During the last few years the number of scalpers on ebay has really come down.
This guy/gal, however, scalps Town Park tickets on ebay every freakin’ year. This year, he’s/she’s (I’m thinking it might be a she) got a vehicle pass too. :mad
Has anybody here ever bought Town Park tickets (before you knew better?) from this person and know their email?
Is there anything to do here Dustin?
Flag him at least
Debbie
Hi Debbie,
It’s on ebay, not craigslist…ebay owns stubhub and loves to get their cut and this seller has too many past sales of TP, Firefly, Coachella, Burning Man, etc. to care, they don’t care about our festival, they enter the lottery for the money they can churn. Unfortunately, they hit on a vehicle pass this time.
I’ll try to call Dustin if I get the chance to find out if I/we/someone can find out this sellers email and if it matches up with an order with a VP, if there’s anything PBG can and will do about it.
There’s a couple ways to find their email that I’ve thought of…they’re both subversive, naturally. 
Otherwise, there’s the semi-harassing flood of similar, yet informational, auctions that we could post on ebay, that option would take a village…but the seller’s stellar rating and the desperate demand for vehicle passes probably make that an exercise in futility, but that’s my normal exercise routine…
Do whatever it takes…LOL
Debbie
How in the world did he get 12 Town Park Tickets? I’ve never hit the lottery :argh
What an ASS! I hope someone discovers who this guy is and shuts him down for future purchases. He is most likely using an alternate email for PB purchases and another for being an ebay seller. This type of scalping really pisses me off.
This guys also claims to have 12 Town Parks which he is also selling for $649 a piece. So, either this guy is part of a syndicate who enter the lottery numerous times or they are connected to the ticket source (town, other ways?).
After seeing this post I checked further and theres at least one other seller with 4 day passes, and single day tickets selling for over double face value. This is just disgusting. Makes me sad to know there are lots of folks on the ticket board looking for tickets at face value with these jerks taking advantage of the system. I really hope something can be done. Anyway the folks at PB can revoke these tickets and put them back for sale on the PB site? When you buy your tickets isn’t there a disclaimer that they can’t be sold for more than face? Seems like there’s got to be something to shut these scalpers down. :mad
I flagged their listings as illegal activity. Hopefully it helps.
These types of scalpers have dozens of credit cards when they enter the lottery. Often, you may be able to flag this type of scalper by looking for similar, but not exact, content information. But these days you can have as many e-mail addresses as you need.
The best way to handle these folks is to just not buy their tickets. Let them eat them. Some of us might get hurt by not getting a ticket, but I will bet that these tickets will show up on the list a week before the festival because these scalpers will at least want to get their money back. And every year, some show up, usually attached to some story like. "I had to change plans and can’t go–Really bummed out, etc… " Just be patient. :cheers
Good catch on the other 12 tickets. So, let the exercise in futility begin…
Competing informational ebay listing
If you’re setup as a seller on ebay and you want to: post an ad similar to the scalper’s (TP or vehicle) using old pdf tickets (or I can send you some old ones), it’s free to post as long as you don’t use features that incur charges and you can use mine as a template, just use “Have one to sell Sell Now” and most of the settings I used will be there.
Adding your own verbage/wording in the bullet points would probably be good. Throw out any other thoughts and ideas.
I love this advertisement and more power to you. I truly hate this secondary market in exploitation and cheap profit. Scalpers who contribute NOTHING to live music other than ripping off desperate fans.
I tip my hat to you and everyone who is working hard to make sure our artists and musicians are fairly paid and our fan base can get access to live music without being squeezed financially. One of the reasons I love this festival is the democracy and good . Let the sun continue to shine on ethical ticketing and treating fans and musicians with respect.
So this just got a little interesting- earlier today I got a question through ebay from our scalper.
Question reads: “Do you have a picture or invoice for this commemorative vehicle pass that you are selling?”
I assume they are trying to goad me into reacting inappropriately, which I won’t do. I do plan on using their question to further our message, though.
So here’s my question to you all: does anyone remember the actual language in the lottery application that promised not to sell tickets above face value? Pretty sure it was only in check boxes in the online lottery application.
I scoured the PB sight and found nothing with the actual disclaimer you get when tickets are confirmed. Searched my old emails, but guess I deleted them too long ago.
Good work on the ebay listing.
Hopefully Dustin will chime in here. I had back and forth with eBay on Twitter last night - they looked at the scalper’s listing and said they would investigate. The eBay rep did say “not sure if the policies apply to online lotteries” - not exactly what that means, for example did they read the online lottery rules and didn’t see anything about the lottery winner reselling, etc.
Did anyone check their prior TP lottery winning emails/or the tickets themselves and see if there is any language? If there isn’t then it really has been an exercise in futility trying to stop the scalpers.
Dustin/Brian?
I remember having to check a box when entering the lottery that states I will not re-sell for more than face value. You have to check this box in order for the entry to go through.
Also, this is from the Telluride Shop Tickets page on bluegrass.com:
“Children 12 and under are free for festival and camping with a paying adult. Tickets are refundable according to our refund policy. Please note: Resale of Telluride Bluegrass Festival and NightGrass tickets for more than the initial value is extremely un-festivarian and strictly forbidden.”
So, not having the exact language of the check-boxes, I decided to go a different route in responding to the scalper’s question: “Do you have a picture or invoice for this commemorative vehicle pass that you are selling?”
Apologies to Landshark and others (this is not brief), I hope ebay will post the Q/A on the listing…
"Thanks so much for your question, yes I do.
As I recall, this was emailed out by Planet Bluegrass in December of 2015 as a .pdf attachment. I was so happy to have received it, and the winter was so cold and snowy that year, I printed out dozens of copies and lined my private outhouse in the wilds of eastern Kentucky with them. Not satisfied with seeing them only a couple of hours per day, I printed out more copies, sewed them together and made a quilt, which helped to keep me warm for the duration of the winter. Come spring, I printed out even more copies and fashioned an entire menagerie of origami creatures, many of whom I now consider dear friends.
Later that spring, I was visited in a dream by my spirit-guide, he’s the eagle that’s drawn on bottles of Eagle Rare Bourbon, and he reminded me that I don’t have an RV or a trailer. He said that the destiny of this vehicle pass was that it should be used by a FESTIVARIAN that truly needed it. I asked how I might find such a person, but before my spirit guide could answer, he was summoned away by Pappy Van Winkle to a cask emergency in FORUM, Arkansas.
So began the quest to find the rightful owner of this pass, turns out I was just its interim caretaker. So I had to search high and low, from the webbed valleys to the capped peaks and the obvious clues I had left myself. Finally at my destination, I asked the Ticket Goddess, “Ticket Goddess”, I says, “who needs this pass?” And she answered that it was some guy that shared his name with a character in a popular Beatles song, which is rather redundant, I thought, seeing as how most Beatles songs are popular. I had seen him around a time or two, but didn’t know his name before that, so that is how I met him.
Anyway, he was real happy to buy it from me for what I paid for it, as that’s the festivarian way of doing things and it’s what I signed up to do when I applied for the pass in the first place, being the honorable sort. So, now you know a bit of history."
His (or her) almost immediate reply:
“That’s a great story. I like the one much better circulating the festivarian forum right now about my listings for sale. I find the envy of my listings flattering!! I hope you 2016 festival was super fun, too bad you had to sleep in a tent.”
-nohannnohann
nohannnohann will make a perfect politician.
After all, politicians take what they can from other people for their own advancement.
Isn’t the definition of Politician: greed?
:evil
:lol :lol :lol :lol :lol :medal :cheers