Ticket scalping, also known as ticket brokering, is the practice of reselling tickets for profit. This often involves buying tickets to concerts, sports games, theater shows, or other events with the intention of reselling them at a higher price. Ticket scalpers have been a fixture at major events for decades, but their practices also raise questions about fairness and access.
What is ticket scalping?
Ticket scalping involves buying tickets from the original source, such as the box office, a website, or pre-sale, with the intention of reselling them for a profit. Scalpers may buy as many tickets as possible when sales open, using bots or hired help to buy in bulk. They then resell the tickets, often just hours or days later, at a substantial markup through secondary marketplaces like StubHub or Craigslist.
For popular shows that are likely to sell out quickly, scalpers may charge two, three, or even 10 times the original ticket price. The internet and mobile apps have made scalping much easier in recent years. Scalpers can buy and sell tickets from anywhere and no longer need to stand outside venues.
Is ticket scalping legal?
In most of the United States, ticket scalping is completely legal. The laws vary somewhat from state to state, but ticket resale is generally lawful and unregulated. A few states do have restrictions, such as price caps on markups. But in general, the secondary ticket market operates freely.
The reason ticket scalping is legal comes down to property rights. Once a scalper has purchased a ticket, it becomes their property. They are free to resell it, just as someone could resell a used car, shoe, or piece of furniture they owned. The ticket becomes a commodity once purchased.
Why do venues allow scalping?
Ticket scalping may frustrate fans and artists, but venues and event organizers rarely try to stop it. In most cases, they could not prevent scalping even if they wanted to. There are a few reasons why venues allow scalping to happen:
- It guarantees sellouts – Scalpers ensure venues sell out by buying up remaining tickets. This benefits the venue.
- There are no effective controls – Venues have no practical way to police what happens to tickets after they are sold.
- It increases profit – Secondary sales can drive hype and allow venues to charge more for prized seats.
- The practice is legal – Anti-scalping laws have routinely been struck down as unconstitutional.
Essentially, venues accept scalping because it often helps their bottom line even if fans see high prices. And efforts to curb scalping would face legal hurdles.
Does ticket scalping benefit anyone?
There are certain benefits to an open secondary ticket market in some situations:
- It allows people to find last-minute tickets – Scalpers satisfy demand for hard to find tickets.
- Fans can get tickets they missed on initial sale – Missed the first sale? Scalpers may have tickets.
- Prices can fall for low-demand events – Unwanted tickets may sell cheaply.
- Scalpers take on financial risk – They absorb losses if unable to sell tickets.
Still, these potential benefits must be weighed against the likelihood of fans paying unreasonable prices due to deliberate scarcity in the secondary market.
Why do people dislike ticket scalpers?
Most fans and consumer groups argue that ticket scalping harms consumers and artificially inflates prices. Some of the main criticisms are:
- Scalpers manipulate supply and demand – They create scarcity to drive up resale prices.
- It prices regular fans out of the market – Average fans can’t afford scalper prices.
- Scalpers don’t add value – They simply insert themselves as middlemen.
- It disadvantages those who follow sale rules – Bots and bulk buying subvert intended sales limits.
- Scalpers take advantage of people’s enthusiasm – Fans are pressured to pay inflated prices.
Essentially, critics view scalpers as parasites who take advantage of passionate fans. Their actions limit accessibility and allow them to profit off artificial scarcity.
Do ticket resale sites like StubHub enable scalping?
Sites like StubHub and VividSeats provide a marketplace for ticket scalpers to connect with buyers. These resale platforms do not directly sell scalped tickets – they simply facilitate sales for third party sellers. However, critics argue these sites still enable the practice.
Their key role is providing a trusted marketplace with broad reach and convenience. Scalpers can easily list tickets in a central marketplace and reach huge audiences. Without sites like StubHub, scalping would be far more fragmented.
These platforms also introduce more competition among scalpers and give buyers a way to comparison shop. This can exert some downward pressure on inflated resale prices.
However, the sites still cut into ticket affordability by introducing large transaction fees. Sellers offset these fees by further raising prices.
What efforts exist to curb ticket scalping?
There have been some recent efforts to limit the harms from rampant scalping:
- Limits on bulk buying – Venues try to restrict mass purchases to discourage scalpers.
- Strict resale rules – Some artists forbid transfer of tickets to cut off scalping.
- Dynamic pricing – Prices may adjust up closer to events to undercut scalpers.
- Paperless tickets – Requiring IDs hampers, but does not stop, resale of e-tickets.
- Cancellation of suspicious orders – Unusual patterns may trigger ticket order cancellations.
However, these policies only curb scalping at the margins. Limits are easy to circumvent and hard to enforce. The open US market continues to allow most scalping practices.
Could scalping regulations like those in other countries work?
Some other countries take a much harder line on ticket scalping:
- Price caps – Most European countries cap resale prices at reasonable markups.
- Designated resale markets – UK requires resale through approved platforms only.
- Fixed fees – Ireland limits order processing fees sites can charge.
- Ban on resale – In Germany, all ticket resale is illegal.
However, the legal landscape in the US makes similar policies unlikely. Price caps would face challenges under free market principles. And banning third party sales would violate property rights that allow resale.
There is limited political will for anti-scalping laws. And the tech savvy scalping industry would likely stay one step ahead of any regulation.
Could better transparency help?
Some consumer advocates argue that more pricing transparency could combat some of the worst practices:
- Disclosure of original price – Resellers should list original face values.
- All-in pricing – Disclose full costs upfront, including fees.
- Restricting misleading terms – Like banning use of “official” pricing.
- Notice on risk of canceled tickets – Warn that prices may drop later.
The idea is to provide buyers with enough context to make informed purchases. Scalpers could still charge high premiums but misleading sales tactics could be reduced.
However, sunlight alone may not be enough to change a market fueled by reseller profits. And transparent information could even help scalpers maximize prices.
Will ticket scalping disappear anytime soon?
Despite criticism, ticket scalping will be very difficult to eliminate given current laws and technologies. A few factors suggest scalping will remain entrenched:
- Open secondary markets are legal – Reselling tickets is protected.
- No limits on pricing – Scalpers can charge whatever the market will bear.
- Difficulty enforcing controls – Regulatory options are limited.
- High profits fuel scalpers – Huge markups incentivize the practice.
- Internet enables scalping – Online marketplaces expand reach.
For the foreseeable future, ticket scalpers appear likely to remain frustrating but familiar figures outside major venues. Only a massive shift in laws or technologies could significantly disrupt current practices.
Key Points
- Ticket scalping is the practice of buying event tickets to resell at a higher price.
- Scalping is legal in most of the US as tickets become scalpers’ property to resell.
- Venues allow it because it guarantees sellouts, maximizes profits, and they have no effective controls.
- Critics argue it manipulates supply, prices out fans, and adds no value.
- Resale sites like StubHub provide a marketplace enabling scalpers’ practices.
- Price caps, fee limits, and transparency rules in some countries offer models for reform.
- But open US markets, high profits, and difficulty enforcing rules allow scalping to persist.
Conclusion
Ticket scalping remains a contentious practice but is deeply entrenched in the US ticketing market. While critics view scalpers as parasitic and manipulative, current laws frame tickets as scalpers’ property to resell freely. Venues even benefit from guaranteed sellouts and hype. New technologies and online marketplaces will likely sustain scalping despite some efforts to introduce modest reforms. Significant change may depend on a shift in anti-scalping laws, which seems unlikely in the US’s market-driven, libertarian tradition around event tickets as personal property. But the practice will continue fuelling public debates around equity, regulation, and technology’s role in pricing goods and services.