How do scalpers sell paperless tickets

The digital ticketing phenomenon has even filtered down to the high school ranks. Tickets for the Vicksburg vs.

Warren Central varsity basketball game earlier this month sold out in less than an hour. How long will it be before some enterprising soul creates a version of Stubhub.

Ernest Bowker is the sports editor at The Vicksburg Post. He can be reached at ernest. Ernest Bowker is The Vicksburg Post's sports editor. He has been a member of The Vicksburg Post's sports staff since , making him one of the longest-tenured sports reporters in the paper's year history. In his career, he has won more than 50 awards from the Mississippi Press Association and Associated Press for his coverage of local sports in Vicksburg. View Results.

And the more users scalp, the greater the incentives become. In a session closed to media, Ticketmaster Resale senior director Casey Klein stood in front of conference room packed with hundreds of scalpers. An image of a sharply ascending graph illustrating broker registrations over the past five years loomed behind him. That language contradicts what company officials have said about the resale industry over the past decade. In a written submission to a U.

House of Commons committee examining ticket scalping, Ticketmaster U. The company urged British lawmakers to make the marked-up resale of event tickets a criminal offence. That move was the subject of regret by , according to company testimony before U. In a perfect world, I personally would hope that there would be a more transparent, accurate primary that would do away with the need for any secondary whatsoever. Four years later, in , the U. Ticketmaster agreed to refund consumers who bought tickets to 14 Bruce Springsteen concerts in through TicketsNow, and to be clear about the costs and risks of buying through its reseller sites.

Justice Department for possible antitrust violations. Last month, Ticketmaster U. Closing down our secondary sites and creating a ticket exchange on Ticketmaster has always been our long-term plan. Copyright owned or licensed by Toronto Star Newspapers Limited. All rights reserved. To order copies of Toronto Star articles, please go to: www. They found that the company works with scalpers who sell hundreds of thousands of tickets every year — in direct violation of its own terms of use.

So far, the numbers are convincing: Fewer than 5 percent of the tickets sold through Verified Fan have ended up on the secondary market. For comparable tours without Verified Fan, Ticketmaster says that 30 to 40 percent of the tickets were resold.

Dice's approach has also drawn interest from bigger artists and events. Tannen highlights Sam Smith's exclusive show at the Hackney Round Chapel, also in London, which he describes as a "perfect" event: "Sellout venue and not a single ticket on any of the secondary websites. It wasn't listed there at all. For the moment, whether tickets can be resold or not, you still buy them the same way: You wait until they go on sale and then sit in a virtual queue.

TodayTix's Hammerman says that wait is the biggest problem with the current ticketing system. It creates a "crazy high-demand rush mentality" to buy an expensive ticket even though they won't be used for months. Ticketmaster's Verified Fan algorithm is a good way to block resellers and bots, she says, but the queuing system doesn't reflect the way younger customers prefer to get hold of tickets. As she sees it, they prefer to buy a cheaper ticket that they'll use right away.

The amount of time you spend waiting to buy tickets is also weighing on Marcus' mind. Ticketmaster built its success on selling tickets quickly, he says.

That means digging deeper into customer data to learn more about you and anticipate more of the things Ticketmaster thinks you'll want. For other magazine stories, click here. Update 27 July at 6 p. How Taylor Swift flipped online fandom on its head : And proved that fandom doesn't have to be toxic.

Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion. Sarah McDermott. July 12, a.

Test your music system with these great rock tracks See all photos. The growing crowd of smart speakers is ready for your command See all photos. Discuss: How the ticketing world is taking on scalpers and bots.