so how does this all work now, Dustin?
I mean, if I cough up $400 and buy a scalped 4-day from someone, we then have the codes so you know who bought it originally. Then what? Do you invalidate all their tickets for the year? Do you blackball the purchaser for the future?
The tickets state they can't be scalped. Can i plead ignorance, and get my money back through an Ebay process if I buy it there? StubHub?
You wanted to try to address the scalping. You clearly made a step by being able to tie any ticket back to the purchaser. You also know you've got folks who want to help. What can we do to help?
Unfortunately, the best way to help the issue is exactly what has been done in the past couple of years since this became a problem...encourage people to NEVER pay over face for tickets, flag CL posts, and email other sellers such as ebay, etc... letting them know this isn't how Festivarians act. As a community, we can make this process such a pain for folks that it's not worth their time.
Catching someone is great, but aliases make it impossible to permanently keep them from further purchasing should they really want to. Again, it's all about making it a hassle, really.
Scalping isn't illegal, so there is basically no recourse of action. The agreement does give us some leverage, but companies like ebay and stubhub do not even listen to my repeated requests to take down tickets, etc...I've never gotten so much as an acknowledgement from ebay in 4 years and probably 20 emails. Stubhub? Well, that's what they do. Certainly not getting tix taken down from there.
I also think many of those tickets are being put up by people planning to go to the festival. A few minutes of your time places your coveted TBF ticket on a bulletin board for the world to see for an asinine amount of money. You continue to plan on attending until someone pays your mortgage for the month of June instead....then you just make other plans.
"opportunistic scalpers" is what I call them, though I would think that many who were speculating on tickets have horded less after the "market crash" in June last year...
Another tactic of scalpers is to list tickets for crazy prices and when someone bites go find the ticket. Most have months before they are required to deliver the product. They can also make postings of offers for the willingness to pay high prices to create a sense of high demand. The "pros" spend 40+ hours a week living on Craigslist, and most other forums...they know how to work the system.
Until the tickets are not purchased for inflated prices, there will be people who try to make profit on them.
What if the original ticket purchaser sells the ticket for face to someone, who in turn re-sells for $400?
... seems it wouldn't be fair to go after the original purchaser in such a case.
yet another reason why it's very hard to pin someone down as a "pro scalper"...
Two things. First my theory is maybe they made more single day tix available and there were less 4 day. It's an extra 70 bucks per person buying 4 single day. I understand that it is the 40th, but less than a day compared to 18 days seems fishy. Also do you get penalized for buying from a scalper? I didn't get tix due to waiting for a paycheck until Friday and I need to go!
The quantities for the ticket types did not change this year from previous years. We sold approximately 6k 4-days and will ultimately sell approx. 2k single day tickets to each day. Essentially, the 4-day pass is a "buy 3 days, get one free" discounted ticket.
As anyone in business knows, you budget for specific income.
Those who really know what PBG is about, you know that we are not trying to nickel and dime our loyal Festivarians to make more money.
There really was that much demand this year.
Sellout came 3 months earlier than ever before in 2010 (march). 18 days in 2011. With each one of those record breaking sellouts, a group of Festivarians was shut out (depending on when they had historically purchased their tix)...this year, combined with the XXXX anniversary, nobody had intentions of getting left out.
There's a whole different viewpoint about the recent popularity of acoustic music and the new generations being exposed to it. Many of those that have experienced the festival for the first time in the past few years, much like many of the veterans, have absolutely no intention of ever missing it again.
I think that some would attest to a similar spike in interest in the early 00's after "O' Brother Where Art Thou"....but the social media sphere didn't exist then, information wasn't everywhere. The snowball
I realize many of you are extremely frustrated, and I don't have words to express how frustrated it makes me to see Festivarians without tickets and for tix to be available in the secondary market for inflated prices (theoretically) in possession of obviously non-Festivarians.
I don't really have any silver bullet solutions, though. I will continue to watch, and act when I can. Hopefully, you will continue to be diligent and do the same. Someone said it earlier, but this is unfortunately a reality in the modern internet era. They aren't breaking any laws.
I hope that many of you who say that you'll never come back will eventually reconsider. We miss you already.
D.
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