Bots. Scalpers. It seems like more people are buying event tickets to sell them than to actually go to the events.

They’re both online and patrolling the streets nowadays, lurking around venues hoping to make a few bucks by selling tickets for often many times the face value. I have seen tickets priced at $5,000 or more for only general admission seats at popular events.

These days, 20-30% of premium seats at events are going to scalpers. Judging from the prices these seats are often resold for, that’s potentially 20-30% of premium seats that are not being used due to the extravagant prices you must pay in order to get them from brokers who have sold out the show.
But really what can we do to stop scalpers? The internet brings a unique source of anonymity that came along with the 21st century. Nobody has to know who you really are when you’re online, so no one can really catch these people efficiently.

For the concerts I have recently bought tickets to, the presale was protected by a password. Although it sounded safer than just letting anyone in to buy, all you had to do to receive the password was to merely sign up for an account, or connect via some social network, and you were in. These experiences are being stolen by these dishonest people. All they have to do is click a button.

 I recently saw meet and greet tickets being resold for thousands of dollars. The catch? The meet and greets were non-transferrable. Karma in action. This usually doesn’t happen, though. Thousands of people get away with online ticket brokering daily. The numbers are bound to increase as box offices become more and more obsolete.

As of today, there’s really nothing we can do to stop scalpers that would work well. We have figured out ways to stop bots from accessing tickets but people who access them themselves are a different story.Nobody wants to pay extra just to get their tickets early. No one wants it to get that far, and hopefully it won’t. For now, the ticket industry needs to focus on controlling ticket scalpers, lest artists, venues, and consumers lose more money than we need.