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Ticketmaster may suck, but...
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... secondary sellers like Stubhub.com and TicketsNow are now facing the heat. The state of Missouri is suing the professional scalpers and the states of Arkansas and Pennsylvania are both looking into consumer complaints about music fans not being able to purchase tickets to shows on Ticketmaster, even at the minute and second they go on sale. Within minutes, the sought-after tickets can be found on other sites with jacked up prices, sometimes ten times the original.
Ticketmaster, the subsidiary of the IAC/Interactive Corporation that bills itself as the biggest seller of concert and sports tickets in the world, is also facing questions from angry fans and has sent representatives to meet with state and local officials. They argue, in part, that the number of tickets available to the public at a concert is often far less than the total number of seats in the arena. Ticketmaster has also filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court in Los Angeles against a software company based in Pittsburgh, RMG Technologies, and several ticket brokers contending that they have discovered a way to get around Ticketmaster’s defenses.
They “are bombarding Ticketmaster’s Web site with millions of automated ticket requests that can constitute up to 80 percent of all ticket requests made,” Ticketmaster states in its suit. These actions deny “the public access to tens of thousands of tickets so that RMG’s customers can purchase and resell those tickets to the same public at inflated prices,” it contends. [New York Times]
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