Consumer Law

"Paperless" Ticketing for Concerts, Ballgames, Etc.

By Brian Wolfman

Read here about how concerts and ball games may move toward so-called paperless ticketing. You'd have to buy the ticket by credit card or ID card, and then the only way to get into the event would be to swipe that card at the event, which would then generate a receipt telling the consumer what seat he or she had a right to occupy. Sorta like getting on an airplane these days. So, you couldn't sell or even give the ticket to a friend or even Uncle Bennie, unless the friend or Uncle Bennie had the card or ID with which you bought the ticket.

So . . .  the people who are pushing this idea -- behemoths like Ticketmaster and Live Nation, who, by the way, recently completed a merger -- say that paperless ticketing will help consumers because it will prevent scalpers from scarfing up hundreds or thousands of tickets and reselling them way above face value. That may be. But the real reason they like this idea is because it will eliminate a secondary market over which they have no control, such as the ones that take place on StubHub (which is owned by ebay) and Craig's List, and the even more informal secondary markets that take place every day on the Internet or at the office or on the street. Why do Ticketmaster and Live Nation care if other folks resell their tickets? You guessed it: They run their own secondary market -- for which they generally take a 20% cut on every transaction -- and they'd just love to have exclusive control of all sales and resales.

Full post as published by CL&P Blog on July 05, 2010 (boomark / email).