Brokers: Getting no love, nowhere

Got Garth? She does, and she got him the old-fashioned way: in line, with live currency. Take that, Ticketbrokertools.com.

Thanks to the Hannah Montana uproar (and the moans and cries of America's children), the media are all over the ticket-broker story. Billboard has a story this week. Bob Lefsetz addressed it recently (and the Kansas City/Sprint Center connection); so did The New York Times.

Today's edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette also ran a story, primarily because the company that is the target of a Ticketmaster lawsuit, RMG Technologies, has a company in downtown Pittsburgh called Ticketbrokertools.com. Ticketmaster has alleged that Ticketbrokertools.com offers software that allows brokers to navigate theTicketmaster system faster and in higher volume than the average person at a computer terminal. That same parent company, RMG, was mentioned in Sept. 22 article here in The Star.

Back in April, the Hollywood Reporter published a piece that mentioned a series of Ticketmaster lawsuits, including one against RMG/Ticketbrokertools.

According to the Hollywood Reporter piece:

Bots, or automated software programs, are designed to navigate ticketing systems, including Ticketmaster, with speed and volume far beyond what a typical consumer could manage. Ticketmaster said its fraud prevention team uncovered the activity, identifying in one instance more than 3 million attempts to access Ticketmaster's system from a single IP.

So Garth Brooks had it half-right. By emphasizing the in-line/cash sales, he kept thousands of tickets away from the on-line systems and the schools of sharks trying to devour them. (He can't, however, stop those ticketholders from selling extra tickets to brokers.)

| Timothy Finn, The Star

Comments

[ralphralph]

The brokers may have let their greed become their downfall. It happens in a lot of contexts. Somebody has a good deal, and tries to make it even better, which leads to excess and abuse, which leads to regulation and/or extinction.

[O' Doyle]

Is it really the brokers? I think the majority of fault lies with J.Q. Public, average blokes who got tickets and want to make a quick buck. Buy 2 tix for $70, turn around and sell them on ebay for $300-doesn't require you to be in the ticket broker business to figure that one out. Not to defend brokers, but they aren't alone.