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Comment by parthdesai | Hacker News Reader

I wanted to buy tickets for MLS final in Toronto this year. General Sale was at 1pm. I log on at 1pm, site doesn't load. Keep refreshing and all tickets are sold by 1:01pm. And rows appear on stubhub at 1:20pm for ~$500 a ticket. I can fucking watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona (arguably the biggest soccer game in the world after CL final) for a ticket price cheaper than that.

Fuck Ticketmaster.

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What would be fair is an auction. Then the price would be more representative of the market value.

The reason those tickets all sell out in 30 seconds is that they are too cheap.

While this may be true in a pure capitalistic sense, many believe that experiencing the arts isn't something that should be limited to the rich

Being physically present in the stadium is not necessary to watch the game and in a way, those tickets subsidize the game for the rest of us at home. This is especially true for the arts since many artists make most of their money from concert tours (a great example of price discrimination).

I'm generally speaking about concerts more than sporting events, and as someone who frequently goes to concerts, I wouldn't consider live music to be anywhere near the same thing as listening to recordings

Auctions are obviously the least fair model. A lottery would probably be the most fair.

No, the reason they sell out in 30 seconds is because of cheating.

I feel like a lottery would be more "fair", if you want to use a socially aware definition of "fair".

I've repeatedly experienced this frustration when trying to buy tickets to see big bands. It's impossible to buy a ticket for a major band these days, I just stick to small bands at local venues now.

I'm lucky i'm into underground music where tickets are usually sold on wanttickets or i can message the promoter and directly buy tickets from them. Hate it when i have to use ticketmaster.

Saw the same exact thing happen at OldChella.

  Ticket sale starts at 10am.  I enter line.  Sit in virtual line for 3.5 hours.  Get to the front of the line, the tickets I wanted were sold out (The $1700 GA tickets mind you).  

  Right below the 'sold out' button Ticketmaster has a 'Premium Tickets' CTA.  I click that.  The $1700 GA tickets are being scalped for $5,500 on Ticketmaster's partner sight.

New York City tried to introduce anti-resale laws. Guess who lobbied against them? Hint: not (just) the resale sites.

The stadium in Toronto seats 31k people, for the most important game of the year in front of a home crowd. El Clasico is a game famous for quality, prestige and tradition but doesn't decide anything. It's played in some of the largest venues in Europe - Camp Nou seats nearly 100k and the Bernabeu seats 81k. It's probably not Ticketmaster's fault the venue is not nearly large enough for the demand.

The stadium seats 31K for a side that wouldn't even probably be good enough Segunda division. 2nd Leg of El Classico is usually crucial for title race.

Ticket prices for CL final are : Category 4: €70 Category 3: €160 Category 2: €320 Category 1: €440 [0]

It IS Ticketmaster's fault that fans don't even get a decent shot at buying the tickets. How do you justify site not loading at 1:00pm and tickets selling out at 1:01 pm. There was a per-sale that started at 12:00pm and by 12:10pm, pre-sale tickets were sold out. Let's say, there actually was demand, but then how come rows and rows started to appear on stubhub for ~500 bucks whereas original ticket prices were ~100-150 bucks (you missed that point of mine completely).

[0]:http://www.uefa.com/uefachampionsleague/ticketing/

I didn't miss your point, it just makes your comparison even worse. You're comparing secondary market ticket prices to tickets with artificially lowered prices sold through a lottery. Decent El Clasico tickets cost a lot more and the median income in Spain is about half the Canadian one.

The relative quality of the games also doesn't really matter, what matters is there are a lot more people in Toronto who want to see an MLS final than there are places to put their butts in. Maybe there should have been a lottery for them but that's also not up to Ticketmaster.

>> what matters is there are a lot more people in Toronto who want to see an MLS final than there are places to put their butts in.

The TFC demand in Toronto is a very recent thing though. They pretty much sucked for most of their existence, and there's a huge hunger in Toronto to win a title from a "big league" sport, even if it is "just" MLS.

"but people will pay it" is not a proper response to the argument that people are being gouged. For one, scalpers drive up the price beyond what most would consider a fair market. Secondly, TicketMaster itself allows the resale of tickets on their site. This creates huge opportunities to buy up tickets and resell. But people pay. Yes they do but it the price is not being dictated by true market demand, rather they are being driven up by parasites. The scalpers are creating an unjustified sense of scarcity to feed their bottom line and ticketmaster goes along with it because it's all profit. The 2nd sale on their site is even more free money for TicketMaster.

"but people will pay it" is not a proper response to the argument that people are being gouged. Especially given the monopoly conditions often in place.

I don't know if 'but people will pay for it' is a 'proper' response but it's not one I made.

You are missing the point. It IS upto Ticketmaster to try and avoid scalpers/bots buying all the tickets and then reselling. Bring credit card that you bought tickets with and show it at the door along with government ID. It is easily possible. MLS is to blame, but so is Ticketmaster.

You can't tell me your point is the price is unreasonable when comparing non-comprable prices inaccurately and then when I say that's not true, I'm missing the point because ticketmaster, who doesn't organize the event or the venue, didn't magically run some fairer ticket distribution system. I mean. You can, it just doesn't make any sense.

>It IS Ticketmaster's fault that fans don't even get a decent shot at buying the tickets. How do you justify site not loading at 1:00pm and tickets selling out at 1:01 pm. There was a per-sale that started at 12:00pm and by 12:10pm, pre-sale tickets were sold out.

That was my main point. Maybe you just don't understand what i said or maybe you don't want to.

"And rows appear on stubhub at 1:20pm for ~$500 a ticket. I can fucking watch Real Madrid vs Barcelona (arguably the biggest soccer game in the world after CL final) for a ticket price cheaper than that."

I suppose I don't.

> Fuck Ticketmaster.

How exactly is Ticketmaster at fault?

Their site is to quick for users?

They sell tickets to people who want to buy them?

They can't telepathically tell scalpers from normal people?

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