

they should sell tickets like airline tickets. oversell them and let the people who checkin first get in first.

1/6/2014 9:20:21 PM

supply and demand, yo

1/6/2014 9:41:32 PM

Pay above face? Who pays above face? I usually pay half of face at most.
(Although Im sure Panthers playoff tickets may be a different story).

1/7/2014 12:22:26 AM

LOL, I think it's horrible, but apparently nobody cares. The only way to fight back is for us to start our own scheme. We're going to need some savvy people to get us a bunch of tickets to resell.

I will participate in the part where we get paid.

1/7/2014 12:44:34 AM

1) Purchase large block of tickets
2) ...
3) $profit!

1/7/2014 12:45:19 AM

It doesn't work that way. You can't purchase tickets at all because scalpers snap them up so quickly with nerd stuff and/or venue connections. And then they immediately go up on StubHub or whatever--StubHub is where they get sold to actual event-goers.

1/7/2014 12:57:50 AM

Quote :

""Scalping" (selling for more than face value) was legalized in North Carolina a few years back"

It's legal to scalp online only.

The guys in the parking lot are only legally allowed to make, I think, $10 over face value. Obviously, they make more than face often and especially profit on big games but a lot of that is because they're also big buyers of tickets that people were just going to pocket because somebody didn't show up to the tailgate or whatever so they get it for dirt cheap to begin with.

It's shitty, but it's also supply and demand. Would you rather that you just didn't go because tickets were completely unavailable and/or you would have to go to great lengths to find one legally, or pay for the luxury of getting them after the game has been sold out?

[Edited on January 7, 2014 at 3:13 AM. Reason : .]

1/7/2014 3:12:00 AM

The last Panthers home playoff game against the Cardinals I got nervous about scalping a pair of tickets last minute outside the stadium and forked over about double face value for the tickets online. Sure enough, when game time rolled around, the tickets outside ranged from face value to 20% over. I probably spent an extra $100 for that peace of mind, and then watched Jake Delhomme stink it up for 3.5 hours.

It's the same in Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte. Just buy the damn tickets outside the stadium and save.

1/7/2014 7:32:11 AM

wait until 10 minutes after the start and get them really cheap.

1/7/2014 7:36:24 AM

Quote :

"It's the same in Raleigh, Greensboro, and Charlotte. Just buy the damn tickets outside the stadium and save."

Is there any issue of the tickets being fake? That is the only thing I'd be scared about.

1/7/2014 8:25:58 AM

Yes; I doubt so much in NC, but certainly in larger markets. Though times may have changed enough to where there would be fake tickets in NC.

1/7/2014 8:57:15 AM

I honestly didn't know you could do this on stubhub until recently.

-went on ticketmaster to buy pearl jam tickets, website malfunctioned and when I tried again the tickets had already sold out in like two minutes.
-being a huge fan, I desperately wanted to go, so I went to stubhub and found tickets. BUT, it was clear some nerds/assholes had bought up all the tickets because like 20 minutes later there were a million for sale, but were like 3x the original price.
-seeing that tickets were just going to keep going up, I actually bought an extra ticket and sold it on stubhub like three weeks later for a shit-ton more to offset the extra I had to spend initially. A little shady on my part, but I just put it at the price the others were selling at.

But yeah, it got me thinking, whats to prevent me from buying like ten front row tickets to john mayer and then selling them a week later for twice as much. Obviously there is risk involved (like stocks, it goes up and down), but you'd probably at least get your money back.

1/7/2014 10:15:21 AM

if you have money to invest in this (i.e. its like stocks right)

say you put $50 in, if you lose the $50 you're out

but when you're up $75, pull your first $50 out, and see what the profits do

I bet the risk factor is much better than the stock market


don't ever try this with the ACC tournament, for some reason, no one gives a shit anymore
yeah you will get lucky when duke and unc square off, otherwise, [no]

1/7/2014 10:34:30 AM

^^ you honestly didn't know you could buy a ticket and then sell it again later?

1/7/2014 10:42:07 AM

Obviously I knew that, I was referring to the fact that you can set the price as high as you want (online scalping, like the thread title says). I figured there'd be some degree of reason to it, but you can set it at whatever outrageous number you want (what people will pay). Obviously the more you charge, the more stubhub makes, so i'm sure they don't mind.

1/7/2014 10:47:50 AM

oh, you thought stubhub sets the prices, my bad.


Yeah a lot of the outrage about high ticket prices is usually directed at Stubhub when they have nothing to do with that. I've used it to sell tickets only once - US Soccer v. Mexico. The tickets were so expensive face value (like $90 after fees) that I bought two more and sold them each for $375. After stubhub's huge fee, I still made enough to pay for all 4 tickets that I bought and for a flight up to Columbus for the game. I probably could have made more but I sold them like $50 lower than the closest price to mine so I could sell them earlier and didn't have to sweat it out close to the game.

1/7/2014 10:59:08 AM

I did the same thing. I sold the pearl jam ticket for $610, so even after the stubhub fees had enough to cover the cost of MY ticket and rent a nice car to drive there in style, haha.

1/7/2014 11:08:33 AM

i was drinking beer listening to the radio on my porch and won some Kenny Chesney tickets by some stroke of luck. anyway, i sold them for double face value to a law enforcement officer of some kind, Wake Co deputy, iirc. he was just happy to find a pair of tickets.

1/7/2014 11:46:20 AM

1/7/2014 12:48:50 PM

I thought scalping in NC was limited to $3 over face (plus any fees charged by original ticket office)?

1/7/2014 1:21:54 PM

This is a microcosm of what's. Wrong with our society. People who buy the tickets early aren't producing anything but are taking tons of money out. Of the economy. It seems harmless with concert tickets but this goes on with food land energy and everything else basically

1/7/2014 1:42:14 PM

Quote :

"taking tons of money out."

Yep. They burn it.

1/7/2014 1:44:19 PM

i went to the DPAC box office at 6 am to get tickets to Book of Mormon when it opened at 8am. Online ticket sales didn't start until 10a. Bought 4 front row tickets, put them on stubhub for 2.5x face. Sold them inside of 2 weeks.

So who pays $350/ticket for the Book of Mormon? My buyers were in Cary and Greensboro, and I assume that they had enough money that they didn't feel like doing what I did. I'm sure they'll enjoy the show. I'm enjoying the money. Capitalism FTW

1/7/2014 2:23:25 PM

^, that's fine. Its the automated software designed to buy them all at one time 2 seconds after they go on sale that is the problem. You basically played the role of a live broker, same thing with the people camping out for PS3's years ago for $700 and selling them for $1,800.....They had a segment on some show showing an internet cafe abroad of people hired spefically to order tickets I guess to get through the hierogliphic. I would guess concert tickets are more profitable to Stubhub as I can stay home to watch any sporting event. I don't have that luxury for an artist coming though my city once every 5 years.

I know with most college and pro teams you can transfer your real glossy tickets to anyone through email and they can print them out at home and then your glossy season ticket becomes void. That's a slippery slope for buyers on the secondary market. No way for a company like Stub Hub to verify what's happened behind the scenes.

1/7/2014 2:50:43 PM