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  1. Originally posted by Bloodraven:[..]
    yep, but paying for it, even below face value is not helping in any way to solve the problem. If you want to help with your "2 cents", it would be not paying them at all. Like other people have said (guess in this same thread? not sure), there's always a way to find tickets without the need to give a scalper a hand, and that would be more helpful, even if it's not a problem for us to fix.

  2. Originally posted by ddarroch:[..]

    [..]

    Yeah, you're both right. The only problem is you can't tell who is the legitimate fan, & who is the scalper. I'm more than happy to buy off legit fans. I don't want to see them lose money, & I want to see a full house with every seat taken. But I don't want to give a scalper a single cent.

    I'd buy off a reseller in extreme circumstances, but never above face. The answer for us is to buy & sell tickets here, & on other forums, where scalpers don't ply their trade. I've bought off here (from iTim), currently have tickets for sale here, & have sold Vertigo tickets on u2.com many moons ago. For casuals, I guess Stubhub is the answer, though not a great one.

    [..]

    But if it's only a loss of a few dollars it's no big deal for them. They will make that up in sales elsewhere. But if they can't sell their tickets, burn $325 per seat, that's when they become the real SUCKERS. I'm hoping this tour will hurt scalpers bad, with a kick in the balls to Live Nation for good measure.

    [..]

    That's not true. Every time you buy a ticket from a scalper, even at a loss, you're supporting a scalper.

    As I said above, if they sell a ticket to you for a few dollars under face, no big deal, they'll make up those losses elsewhere. But if they are left with tonnes & tonnes of unsold tickets, that's when it kicks them in the guts.

    I'm hoping that come showtime, there's plenty of scalpers with wads & wads of unsold tickets that are now worthless. That's the only way they'll re-evaluate their business model.

    Yeah, I'd rather a bum on every seat at every show. But only if those seats are taken by fans who have all bought tickets at a fair price. If filling arenas comes at the expense of supporting scalpers, I'm more than happy to see empty seats. I'll feel the pain for the scalpers & Live Nation. Heck, if the band looks up, they may even re-evaluate their decision to sign with Live Nation, & what to do come 2020.
    I'm still gonna buy from the blue collar scalper on the street for less than face value than the white collar dickhead on stub charging 5 times face value.

    If I dont have a ticket, and I need a way in.... I gotta do what I gotta do. Like it or not...
  3. Originally posted by blueeyedboy:[..]
    I'm still gonna buy from the blue collar scalper on the street for less than face value than the white collar dickhead on stub charging 5 times face value.

    If I dont have a ticket, and I need a way in.... I gotta do what I gotta do. Like it or not...

    Yeah, but we all know that 99.9% of the time we can get tickets from legitimate sources (I don't consider Stubhub et al to be legitimate). But yeah, for that exceptional 0.1%, I'm with you & will turn up at the venue & try & get a ticket at face (from a fan) or below (from a scalper).
  4. But here's an interesting thing about the nature of people. When I worked for the record label, I virtually always ended up with extra comp tickets for my artists shows. I would take these extra tickets and try to GIVE them away outside the venue. I dont know if its because I'm a middle aged dude with a creepy unle vibe, but you'd have thought I had the plague... and I did this experiment more than a few times (like just about every show from bands I worked from Muse to Jason Mraz to Green Day to James Blunt to Goo Goo Dolls to matchbox twenty... "who would not want free tickets", I thought? "No strings attached". The only ones interested were the known faces that I knew wanted to turn them around for a profit... after exhaustingly trying to do a good deed, I would always give the extras back to the box office where inevitably someone I offered that ticket to for free, paid for it! Not sure where I was going with that, other than we as humans are interesting species...
  5. do get fooled by a 'blue collar' scammer wearing a vietnam vet baseball cap and was not the least bit shady , sold me a scam ticket
  6. Originally posted by peatiedog:do get fooled by a 'blue collar' scammer wearing a vietnam vet baseball cap and was not the least bit shady , sold me a scam ticket
    Yeah, theres always that. But you also have to bw wary of the white collar online guy you never even see... that sells you a virtual ticket that doesnt exist... at least with shady guy on the street you can try to grab a cop and track him down (seen it done) white collar guy got tour money transferred and gone in the wind...
  7. I think the world has to vent their anger in a new direction instead of scalpers. Some have a minimal markup and only certified fools get fleeced because they are stupid. Essentially, scalping is an economic crime which is the least damaging to people. If you have rage at touts your anger needs to be directed into more worthwhile causes.
  8. Originally posted by miryclay:I think the world has to vent their anger in a new direction instead of scalpers. Some have a minimal markup and only certified fools get fleeced because they are stupid. Essentially, scalping is an economic crime which is the least damaging to people. If you have rage at touts your anger needs to be directed into more worthwhile causes.
    "Economic crime" I like that. Good way of putting it. And as far as fleeced - what's the difference getting fleeced by the tout or by the promoter? To me, they're both economic crimes. But... are they crimes? If someone is willing to pay?
  9. The thing is, the way I see it, that scalpers push prices higher (fictitious high demand of high price tickets) not to mention that they make it a lot more complicated to get tickets for the average person.

    Thus, in the end they do become a real big problem.
  10. I guess it comes down to are you comfortable knowing that your money is going to the people who’s practice you are against and I can honestly say i’am when I’m getting the ticket I want for the right price face value or less. I don’t feel guilt and it doesn’t ruin the experience for me. I don’t like what scalpers do, I probably wouldn’t like the individuals considering the choice they’ve made, but we’re not talking about murderers or people who commit crimes on that level. I can tell a story about seeing u2 in Brussels, the only time I’ve got a u2 ticket of a scalper, we went there without a ticket got off the train and people were tying to sell tickets for 150 euros each we then came across a couple of guys from Manchester who got us in for 50 euros each and would get the 3 of us in for 100 euros on night 2. Here’s the thing the guys never had any tickets but fake wristbands, blue ones for night 1 and yellow night 2 I believe, we walked straight onto the pitch with these guys and paid them the money once we were in the stadium. I know that the action itself was wrong but I don’t feel one bit of guilt for doing it, I would have happily bought a GA ticket officially but that option wasn’t available to me at that time and I wasn’t prepared to pay over the odds and didn’t want to miss the show.
  11. Originally posted by blueeyedboy:But here's an interesting thing about the nature of people. When I worked for the record label, I virtually always ended up with extra comp tickets for my artists shows. I would take these extra tickets and try to GIVE them away outside the venue. I dont know if its because I'm a middle aged dude with a creepy unle vibe, but you'd have thought I had the plague... and I did this experiment more than a few times (like just about every show from bands I worked from Muse to Jason Mraz to Green Day to James Blunt to Goo Goo Dolls to matchbox twenty... "who would not want free tickets", I thought? "No strings attached". The only ones interested were the known faces that I knew wanted to turn them around for a profit... after exhaustingly trying to do a good deed, I would always give the extras back to the box office where inevitably someone I offered that ticket to for free, paid for it! Not sure where I was going with that, other than we as humans are interesting species...
    Reminds me of the Patti Smith song, 'Free Money'
  12. Originally posted by blueeyedboy:[..]
    "Economic crime" I like that. Good way of putting it. And as far as fleeced - what's the difference getting fleeced by the tout or by the promoter? To me, they're both economic crimes. But... are they crimes? If someone is willing to pay?
    If a lover cheated it would be a 'love crime'.

    If someone splits up a super deluxe boxset it would be a 'music crime'
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Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.
Contribute to the U2 community with uploading photos or by telling us which shows you have visited.