As far as regulating prices, it would not only be an unfair restraint of trade, it's completely useless and only serves to drive prices up in a black market economy. And what may be unreasonable to one person may be reasonable to another. The only "reasonable" price is that which is negotiated fairly between a buyer and seller, and the collective States' should have no right to stick their noses in the middle of such a transaction if it is a fair transaction.
There is plenty of U.S. case law to back the pro-ticket brokering argument, including a U.S. Supreme Court case titled "Tyson & Bro.- United Theatre Ticket Service v. Banton, D.A. of New York" (1927), in which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional the laws prohibiting the resale of tickets over a set limit per our individual property rights granted to us in the 14th amendment. The justices nixed the notion that the state of New York believed that the right to obtain tickets to theatre shows, sporting events & concerts at a set price was a public right, as that right only extends to the necessities of life, such as utility companies and such, further averring that ticket are private property and no state shall abridge a ticket brokers rights to resell them at any price that the market will bear. Why the state of New York still has a law against it baffles me entirely. Furthermore, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Trustees of Dartmouth College vs. Woodward that the States' cannot interfere with a private contract which does not violate any basic principles of society's laws and is not a detriment to the public safety. This ruling was expanded in further rulings in later years to include business transactions & private contracts. The only laws that ticket reselling violates are those which were drawn by the States, and those are contradictory to our free-enterprise system and are discriminatory against ticket resellers. Yes, it's true that a drug dealer or a prostitute may be considered to be in the same boat from a topical level, but tickets don't kill people or spread disease. There's no doubt that controlled substances are dangerous to the individual user and to society as a whole, but reselling of tickets is not only harmless to society, it is helpful for the plethora of reasons aforementioned in this article. And every state which has been challenged in regards to their inane ticket reselling laws has lost or will eventually lose.
If ticket reselling should be regulated it should be done so in the
following manner: Ticket Brokers should be required to be State & Locally
licensed (at a fair rate for the issuance of such licenses), and they should be
required to post a reasonable Fidelity bond of, say, $10,000, which be by bond
or in cash to the State. Such bonds can only be purchased by scrupulous business
people (ever applied for one? --- good insurance companies check you out
thoroughly), and this would serve to keep overnight operators out and those
individuals who do not understand the mechanics of ticket brokering and have
little or no regard for the buyer of their tickets; these persons only cause
headaches for buyers and other resellers alike. It would help the States' to
keep tabs on brokers and keep unscrupulous operators in check if policed
properly. It could provide necessary guidelines such as insuring that a Ticket
Broker register its place of business, its employees, and provide full
disclosure, just like they regulate real estate, investment securities, and
automobile transactions. It can also provide more revenue for the States and
localities in the form of license fees, sales taxes & income taxes. And
those measures would only provide for a more orderly secondary market without
unfair restrictions on trade.
IF THE BROKERS DIDN'T BUY SO MANY TICKETS, WOULDN'T ALL OF THE TRUE FANS HAVE A CHANCE TO GET A REALLY GOOD TICKET OR AT LEAST A DECENT SEAT FOR FACE PRICE?
This is an argument presented by some people because they believe (erroneously) that Ticket Brokers take all of the tickets (or all of the prime seating locations) away from the die hard fans who want them. The solid fact is: That's just not true. In many areas of the U.S., Ticket Brokers do buy a lot of the tickets which are made available to the public, but they don't buy all of them or even a percentage that affects availability much at all.
From the obvious side of this question (forgetting about the logic involved in who decides which fans are most important, face price buyers or premium price buyers), it seems like a legitimate point until you stop and think about the sheer numbers involved here. Buying a significant number of tickets that would put even a minor crimp in the public availability of tickets to an event is like trying to corner the gold market. Think about this: Lakewood Amphitheater, one of the premier amphitheaters in the South, seats a little less than 18,000 people. Having a good idea of the number of tickets that brokers in Atlanta generally buy for the good concerts, I can safely say that they generally buy no more than an average of 1,000 tickets collectively, and that's a high figure itself. That's only about 5% of the total tickets available, and that's only for the really big concerts. Now this axiom would have a ring of truth if only 18,000 people wanted tickets to a major concert, but that's just not the case. The evidence for this statement is that the demand for tickets is highest at the on-sale date, but it plainly does not stop at the point where tickets are sold out, usually after only 20 minutes for a hot concert. The next question, what about the good tickets? The answer is, Ticket brokers act as agents for other people who cannot attend the on-sale date for various legitimate reasons, and they purchase tickets for them on their behalf as their agent for an agreed-upon fee. I have covered the brokers' clients rights vs. the fan standing in line, so there's no point in reiterating; just start again from the top of this article.
Sure, there are a number of times where Ticket Brokers managed to purchase a large percentage of the front and center seats for a concert. First things first: A ticket broker has just as much right to purchase a ticket as a fan does. Why? Because ticket brokers are purchasing as an agent for their customers who may not be able to attend the sale due to various reasons: They simply do not want to brave the elements to stand in line; they may not be lucky enough to win a good position in line in a ticket lottery, which is held many times by authorized ticketing outlets (like Ticketmaster) when there are a large number of people who want to buy tickets for a certain event in order to promote their idea of fairness and to prevent camping out in line for days before the on-sale date; they may be out-of-town on the on-sale date; they may have to work on the on-sale date; and so forth. Who deserves to buy first --- who knows? The biggest fans? Who is the biggest fan? The person who would sit outside a venue days before an event to purchase a ticket at a cheap face price, or one who would pay the hard-earned dollars to purchase a good ticket on the secondary market? Who's to say who's right and who's wrong? Take this into consideration: In many cases, some of the best seats are provided to brokers by fans who purchase more tickets than they need with the express object of reselling the surplus tickets to a broker at a price which will cover the expense of all of the tickets purchased (including their own), and maybe even pocket a profit. Is this wrong? From an objective standpoint, the answer is no. From a social standpoint, the question is, why should they deny other fans the chance to sit in a good seat? The answer: Moral, social and emotional reasons do not apply, as a ticket is a commodity which has value, and if a ticket is obtained in a legal manner, it should be nobody's business what the person does with it.
There was a disc jockey who stated on the air that he heard that Ticket
Brokers had bought 35,000 tickets to an SEC. football game. Now that you have a
good idea about the numbers involved here, you know that statement is absolutely
nuts and laughable!
THE BANDS THAT OFFER THEIR TICKETS AT CHEAP BOX OFFICE PRICES DO THIS TO INSURE THEIR FANS CAN AFFORD TICKETS AND CAN GET THEM EASILY. THEY DON'T WANT SCALPERS BUYING THE TICKETS AND MARKING THEM UP 1,000%. THEY CARE ABOUT THE FANS WHO SUPPORT THEM.
Dream on. This is the popular myth, but that's all it is. The music business is just that --- a business. If you believe the hype spouted by folks like Garth Brooks, Billy Joel, Eddie Vedder, Prince and so forth, then in my opinion, you've just fallen prey to a very rich entertainer who's also has a wonderful spin doctor. These folks' publicists could sell you land on Pluto, and they know that if they come out against a business that appears to be an enemy that you will jump on the bandwagon and ride it until the wheels fall off. Of course, they know that their fans are the easiest to sucker into the band hype, after all "fan" is short for "fanatic". At the least, if the statement above were really true, the band who would give away their services for less than market value as a "goodwill gesture for the fans" would be run by complete idiots. All of the things they do are done for effect, from the stage show and songlist to the way they look on and off stage, and especially the things they say and do.
Ask Billy Joel why he was charging upwards of $300 a seat for his New Years Eve show? Did the show suddenly become more expensive? Or did Billy fall prey to the axiom of supply vs. demand? or were the expenses for that show really that high to justify the added cost?
First things first --- A band or artist is a business, and the bigger a band, the bigger the business. These guys don't do anything without having an ad hoc committee of people deciding if it's a good move or not, and how much it will cost vs. how much it will make them, and running it past the spin doctor and the lawyer and accountant. Bands have contractual obligations just like you have to pay your mortgage. Most bands/artists have hundreds of employees/contractors who depend on them for their own personal financial success. They guys aren't keen about giving anything away, and even if a band wanted to, you can bet that the people behind the scenes have a big problem with that.
If an artist really cared about its fans, it would have a fan club. And if a person were a "big fan", they would probably be a member of it if they knew that it would provide them with priority consideration when tickets are distributed. If the band really wanted to take care of its fans, it would offer tickets to the fan club first to make sure they gained admission to the show they wanted to see, and offer only the best tickets, and offer them at a discount from the price they could reasonably get for their tickets at the box office, if not for free, after all, the fans have already spent money buying their CDs and merchandise. A number of artists currently do this. Even give them a discount based on how much merchandise they buy. They could also have free, small concerts at certain cities for only its fan club members. Then, the band could get a more fair market value for its tickets from the general public and make the die-hard fans happy at the same time.
But they don't. In the long run, they will sit in their mansions, maybe smoke some dope, fly off to Tahiti for the weekend, and not think too much about the fans. But why should they feel any different? They recorded their music, they gave their show, they owe nothing more than what they promised. Unfortunately, fans feel that artists owe them everything. Pete Townshend said something to the effect of "I'm not a piece of art, I'm an art-ist". Artists perform a service and are paid for it, just like the band that played at your high-school prom, only they don't sound as bad (usually). Fans feel that the world owes them for being such big fans of a certain artist; of course, "fan" is short for "fanatic".
There are a few acts that actually do or have gone out of their way to please their fans. Phish & The Grateful Dead are/were well known for this, though not at a discount (other than having no Ticketmaster convenience charges). A few years ago, country artist George Strait used to set aside a limited number of excellent seats in the first few rows for his fan club, but that was only a very limited amount, and you still had to be one of the first in line at the venue itself on the on-sale date to get them.
There are a number of "fans" who said they couldn't get tickets to a particular big concert (it's funny how everyone's a "big fan" when the tickets become available and they can't get them) because "the brokers bought them up before we got to the window". If you have read this article at all, you know this is rubbish. Some of the biggest resellers of tickets are the fans themselves, trying to earn money to pay for the cost of their personal-use tickets and the trip.
After everything that's been said already regarding the ownership and rights of the ticket holder, there's no need to restate the rest regarding whether or not the band cares or makes an effort to keep the tickets from being resold. It's all rhetoric and band hype; they can't do a thing about it. All of their futile efforts only serve to further separate the die-hard fans from their quest. What's more, bands such as Phish (and formerly the Grateful Dead) have a number of people on their lists who are nothing more than shills for brokers. They surely don't like it, but you have to remember that there are a number of Phish fans who, although they don't keep track of the on-sale dates and follow press releases, they want a good ticket and are willing to pay for it. Brokers know this and they anticipate the demand and infiltrate these lists. So although these pre-releases of tickets do help get good tickets into the fans' hands, they can't stop brokers from plying their trade. Is it unethical to anticipate that a client would want good seats and infiltrate these lists to make sure their clients get what they want? I guess that depends on whether you're the client, the broker, the fan or the band/promoter. Everybody has an opinion, and they are entitled to it. And considering the unconstitutional laws and myths brokers have to face everyday they ply they're trade, they feel that any way up the ladder is still "up" --- like fighting fire with fire. I believe a fan would do just about anything to get their hands on front row tickets for their favorite band or even a band that's not their favorite. Brokers do the same.
If you think that this is wrong, you should see what some radio people do
to get promotion deals for their station. It's all about money, but that what
started this damn country in the first place. It's nice to have a little
brotherly love for other members of mankind, but I don't see the people who
argue against a free-enterprise ticket market out in the streets helping the
less-fortunate. To the contrary; all I see are people who think they are more
special than the rest that they shouldn't have to stoop so low as to pay the
fair market value. They don't like it when their desires are not readily
available to them at the price they want to pay. Welcome into the arms of
reality, kids.
A BROKER CAN'T DO ANYTHING THAT I CAN'T DO ON MY OWN.
Getting good tickets to any concert or sporting event in your area is just
one facet of a good Ticket Broker's business. They provide seating charts, which
the venues do not offer to the general public (in an effort to stop the
reselling of tickets, which is also ridiculous), so that you can see where your
seat is located. They provide news on upcoming events, usually before the venue
even has it confirmed, so you can make long-range plans, and they sometimes
provide travel and accommodations information. Then there's the problem of
getting tickets to an event outside of your area. Let's say that you live in
Miami, and you need tickets to a concert in Seattle. Maybe you've never been
there before, you're 3,000 miles away, you don't know who to call, you don't
have access to a local Seattle newspaper, you don't know which broker you can
trust or who has the best seats because you can't get a seating chart, etc.,
etc.. That's where a Ticket Broker can help. For virtually any event anywhere in
the U.S., Canada & Europe, they can get you info, such as the date of the
event, the headliners and the supporting acts, the start time, a seating chart
(some have seating charts for all virtually every arena, theater, amphitheater
and stadium in America), and the best prices on the best seats within a matter
of minutes. That's because they have a broker network; though informal, most
Ticket Brokers all carry a list of the top brokers in all parts of the nation.
The major regional and national brokers take orders on a regular basis from
other brokers from California to New York and everywhere in-between. One of the
most frequent calls Ticket Brokers get for tickets out of its area are from
football fans who want to attend an away game. They may stock season tickets for
their area football games, but if they don't have a particular ticket, they have
other brokers who cover the area extensively and keep an inventory for that
particular game. And unlike most individuals, many will swap tickets under
certain conditions.
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