On 7/10/2015 7:45 PM, graham wrote:
> On 10/07/2015 4:44 PM, Dave Smith wrote:
>> What a ripoff!!! My son had offered to take me to a Mark Knopfler
>> concert for my birthday. He is playing at the Niagara Falls casino in
>> October. He was going to try to get tickets when they went on sale
>> today at noon. He called the other day to suggest that I try to get
>> them
>> too in case he had trouble. As it turned out, we both had the
>> ticketmaster site open at noon and tried as soon as the clock turned.
>>
>> Sold Out!!!!! seconds after they went on sale ??????????
>>
>> He tried another outlet. There were some tickets available.
>> Ticketmaster had listed seats as costing from $97 to $147.. but none
>> available. Another agency had separate seats, but there price was
>> $175-
>> $350.
>>
>> Knopfler is IMP one of the world's greatest guitarists, but I am not
>> going to pay that much to see him play, and I sure as hell am not going
>> to get sucked into that scam.
>>
> Some think that the resellers are in fact Ticketmaster in disguise.
> Concerts frequently sell out in seconds and the conspiracy theory
> gains traction.

Besides getting their contractually agreed-upon free tickets to
distribute to friends and VIPS, the performers themselves usually also
purchase blocks of tickets in order to resell them at a profit to
third party sellers. Between the peformer hold, the promoter hold, the
local media hold, and the fan club hold, the venue hold/employee
pre-buy, the number of tickets available for purchase at the moment
Ticketmaster opens sales can sometimes be rather minimal.

My second concert experience (back in the 70s) had me as the second
person in line at the box office, only to discover that the first
fourteen rows had been sold out even before the box office opened. I
quickly learned that the best way to get good seats at shows is to
cultivate friendships with the concert promoters and box office
employees. No more standing in line, excellent seats always.