I mean, Ticketmaster are greedy bastards, that’s why they do what they do. But I think a part of a the veneer of respectability they present is based on the truth that you’ll never really be able to stop scalpers, so Ticketmaster might as well be the legal scalper of choice. There will always be a blackmarket for popular tickets (so the reasoning goes). Since reselling isn’t illegal then it’s hard to force eBay and gumtree to disallow it. And there’s nothing to stop touts in person. So Ticketmaster says “fine, we’ll host the reselling at whatever the bidding goes up to”. They get to make some more money on it and disallowing isn’t going to much improve things for the average concert goer…
I think probably one actual solution is to sell tickets linked to your mobile device (somehow). That’s probably still vulnerable to being hacked / faked so maybe that’s why they haven’t done it (aside from them losing out on that resale margin, obvs).
Rotating barcode is the key here. Ties the purchase to a ticketmaster account and requires a phone be presented at the gate. All perfectly doable, if they were so inclined.
I mean, Ticketmaster are greedy bastards, that’s why they do what they do. But I think a part of a the veneer of respectability they present is based on the truth that you’ll never really be able to stop scalpers, so Ticketmaster might as well be the legal scalper of choice. There will always be a blackmarket for popular tickets (so the reasoning goes). Since reselling isn’t illegal then it’s hard to force eBay and gumtree to disallow it. And there’s nothing to stop touts in person. So Ticketmaster says “fine, we’ll host the reselling at whatever the bidding goes up to”. They get to make some more money on it and disallowing isn’t going to much improve things for the average concert goer…
I think probably one actual solution is to sell tickets linked to your mobile device (somehow). That’s probably still vulnerable to being hacked / faked so maybe that’s why they haven’t done it (aside from them losing out on that resale margin, obvs).
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Rotating barcode is the key here. Ties the purchase to a ticketmaster account and requires a phone be presented at the gate. All perfectly doable, if they were so inclined.