Why Reputable Ticket Brokerages are Good for Consumers

Dispelling Myths in the Ticket Brokering Trade 

Anyone who has waited in line at a box office or attempted to access Ticketmaster during an onsale event has probably experienced the frustration of not getting their desired ticket location or being unable to purchase tickets at all.  Many people believe that ticket resellers use their ‘tricks of their trade” to obtain tickets, control the supply and drive up ticket prices.  However, the problem for consumers is not the existence of brokers, their frustration is caused by ticket demand exceeding ticket supply.  Often villainized ticket brokers actually give consumers access to an otherwise unattainable good with a built-in assurance of delivery and validity.  A market without reputable brokers is a market with fewer choices and less recourse for consumers. 

There are several myths associated with the ticket brokering industry including:

A) “Ticket Brokers have software that allow them to buy up all of the tickets before anyone else”

B) “Ticket Brokers pay “ice” to the concert promoters, venue box offices and organizations to get first pick of the tickets”

C) “Ticket Brokers drive ticket prices up”

Regarding myth A, in the early stages of Ticketmaster.com several programmers created “spinner” software designed to quickly log in and purchase tickets as soon as they were put on sale.  The use of such software is illegal.  In the last several years companies like Ticketmaster.com have implemented spider blocking security measures (i.e. coded letters and numbers that need to be examined by the human eye and entered) which has virtually eliminated the usefulness of spinners.  In addition Ticketmaster often implements ticket limits per name, billing address and or credit card.  This prevents any one individual or brokerage from “buying up all of the tickets.”  For the record Epic Seats Inc. has never utilized spinner software to purchase tickets and Epic is happy to see them rendered useless. 

Myth B speaks to an illegal practice of bribing individuals with access to event tickets, including promoters, box office employees or performers.  When the NFL found out that Mike Tice was selling Super Bowl tickets to a <st1:state><st1:place>California</st1:place></st1:state> based brokerage it levied a heavy fine and directed him to stop.  Ticketmaster and other primary ticket sources are aware of the practice of bribery for access to tickets and in order to protect the integrity of their organizations they have imposed stringent procedures and codes of conduct with the aim of restricting employee access to tickets.  Bribing insiders is an unsavory practice and is not a sustainable way to run a business.  Eventually the “insider” will lose their job, move on or the organization paying the bribe will be exposed.   This practice is not as common as people may believe.      

Myth C has a basic fault; the market, comprised of self interested buyers and sellers, creates pricing equilibrium.  Consider a team that is underperforming and does not sell out their arena.  The reason being is that buyers are not willing to purchase tickets at face value.  That creates a market price below face value.  Any ticket broker who holds season tickets for this team will be offering them at the market clearing price, they have no choice but to do so, unless they want to eat the total purchase price of the ticket.  This creates opportunities for buyers and the consumers benefit.   The opposite happens during a hot event.  The original sales price no longer reflects what consumers are willing to pay for these tickets.  In this scenario the more tickets supplied the better for consumers as the competition for consumers asserts a downward pressure on the market price.  In a world without brokers, the ticket prices would be even higher, that is if consumers could even find someone willing to sell tickets for events.  Removing ticket brokers from the equation would not mean that all buyers would be able to purchase at face value up until the game/show time.  It only means that if the demand for tickets exceeds the quantity supplied the tickets would be sold out just as quickly only fewer tickets would be offered on the secondary market and those few that do would go for a greater price.   Name any other legal good, commodity or product in the <st1:place><st1:country-region>US</st1:country-region></st1:place> with limitations on its secondary market, there is not any.  If a consumer purchases an article of clothing at a garage sale, they have every legal right to sell it on Ebay for more or less money.  This is the concept of free markets with buyers and sellers freely engaging in transactions that are mutually beneficial (consumer wants the ticket and is willing to pay X, broker wants to sell the ticket and is willing to sell for X, ticket is sold at X – both parties are satisfied). 

The facts of the matter are that reputable ticket brokers acquire their tickets through legitimate means.  A large portion of inventory is acquired from season ticket holders who have purchased the tickets from the organizations for many years, often enduring losing seasons where the market price was well below the price they paid.  Most of the time these fans are forced to purchase pre-season and exhibition games at regular season prices. It is understandable when these individuals decide to sell some of their tickets when the value rises above their face value investment.  Another large portion of tickets are purchased from the primary ticket sellers when they go on sale to the public.  Other tickets are purchased from fellow brokerage on the open market.  America was founded on the freedom of choice and reputable ticket brokerages provide consumers with greater choices. 

James Kimmel is the co-founder of Epic Seats Inc, a national ticket brokerage, specializing in selling tickets on behalf of season ticket holders in order to help them offset the rising cost of ticket acquisition. – www.epicseats.com