JoBu, that’s a pretty weak analysis on your part. You’re better than that.
StubHub is only 1 source of scalping.
If every scalper put every ticket on StubHub now, do you think they could command such high prices? No. The perceived supply would be too great to demand such high prices. Scalpers wait until some tickets have been sold and then they add more supply.
Listen, I don’t know if scalpers were the problem but your simplified exercise of 68/10,000 just doesn’t cut it.
Wouldn’t you say, though, that based on that number, StubHub fails to provide concrete evidence of significant scalping? I think the point was that 68 tickets on StubHub is not a particularly useful data point.
I agree for the most part Billy…was just trying to point out that 68 is in fact VERY few tickets. Stubhub is the #1 avenue for selling tickets. Even if we say there are 10x the tickets listed on SH being scalped elsewhere. We’re talking about 6% of tickets…I know that is assuming all are 4 day passes and doesn’t account for single days.
My point is tickets selling out fast is not because of scalpers, it’s because of high demand. Thats my point.
I think scalpers like email tickets better because stubhub provides the platform to allow people to download the tickets they buy. And stubhub guarantees all the tickets they sell.
People need to just be organized. If you don’t have $200 in your bank account to spend on a pass (on a day which you knew was coming for months), you probably shouldn’t be spending your money on music festivals in the first place.
That argument falls apart when you consider that tickets sold out in about four hours. Not only do you need money, but you need availability and an internet connection during a very short window, and the foresight to know that would be the case. Some of us did, in fact, have both money to spend and the patience to spend a whole hour trying to buy tickets, but still got nothing.
Unfortunately, the best way to help the issue is exactly what has been done in the past couple of years since this became a problem…encourage people to NEVER pay over face for tickets, flag CL posts, and email other sellers such as ebay, etc… letting them know this isn’t how Festivarians act. As a community, we can make this process such a pain for folks that it’s not worth their time.
Catching someone is great, but aliases make it impossible to permanently keep them from further purchasing should they really want to. Again, it’s all about making it a hassle, really.
Scalping isn’t illegal, so there is basically no recourse of action. The agreement does give us some leverage, but companies like ebay and stubhub do not even listen to my repeated requests to take down tickets, etc…I’ve never gotten so much as an acknowledgement from ebay in 4 years and probably 20 emails. Stubhub? Well, that’s what they do. Certainly not getting tix taken down from there.
I also think many of those tickets are being put up by people planning to go to the festival. A few minutes of your time places your coveted TBF ticket on a bulletin board for the world to see for an asinine amount of money. You continue to plan on attending until someone pays your mortgage for the month of June instead…then you just make other plans.
“opportunistic scalpers” is what I call them, though I would think that many who were speculating on tickets have horded less after the “market crash” in June last year…
Another tactic of scalpers is to list tickets for crazy prices and when someone bites go find the ticket. Most have months before they are required to deliver the product. They can also make postings of offers for the willingness to pay high prices to create a sense of high demand. The “pros” spend 40+ hours a week living on Craigslist, and most other forums…they know how to work the system.
Until the tickets are not purchased for inflated prices, there will be people who try to make profit on them.
yet another reason why it’s very hard to pin someone down as a “pro scalper”…
The quantities for the ticket types did not change this year from previous years. We sold approximately 6k 4-days and will ultimately sell approx. 2k single day tickets to each day. Essentially, the 4-day pass is a “buy 3 days, get one free” discounted ticket.
As anyone in business knows, you budget for specific income.
Those who really know what PBG is about, you know that we are not trying to nickel and dime our loyal Festivarians to make more money.
There really was that much demand this year.
Sellout came 3 months earlier than ever before in 2010 (march). 18 days in 2011. With each one of those record breaking sellouts, a group of Festivarians was shut out (depending on when they had historically purchased their tix)…this year, combined with the XXXX anniversary, nobody had intentions of getting left out.
There’s a whole different viewpoint about the recent popularity of acoustic music and the new generations being exposed to it. Many of those that have experienced the festival for the first time in the past few years, much like many of the veterans, have absolutely no intention of ever missing it again.
I think that some would attest to a similar spike in interest in the early 00’s after “O’ Brother Where Art Thou”…but the social media sphere didn’t exist then, information wasn’t everywhere. The snowball
I realize many of you are extremely frustrated, and I don’t have words to express how frustrated it makes me to see Festivarians without tickets and for tix to be available in the secondary market for inflated prices (theoretically) in possession of obviously non-Festivarians.
I don’t really have any silver bullet solutions, though. I will continue to watch, and act when I can. Hopefully, you will continue to be diligent and do the same. Someone said it earlier, but this is unfortunately a reality in the modern internet era. They aren’t breaking any laws.
I hope that many of you who say that you’ll never come back will eventually reconsider. We miss you already.
…Dustin, thank you for the history and placing of things into perspective. With regard to the tix on stubnub, I’d highlighted only the largest data point (68 tix for one of the single-day passes)… the total number was 202 tix for sale the day after the sales. That number is currently 194. Still, less than 2 percent; which when taken into perspective, is a minimal number of scalpers (especially if presuming that each person doing so ordered 4 tix w/sole intention of reselling them all … putting the number of scalpers to just over 50 (on stubhub)). Craigslist (in my area) has multiple posts requesting tickets … I haven’t seen any (as of last night) attempting to sell any.
So, perhaps times are changing … and … next year may be even worse. Until then, though, I will treasure the opportunity to again get to TBF this year (regardless of whether or not I can secure in-town lodging … Mtn Village, Ridgway and Ouray have always worked out great thus far).