Yes they deserve to die and I hope they burn in hell!

#BitteraboutnotgettingTooltickets

They serve an audience. A very shady audience.

Are we talking sports, or other events?

Sports, have always been more LE doesn't even care. What is the actual issue? I've only ever gotten a great deal, that was kind of spur of the moment. I've never tried on concerts or what not, is that the OP intention?

First time I heard the expression "scalper's tickets" was in Curb a few years ago.

Yes. Scalpers buy all the concert tickets and then resell them on places like stubhub and seatgeek for 2-3x the price.

Actually ticket companies themselves are the biggest scalpers.
https://www.google.hr/amp/www.cnbc.com/ ... alper.html

Here it is illegal to resell ticket for anything over its original price. Which I think is fair. You can't go to an event you wanted to? No problem, sell the ticket and don't lose any money.

I agree, scalpers deserve a special place in Hell. It's becoming a big deal on Broadway now and it's obscene. Back when the original cast of Hamilton were still there, tickets that cost $177 were selling for well over $1000 and the main reason it's sold out so far in advance is because all the scalpers buy the next block of tickets right when they go on sale. It's very frustrating, both in part because A) people can't get tickets unless they want to sell their first born child and B) tickets are getting OBSCENELY expensive because the theatre wants to be making the money, not the scalpers. The cheapest seats in the theatre are not like $170, I believe and premium tickets are an unheard of $998.

I guess the shows don't care so much because at least they can have the brag of "Our show sold out in minutes", right movies35? Or do they care? I guess, to some extent they need to care because if the scalpers buy all the tickets then mark them up x4, opening night shows might be empty (or at least less attended than if scalpers were not a thing).

I doubt they'd be too keen on the concept since that's a butt-load of profit they're not seeing that's instead getting paid out to opportunists of ill-repute for minimal effort. Or maybe they do get off on the prestige of being the "hottest ticket in town" and having people willing to pay such exorbitant prices just for a chance to see their show idk.

Why should it be illegal?

Why doesn't the same thing apply for all products? Should AT&T sell iPhones for the exact amount it procured them from Apple for? Should Apple sell an iPhone for the exact amount it paid Foxconn to assemble them?

Because vendors are registered sellers and it is completely within the law to have a profit margin. When you resell a phone you rarely get more than what you payed for, right?

From what I understand ticket sales here fall into a category for which you need to have a special permit issued for. Private people obviously do not have permit to sell tickets for events, thus cannot resell them for a certain profit margin.

So if a concert is at a 10,000 seat venue and the venue sells 8,000 tickets and a scalper buys the 2,000 remaining tickets, the venue is made whole and the scalper is taking a risk that he can sell the remaining 2,000 tickets. Why should the government care? What if the scalper sells 1,000 of the tickets at 1.5x face price and the remaining 1,000 at 1/2 price (day of walk ups)? That'd mean he recouped his investment and nothing more.

My only point is this is more complex than "scalper is a rip off and should be illegal." And I tend to think scalpers know better how their business model works than do a bunch of elected people in a law making factory.

Also what about season ticket holders? What if they go to all but one game per year and use the one game they miss to help pay for the cost of the season tickets. This method may be the only way they can afford to go at all.

The government should care. It is what they are elected for.

I assume mild sarcasm, but maybe. Things like this are hugely popular with those injured by it being low in total and unpopular.

I know that the government needs to protect the aftermarket costs of Bruce Springsteen tickets. It is part of the Universal Deceleration of Human rights.

Scalpers don't pay taxes on their profits. Hence the illegality in the current scheme of how the things work.

How do you know if they do or do not pay taxes? Is there no individual income tax in your country? Your only complaint is not that they may ripoff the little man but that in ripping off the little man they don't kick a little something of the profits up to the big man?

Ah ok. This sounds like a poor person's tax.

Ticket scalpers are not poor people. Poor people don't have money to buy 2000 tickets in advance. How can they pay tax if their activity is illegal? They say they found the money and want to pay tax? LOL.

You don't understand my point which is slightly humourous since you included an all caps "lol." It will be a tax on those buying the tickets from the scalpers.

Ummm, how? You pay tax when you buy something (VAT). If a person you buy from doesn't pay tax on that transaction then you effectively gave all the money to that person. You didn't pay tax you were supposed to pay. Sure, he will use it to buy something for himself hence pay the tax via that eventually, but that's one tax less in the chain and he will have pure profit for himself. You're talking about income tax, but that doesn't have anything to do with scalpers and buying-selling tickets.

I am saying the cost of tax and tax compliance is born on the consumer. If a tax was imposed on the scalper to consumer transaction that the consumer will end up paying for it via higher prices to offset the costs of complying with the tax imposed on the scalper. I.e., the ticket instead of being 200% of face value is now maybe 240% of face value.

I wouldn't call it a poor person's tax even if it does end up working out that way. The market is people who can afford to pay extra so they don't have to commit far in advance.

Sports are different. Who wants to go to 41 basketball games a year? And if someone gets priced out there's always the next game, or the option of watching it on TV. Tool might not tour again for 5 years...

Meanwhile, Eric Church cancelled 25,000 tickets that were bought by scalpers and released them to fans via his website/other promotions. So the artist can do something about it, although they then risk losing the original value of those tickets.