Events Selling Out Unreasonably Fast

[BrknFngrs]

Has anyone else found it nearly impossible to get seats for big name events through Ticketmaster in the last little while?

This week for example, I was trying to purchase tickets as a part of a pre-sale that started at 10am. I was on the ticketmaster site immediately before 10am and refreshed the page until the purchase ticket option came up, put in the presale code, number of seats, coded image and searched for tickets (probably took about 15 seconds to do these steps). The site then started looking for a pair of tickets, estimating the wait time as "less than 1 minute". Then the time began to climb to "about 1 minute", "more than 1 minute", "3 minutes", etc. The end result was that I didn't end up getting any tickets.

So I brushed this off as being "too slow on the draw" and assumed the pre-sale was an exceptionally small block of tickets. Fast forward to today; the event goes on sale to the general public, I go through the exact same process and again I don't get any tickets.

I have a really hard time believing that it's even possible for the event to sell out this fast which makes me think something doesn't add up with this. Does Ticketmaster sell tickets to the dirtbag scalping companies before they go to the public or something? I can't think of a single legitimate reason why a persons wait time would increase as you wait.

Thoughts?

[Cos]

I think they need a better way to stop scalpers on EVERYTHING. PS3, Wii, video games, tickets.

[TYMSMNY]

"put in the presale code, number of seats, coded image and searched for tickets"

They can have all that filled in before you finish thinking about the presale code.

[Tik-Tok]

Originally posted by Cos
I think they need a better way to stop scalpers on EVERYTHING. PS3, Wii, video games, tickets.

Scalping is legal now, and Ticketmaster profits off both the initial sale to the scalper, and through their re-sell site.

Personally, I think pre-sales should be limited to 5%-10% of the concert seats, and scalping be illegal and enforced again.

[BrknFngrs]

Originally posted by TYMSMNY
"put in the presale code, number of seats, coded image and searched for tickets"

They can have all that filled in before you finish thinking about the presale code.

Meaning? Some kind of sniping software or just fast typing?

I'm struggling to believe that there are enough lightning fast typists to legitimately sell out a stadium in a few seconds.

I'm definitely in agreement on the scalping issue; it should absolutely be illegal. What really gets me is that revenue canada hasn't realized that this is a significant tax evasion issue.

[roopi]

I take it you are refering to UFC 129? If so I've read alot of complaints about this over the past day. I was able to purchase 8 tickets during yesterdays presale and 2 tickets during todays presale.

They sold 40,000 tickets during the presale yesterday and I was able to complete 3 seperate transactions yesterday. I purchased 2 then 4 and then another 2. I'm not sure why people had such an issue with it however I thought it was a breeze. Then again I've used a computer before unlike some member of UFC fight club (the only reason I say this is because they think there is some conspiracy that Dana White is selling the tickets to Stubhub and other resale sites. They don't realize what Stubhub really is).

Anyways your last shot at tickets is tomorrow morning. Good Luck!

[BrknFngrs]

Originally posted by roopi
I take it you are refering to UFC 129? If so I've read alot of complaints about this over the past day. I was able to purchase 8 tickets during yesterdays presale and 2 tickets during todays presale.

They sold 40,000 tickets during the presale yesterday and I was able to complete 3 seperate transactions yesterday. I purchased 2 then 4 and then another 2. I'm not sure why people had such an issue with it however I thought it was a breeze. Then again I've used a computer before unlike some member of UFC fight club (the only reason I say this is because they think there is some conspiracy that Dana White is selling the tickets to Stubhub and other resale sites. They don't realize what Stubhub really is).

Anyways your last shot at tickets is tomorrow morning. Good Luck!

I appreciate the assumption that it was for UFC tickets; sadly, it was for Taylor Swift tickets in Edmonton :rofl:

I'm not generally the conspiracy theorist type but something is really strange with trying to get event tickets over the last little while and how incredibly fast they are selling out and then hitting scalping sites.

[Cos]

Did I make this up or did I hear that ticket master was holding tickets back and then selling to their resale site automatically?

[TYMSMNY]

Originally posted by BrknFngrs


Meaning? Some kind of sniping software or just fast typing?

I'm struggling to believe that there are enough lightning fast typists to legitimately sell out a stadium in a few seconds.

I'm definitely in agreement on the scalping issue; it should absolutely be illegal. What really gets me is that revenue canada hasn't realized that this is a significant tax evasion issue.

software that prefills it. BAM BAM thank you maam.

Ticketmaster also owns a resale site, huge documentary on it.

[dirtsniffer]

ya they definitely just pass a large percentage of tickets onto their markup site. this should be illegal

[bigbadboss101]

I have purchased tickets on the presale dates before. On more than one occasion I got on right at 10 am and didn't find anything good and then 10 minutes later when I tried again I found better tickets. Now sure how that works. Something with the system I think as I don't see why the best ticket you can get is section 215 for example and then minutes later you can get floor seats.

[core_upt]

Presale ticket quantities are restricted as well. if there are 10,000 total seats available, there may only be 500 for Presale 1 and 1,000 for Presale 2.

More and more events are going to go to Ticketmaster's ticketless/creditcard system, where you just have to swipe the CC you bought the tickets with at the door, show ID and in you go, no tickets involved. Seems great, as it removes scalpers, but you just have to make damn sure you can go to the event before buying as there is no way to sell or transfer your seats. This system allows TM to be the only scalpers, as you can only sell tickets through their site (ticketweb). It's a fucking scam, but since TM is the only real player, what can you do?

[wintonyk]

Originally posted by bigbadboss101
I have purchased tickets on the presale dates before. On more than one occasion I got on right at 10 am and didn't find anything good and then 10 minutes later when I tried again I found better tickets. Now sure how that works. Something with the system I think as I don't see why the best ticket you can get is section 215 for example and then minutes later you can get floor seats.

I bet its a large number of people going through all the motions except purchasing them. Ticketmaster will "hold your tickets" for up to 3 or 4 minutes if I recall correctly.

Thats my best guess.

[BrknFngrs]

Ya this kind of thing really pisses me off; I knew that part of the issue might be the smaller blocks during pre-sale and that's a good point on the pre-filled forms but ticketmaster selling to scalping companies in bulk is complete bullshit. I'm not really sure how that wouldn't be illegal or even anti-competitive.