Dear Scalpers,
I love concerts. If you don't know that by now, you don't know much about me. But you also should know that one of the biggest things I'll get on a soap box about is people making money at the extreme expense of others.
Let me give you an example. A few months ago, Twenty One Pilots tickets for this last tour cost $35, plus fees. On StubHub, you could find them for a minimum of $350 (and much higher for bigger cities). This insane markup should not be okay. We as consumers know it, and the musicians know it. We all know it.
So why does it still happen?
Websites let it happen. They profit off of fees just as much as I would when selling an inflated ticket. I'm a business major, so I understand the motive behind this. But I'm also a consumer who doesn't want to be tricked out of my mind and bank account when I have no other options.
People will buy them. If the tickets are in high demand, people will pay what it takes. I don't have the endless cash flow like many others I see searching these sites, but I know that if someone is selling front row tickets to somewhere and you find them for under $2,000 on StubHub, you've got yourself a "deal."
The controls just aren't enough. Essentially, all I have to do is press a button saying "I'm Not a Robot," called a reCaptcha. A robot could do that. I find it completely improbable that the technology in this industry can't find a better way to stop the scalpers running these operations. We've created the robots causing the issues, but can't (or won't) bring the websites up to standard. When someone on StubHub is selling 23 tickets at one time, you know something is wrong with the system.
And I'm not just talking about StubHub. I haven't even mentioned the ones that aren't "verified" tickets. They may seem cheaper, but they're probably fake. Even on StubHub, scalpers get the best of the system. My roommate and I had bought tickets to One Direction about a year ago at a very reasonable price, but come time to enter into Cowboy Stadium, we were told they were fraudulent. Someone had stolen a whole section of tickets, but they weren't reported stolen until after StubHub verified them. Thankfully, they have a very helpful policy, and we got all of our money back (with a $75 credit to my account for the hassle), and thankfully, it wasn't a sold-out concert, and my parents are very generous.
Musicians all around have spoken out against scalpers and trying to get us not to buy from them, but when there is a crunch for tickets or time, there isn't much people can do. The information or credibility just isn't out there to get us off a system of so-called "Capitalism of Concert Tickets," and into an age of supporting the artists, not the scalpers. We're hurting the fans who so desperately want to go to a show but can't afford a ticket while working two jobs on top of school. We've got to stand up for those who can't, so here I am, asking you to stop the cycle.
Sincerely,
Allison
