Here’s a story from the AP wire that caught our attention today:
The gist: A bunch of Bruce Springsteen fans tried to buy tickets for an upcoming show at the Meadowlands through the Ticketmaster website. They were taken to a screen that claimed that tickets weren’t available from Ticketmaster, but could be purchased for many times their face value from TicketsNow, a ticket resell outfit currently owned by Ticketmaster. In response to fan outrage, U.S. Rep. Bill Pascrell of New Jersey is lobbying for the Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to look into a possible conflict of interest. For its part, the company said through a spokesman that only a few fans reported problems.
Okay, so here’s a few more fans: Scott Tobias, Nathan Rabin, and Keith Phipps. On Monday morning, the three of us were hitting the refresh button on the Ticketmaster site for a Springsteen show at the United Center in May. Our strategy, of course, was to flood the zone and take the best tickets that were available to us. But alas, as quick as we were to the draw, we faced the same issues as those disgruntled ticket buyers in Jersey: Ticketmaster claiming no seats were available, then offering seats for exorbitant prices through TicketsNow. And in a strange twist to the story, we continued to plug in ticket requests like the spazzes we are and eventually succeeded in getting (unbelievably shitty) tickets to the show, despite having made the requests after our initial barnstorm. Pretty odd.
Seriously, with this nonsense and the Live Nation nonsense, how can we be talking about a possible conflict of interest? Can’t we just move straight to the public flogging?
Also, we powerful media types expect to be bought off via five free tickets to the Springsteen show, front row center.