By Hannah Lathen/ campus editor
People might need to figure out how to move at the speed of light next time they want to see their favorite artist perform or team play.
With all the wondrous advances brought on by technology, the ticket selling and buying world has dipped into the dark side. People no longer have to rely on the box office as their ticket-buying source. They have the internet. This convenience, however, is coming with a pretty hefty price tag.
The online ticket-buying market is mainly split into two different sections, the primary ticket sellers and the secondary ticket sellers. Ticketmaster is a primary ticket seller. It is usually the first source for buying tickets to various events including music concerts and sports games. Buying tickets straight from primary ticket sources means getting face value. Secondary ticket sellers like Stubhub and VividSeats sell resale tickets. They get the tickets from the primary ticket sites.
The problem is that ticket brokers are buying up the tickets extremely fast in mass amounts using software and robots. Ticketmaster has tried to stop this practice. The extra steps they have added to prevent software from buying up the tickets are obviously not hard to surpass, and they are just adding on the wait time for the fans when buying the ticket.
Very rarely do people get the seat they want for the price it is worth. A ticket that was once only $70 on Ticketmaster is jacked up to $300 on Stubhub. Most often when people hear that an artist recently had “sold out” a show, it’s because it sold out on the primary site, not because all the seats are going to be filled.
I have been on standby with my computer, ready for the second tickets go on sale. Then boom, five seconds go by, and all the tickets are gone. I am then forced to buy them for resale off of Ticketmaster or go over to secondary ticket sellers to find my ticket. Nothing hurts the heart or wallet more than having to pay $500 for a ticket with a $120 face value.
Music and sports fans don’t deserve this kind of punishment for being dedicated and loyal. Primary ticket sources need to step up their efforts to prevent the glorified online scalping that is selling resale tickets.
